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On Funerals

NeverTrump

NeverTrump

Exposing GOP since 2015
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Funerals are actually pretty happy things.

I've been playing around with this idea I've had stuck in my head for awhile. Suppose you are a normal person who has lived a normal life. Maybe you had some flaws but nothing major happened. Never went to jail, never divorced (or if you did it was mutual) What I'm getting at is that you didn't screw up and there were no scandals in your life. Nothing major or big fights happened right before you die. Or maybe you did screw up and there were scandals, but you still had people close to you who would love you no matter what. Yeah, you can be a b*tch or a loser and still have a great funeral!!!!

In theory, everyone that you've ever known gets to sit around you (dead person) and talking about all the good times they shared with you. There might be some snickering if something weird happened especially recently, but there's no judgement. There's no laundry list of your faults up on display. How you were a crappy person who doesn't deserve any of this "support." There's no judgement from your close friends and family for a long, long time. Maybe in hindsight a decade or so later you might wake up and say, "Why the heck was I ever friends with him?" Or "Why was my brother so weird?" But it's never in bad faith after they are dead.

Thoughts? My thinking is that we've saved that for the person after they die. Since most religions believe that there is some type of judgement after death. We don't need to do that at a funeral, so while people might be sad, it's a happy sadness. Especially if they were suffering in sickness.
 
I don't know about "happy." I think more people are choosing to not have one at all.

Re: ending a sickness...more relief than happy. IMO.
 
Funerals are for the living. We "honor" the dead in order to solace ourselves. A funeral is our ritualistic answer to the mystery of death. It is at once the least we can do and the most we can do.
 
Angel said:
Funerals are for the living. We "honor" the dead in order to solace ourselves. A funeral is our ritualistic answer to the mystery of death. It is at once the least we can do and the most we can do.
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Not sure I go along with the "least we can do" bit, but yeah, it's for those left behind.
 
esme said:
I don't know about "happy." I think more people are choosing to not have one at all.

Re: ending a sickness...more relief than happy. IMO.
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That's how I feel, Esme...I've had enough sorrow in my lifetime and I sure don't wanna pass it on to my children...I've already told them to cremate me and scatter me to the 4 winds...no funeral, no plot in a cemetery somewhere...do not spend $10,000 only to bury it in the ground...ridiculous...save your money and get together to enjoy one another's company...
 
Throw something in the newspaper to say I've moved on...I don't want any type of celebration or mourning.

However, when a young person dies that is different. Age is a factor in how I view funerals.
 
I like my mother's attitude for funerals (she's on the high side of 90 now).. 'The only funeral I want to go to is my own, and that one, reluctantly.'
 
Elvira said:
That's how I feel, Esme...I've had enough sorrow in my lifetime and I sure don't wanna pass it on to my children...I've already told them to cremate me and scatter me to the 4 winds...no funeral, no plot in a cemetery somewhere...do not spend $10,000 only to bury it in the ground...ridiculous...save your money and get together to enjoy one another's company...
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Same here. I've made it clear that I want no funeral and I don't care what they do with my body. Throw it in a ditch. What do I care, I'm dead? Just get on with your lives.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Funerals are actually pretty happy things.

I've been playing around with this idea I've had stuck in my head for awhile. Suppose you are a normal person who has lived a normal life. Maybe you had some flaws but nothing major happened. Never went to jail, never divorced (or if you did it was mutual) What I'm getting at is that you didn't screw up and there were no scandals in your life. Nothing major or big fights happened right before you die. Or maybe you did screw up and there were scandals, but you still had people close to you who would love you no matter what. Yeah, you can be a b*tch or a loser and still have a great funeral!!!!

In theory, everyone that you've ever known gets to sit around you (dead person) and talking about all the good times they shared with you. There might be some snickering if something weird happened especially recently, but there's no judgement. There's no laundry list of your faults up on display. How you were a crappy person who doesn't deserve any of this "support." There's no judgement from your close friends and family for a long, long time. Maybe in hindsight a decade or so later you might wake up and say, "Why the heck was I ever friends with him?" Or "Why was my brother so weird?" But it's never in bad faith after they are dead.

Thoughts? My thinking is that we've saved that for the person after they die. Since most religions believe that there is some type of judgement after death. We don't need to do that at a funeral, so while people might be sad, it's a happy sadness. Especially if they were suffering in sickness.
Click to expand...

as a young boy during the 50's, i would spend summers on my grandparent's farm in upstate south carolina. loved most things about it
but one of the things that seemed peculiar to that young me, about my rural family members, was their fascination with funerals. the AM radio was always on by 10am so that they could listen to that day's obituary column as it was read by the broadcaster. they were adamant about attending the funeral of anyone they knew
the wakes were like family reunions - but instead of a family, it was a coming together of the community at the residence of the deceased. everyone brought food. and they always had to have an open casket. required viewing for the younger of us - at our older family members' insistence, while offering the frequent observation "doesn't (s)he look good?" NO. they looked like they were ****ing dead
to them, this all seemed so ordinary and expected. that ritual of rural Americana never took with me
 
ModerateGOP said:
Funerals are actually pretty happy things.

I've been playing around with this idea I've had stuck in my head for awhile. Suppose you are a normal person who has lived a normal life. Maybe you had some flaws but nothing major happened. Never went to jail, never divorced (or if you did it was mutual) What I'm getting at is that you didn't screw up and there were no scandals in your life. Nothing major or big fights happened right before you die. Or maybe you did screw up and there were scandals, but you still had people close to you who would love you no matter what. Yeah, you can be a b*tch or a loser and still have a great funeral!!!!

In theory, everyone that you've ever known gets to sit around you (dead person) and talking about all the good times they shared with you. There might be some snickering if something weird happened especially recently, but there's no judgement. There's no laundry list of your faults up on display. How you were a crappy person who doesn't deserve any of this "support." There's no judgement from your close friends and family for a long, long time. Maybe in hindsight a decade or so later you might wake up and say, "Why the heck was I ever friends with him?" Or "Why was my brother so weird?" But it's never in bad faith after they are dead.

Thoughts? My thinking is that we've saved that for the person after they die. Since most religions believe that there is some type of judgement after death. We don't need to do that at a funeral, so while people might be sad, it's a happy sadness. Especially if they were suffering in sickness.
Click to expand...

I joined the Cremation Society of Illinois and preplanned and prepaid my Cremation. No service. A big family and friends get together at a nice restaurant in Schaumburg, Illinois. I have a dislike of wakes and open caskets and all the rest... where everyone stands around and says, "She sure looks good, doesn't she?" How good can she look? She's dead. Visit at graveside? Why? She isn't there. Carry her in your heart.

That's my outlook anyway...
 
RAMOSS said:
I like my mother's attitude for funerals (she's on the high side of 90 now).. 'The only funeral I want to go to is my own, and that one, reluctantly.'
Click to expand...

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." - Yogi Berra
 
ModerateGOP said:
Funerals are actually pretty happy things.

I've been playing around with this idea I've had stuck in my head for awhile. Suppose you are a normal person who has lived a normal life. Maybe you had some flaws but nothing major happened. Never went to jail, never divorced (or if you did it was mutual) What I'm getting at is that you didn't screw up and there were no scandals in your life. Nothing major or big fights happened right before you die. Or maybe you did screw up and there were scandals, but you still had people close to you who would love you no matter what. Yeah, you can be a b*tch or a loser and still have a great funeral!!!!

In theory, everyone that you've ever known gets to sit around you (dead person) and talking about all the good times they shared with you. There might be some snickering if something weird happened especially recently, but there's no judgement. There's no laundry list of your faults up on display. How you were a crappy person who doesn't deserve any of this "support." There's no judgement from your close friends and family for a long, long time. Maybe in hindsight a decade or so later you might wake up and say, "Why the heck was I ever friends with him?" Or "Why was my brother so weird?" But it's never in bad faith after they are dead.

Thoughts? My thinking is that we've saved that for the person after they die. Since most religions believe that there is some type of judgement after death. We don't need to do that at a funeral, so while people might be sad, it's a happy sadness. Especially if they were suffering in sickness.
Click to expand...

When old people die a lot of times the funeral (or whatever) is a celebration of their life. A lot of people touch other people in one or another. I remember that I learned just how great of a guy my grandpa was at his funeral. I thought that he was a great Grandpa, but I didnt know that he took time to help so many other people. There were so many people that some were not able to be inside. I thought who are these people? I knew that my Grandpa was a member of the ELKS lodge, what I learned was that he mentored and helped troubled children and all of these strangers were people that helped in that program.
 
MaggieD said:
I joined the Cremation Society of Illinois and preplanned and prepaid my Cremation. No service. A big family and friends get together at a nice restaurant in Schaumburg, Illinois. I have a dislike of wakes and open caskets and all the rest... where everyone stands around and says, "She sure looks good, doesn't she?" How good can she look? She's dead. Visit at graveside? Why? She isn't there. Carry her in your heart.

That's my outlook anyway...
Click to expand...

There is a real psychological need for family members to see the body, I think, but I've always been appalled by the open-casket tradition. What did it for me was seeing a 4-day old baby with his hands folded together under his chin with his head tilted.
 
nota bene said:
There is a real psychological need for family members to see the body, I think, but I've always been appalled by the open-casket tradition. What did it for me was seeing a 4-day old baby with his hands folded together under his chin with his head tilted.
Click to expand...

And you'll carry it with you forever.

My family in Kentucky takes photographs of the body at the wake. I will never ever understand that...
 
Had a SM3 shipmate from Worcester Massachusetts come down with bone cancer on the USS Fulton back in 1980. He and I terrorized each other with pranks to no end for over a year before he got sick. I used to have my guys tie him in his rack, take the tires off his car......etc. etc. He would bomb us with water balloons while we where coming out of the engine rooms. He used to take me home and we would drink at a place called "The Worthen" over in Lowell. Never met a more mischievous & fun person in my life. He could sit with doctors, lawyers, and carpenters, and be the center of the conversation.

Capture.jpg

Towards the end, I would stop by his house on Friday's on the way home to Maine on my off duty weekends and spend a hour or so before heading on. He made me promise that I would attend the funeral, and I did. On the the day of his funeral, a couple of his cousins insisted that I go to the Worthen for a beer before I headed back to New London. I was in dress whites so I was a little apprehensive, but his mom insisted that I go. We grabbed a seat while one of the cousins went to get us a pitcher of beer. It seemed to be taking a long time for a pitcher, so I asked the other cousin if his brother died or something like that. Finally, As he was coming back to the table, he stopped at another empty table and sat down the pitchers and glasses. He then proceeded to wail me with 2 water balloons. I sat there stunned deciding whether to punch the ****er, or start laughing. The dozen or so patrons at the bar went crazy laughing and cheering and came over to me and patting me on the back.

It finally dawned on me what was going down. The ****er got me again, but his mom sent me a awesome letter a couple weeks later saying how much she loved the stories about me and her son.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Had a SM3 shipmate from Worcester Massachusetts come down with bone cancer on the USS Fulton back in 1980. He and I terrorized each other with pranks to no end for over a year before he got sick. I used to have my guys tie him in his rack, take the tires off his car......etc. etc. He would bomb us with water balloons while we where coming out of the engine rooms. He used to take me home and we would drink at a place called "The Worthen" over in Lowell. Never met a more mischievous & fun person in my life. He could sit with doctors, lawyers, and carpenters, and be the center of the conversation.

View attachment 67218940

Towards the end, I would stop by his house on Friday's on the way home to Maine on my off duty weekends and spend a hour or so before heading on. He made me promise that I would attend the funeral, and I did. On the the day of his funeral, a couple of his cousins insisted that I go to the Worthen for a beer before I headed back to New London. I was in dress whites so I was a little apprehensive, but his mom insisted that I go. We grabbed a seat while one of the cousins went to get us a pitcher of beer. It seemed to be taking a long time for a pitcher, so I asked the other cousin if his brother died or something like that. Finally, As he was coming back to the table, he stopped at another empty table and sat down the pitchers and glasses. He then proceeded to wail me with 2 water balloons. I sat there stunned deciding whether to punch the ****er, or start laughing. The dozen or so patrons at the bar went crazy laughing and cheering and came over to me and patting me on the back.

It finally dawned on me what was going down. The ****er got me again, but his mom sent me a awesome letter a couple weeks later saying how much she loved the stories about me and her son.
Click to expand...

i want to know how you got him back
 
MaggieD said:
I joined the Cremation Society of Illinois and preplanned and prepaid my Cremation. No service. A big family and friends get together at a nice restaurant in Schaumburg, Illinois. I have a dislike of wakes and open caskets and all the rest... where everyone stands around and says, "She sure looks good, doesn't she?" How good can she look? She's dead. Visit at graveside? Why? She isn't there. Carry her in your heart.

That's my outlook anyway...
Click to expand...

This may be the only thing you've ever posted that makes complete sense to me.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Funerals are actually pretty happy things.

I've been playing around with this idea I've had stuck in my head for awhile. Suppose you are a normal person who has lived a normal life. Maybe you had some flaws but nothing major happened. Never went to jail, never divorced (or if you did it was mutual) What I'm getting at is that you didn't screw up and there were no scandals in your life. Nothing major or big fights happened right before you die. Or maybe you did screw up and there were scandals, but you still had people close to you who would love you no matter what. Yeah, you can be a b*tch or a loser and still have a great funeral!!!!

In theory, everyone that you've ever known gets to sit around you (dead person) and talking about all the good times they shared with you. There might be some snickering if something weird happened especially recently, but there's no judgement. There's no laundry list of your faults up on display. How you were a crappy person who doesn't deserve any of this "support." There's no judgement from your close friends and family for a long, long time. Maybe in hindsight a decade or so later you might wake up and say, "Why the heck was I ever friends with him?" Or "Why was my brother so weird?" But it's never in bad faith after they are dead.

Thoughts? My thinking is that we've saved that for the person after they die. Since most religions believe that there is some type of judgement after death. We don't need to do that at a funeral, so while people might be sad, it's a happy sadness. Especially if they were suffering in sickness.
Click to expand...

They are pretty heart wrenching if the mother and father of the deceased are attending. After that experience they aren't the same.
 
SherW said:
Even though people say good about you at the funeral time, they might not be sincere in their minds. They may be thinking "thank God that crap is gone". They say good about a street dog after its death. Untrustful people.
Click to expand...

my take is that only someone who is mentally defective would act in such a manner
why make the effort to attend a funeral for someone who you personally despised
 
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