I hate funerals, wakes and memorial services!

[Matty]

I know [MENTION=442]arbygil[/MENTION] had a thread on this subject but it was rather old I felt it might be better to start a new topic. Also keep in mind I'm comming at this issue from an INFJ prospective.

So I hate funerals, I hate wakes, I hat group mourning. I hate the fact that we remember someone with a ceremony and a lot of talking about that person. Which is often by people who didn't know the person very well. Or if they did they don't talk about the true person. They talk about the idealized version. But we don't do more than that. Its an impersonal send off.

I hate the fact that I'm expected to go a long distance for a funeral which in its self is draining. Whats worse is you drained both during the funerals and comming back so your a shell of yourself for a couple of days until you restablize if you do at all.

I also find the idea that if I need to mourn, I need a ton of people I'm not close to around me to be absurd. I need to retreat and spend time truly grieving (IE screaming, crying going through the stages of grief) ect. Not with a bunch of people who are all trying to hold it together because we all can't make a scene.

I think for me part of the problem is when your at a service. You fall into a few categories.

1. The hardest hit and the most numb. Your either so deep in shock you can't feel anything. Or your in so much pain your trying to hold yourself together from breaking down completely. And all the nice words and all the people who are offering support. Just makes you sick. You need to be alone so you can actually deal with it all. You want to tell everyone go jump or tell them where they can shove their condolences.

2. Your hit hard but your dealing with it. You may be sad but your moving on and your mostly alright. So you feel weird this isn't hitting your very much. Your stuck in a weird grief and gult trap. Because while you feel bad your not the person who having the most trouble. So you feel like your not missing someone enough. So end up feeling worse.

3. Your not hit much by grief and you may not have been as close to the person as some were. You feel guilty and out of place. As if you don't belong and you have no right to intrude on this service. You end up feeling horrible because you know your not hurting like most everyone else. And there is nothing you can do to help.

So as to what brought this on. My grandmother passed away several months ago and they are just now having the service. I wasn't hit as hard as some. And I dealt with it in my own way. I have to accept what happened and I feel like I'm as ok with it as I will ever be. But my dads family is now having a service this Monday. I'm not going. As I will either feel horrible for being a combination of number 2 or 3. I'm also horrible about picking up everyone's emotions and I can't take that right now. I would be overloaded withe sadness and dread. And lastly I'm not wiling to be stuck out of town until I can get a ride home.

So dose anyone else hate funerals/wakes and other such memorial services? If so why?

I don't enjoy them, but perhaps I don't hate them, because they serve a different function in a "Trad Catholic" context.

The Latin mass funerals I've been to don't have sermons or eulogies. It's just the funeral mass, blessing and incensing of both the body and grave, and the burial. The REASON for my showing up is to pray for the repose of the deceased. (Catholics believe in purgatory, and offer prayers for the deceased).

So, while I don't like funerals, they seem like a charitable duty towards deceased friends and family members.

 

[Bizarre3]

Funeral ceremonies always sad for me. Recently my friend passed away. I helped to organize funeral ceremony of creamation because my friend was Asian and it was held in Singapore.

 

[mintoots]

I was grateful for the funeral. I realized then and there that funerals aren't for the dead, but more for the living. I was grateful for the chance to get numb. I was grateful to have the chance to get calloused about her death having had to repeat the hows and whys of it with every new visitor. At one point it was like a mantra so repetitive that I contemplated whether or not it would be fair to just have a video of her death story played out in some big screen. Everytime someone would ask, "what happened?", I'll just usher them into the screening room and hand out a comic book pamphlet. Admittedly though, there was something therapeutic about having to tell the stories leading to her death again and again and again. With the first few people, it was painful but by the nth time, it was just resigning (ah, here we go again). Our wakes go on for days, my mother's ran for nine. But seriously, I was grateful for the presence of people. It was both comforting and surprising to see how expansive her life was. At least I wasn't alone in loving her. The thought of it validated my pain though it barely consoled. It attempted to, which mattered. It was good to see once again how she was a person completely beyond my imagination. I was grateful to be among them throughout that pain. I was grateful that those who have hated her must have at least felt some remorse enough for them to pay their respects before she was gone six feet under. It was a closure everyone needed. Also, I found funerals to be funny. The pain wrapped around it can be so strong that occasional, dramatic, snot-everywhere cries were relieving, then funny, then painful again. I don't know. It's a microcosm of life.

 

[InfernoMink]

I hate attending funerals. Especially of people I have not spoken to in years. I always feel like a phony showing up at someone’s funeral whom I didn’t keep in touch with.
Like, I haven’t seen you since high school, I haven’t extended a word to you in years but you want me to see your cold dead body?
I know I won’t be having a funeral. I’m being cremated and if my family wants to hold on to the ashes, cool, if not, that’s cool too.
Fuck will I care. I’m dead, I can’t feel pain or joy about stuff at that point. lol.