I don’t intend to come off as calloused or insensitive toward the departed. I’m not suggesting that family and friends of the departed shouldn’t get together to console each other during bereavement. I even support anyone wanting to get one last look at their loved one in an eternal comatose state. However, the whole concept of a funeral makes no sense to me.
I may be the odd man out on this one, but I just don’t see the hype.
Let’s examine why funerals don’t make sense.
Conventional tradition dictates that after someone dies a final big to do is necessary. The big to do AKA the funeral. I can’t get with it and here is why.
- Funerals do not bring closure. Funerals impede closure. A burial might facilitate closure for some, but no funeral is going put the period between life and death.
- Funerals require a church that will host the event. For the departed that was committed to a church (and paid up on their tithes), this is not a problem. For those that don’t “belong” to a church – the relative in charge of the decease’s exit arrangements is going to have to do some shopping around to find a church to “hold the funeral”.
- After you find the church the relative in charge has to alert everyone related to and nosey enough about the deceased as to the location of the proceedings.
- A minister has to be retained to “heavenize” the departed. It doesn’t matter if the deceased was a repeat pedophile, serial killer, rapist, robber or straight up career asshole – a minister will somehow take the edge off of their wayward escapades. Hmm.
- Now here is where a funeral really begins to make zero sense to me. 99.9% of the people that attend a funeral know the deceased or know something about them. Why hold a meeting (funeral ) to have speakers rehash what the attendees already know? If Grandpa Joseph lived right and good, they know that. If uncle Willie was a shiftless drunk with illegitimate kids all over town they know that and any minister or church accommodations are not going to change his storied history. My point is all the people at the funeral know what they are about to hear OR NOT about the deceased. If they are told anything different they know it’s a lie. So why put people through the process of having to sit through redundancy and in some cases a crafted presentation of untruths?
- Then the dearly departed is wheeled into the building hosting the festivities. They are often laid out for the attendees to gaze at and comment on. “Gurl he don’t look like himself”. Of course, he doesn’t – HE’S DEAD. Or “Gurl she looks just like herself” Well unless they switched bodies she should look like herself. Why do that to the departed? If your ass hadn’t seen enough of me living then you’re just short when I die. Keep the casket closed and away from these shenanigans.
- There is a lot of crying and hollering that goes on at funerals. Some of these emotional outbursts are as phony as a three-dollar bill. Some of it is displays of guilt and some of it is genuine grief.
- Oh yeah, funerals are costly. The necessary post-death body procedures the mortician performs are really more about preserving and prepping the body for the funeral than it is anything else. There is that funeral thing again. A lot of money would be saved if we didn’t feel compelled to hold folks on earth longer than God and biology intended just to have a funeral.
- Funerals put people in precarious positions. If they don’t go to the funeral they’re looked at as being disrespectful to the departed. Well, I’m going to tell ya’ll, if a mofo didn’t like you when you were living your dying won’t change that. If they didn’t visit you at your home when you were breathing they probably won’t be interested in seeing you not breathing.
- Funerals don’t get anybody into any heaven. The departed wrote their biography every day they lived. If they didn’t square themselves with whatever God they served before they died then that’s their problem and no gathering of mourning folks is going to change that.
Now if you’re getting the gist of my feelings toward funerals you’re probably thinking “Gee what am I supposed to do just take ’em out back and dump em in a hole?”
During the research for this post I found a wonderful post on funeral alternatives that was published by a fellow WordPress blogger.
You can find that post HERE.
What’s your thoughts on funerals? Let me know in the comment section below.
The GeoGee Experience 
Obviously this is about a Christian funeral. Not all funerals are like this. Another ritual often played out at funerals, Christian or otherwise, is that of the “outcast” This person either says something or does something at the funeral which causes distress (or merriment, depending on which side of the family they are on), and the ensuring gossip machine inevitably creates a vacuous dust bag that the person is sucked into and spat out of. Repetitively. The person is redeemed (hopefully…) at the next funeral, or family gathering, where someone else does or says something which questions the “ingroup” bias at that time. Some people refer to this as “family dynamics” but it’s probably more akin to family dynamite.
Oh, and then there is Rosemary, and the importance of this herb at cremations – but that is a different blog!
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Thanks for your thought provoking reply. And you are on point with ” This person either says something or does something at the funeral which causes distress (or merriment, depending on which side of the family they are on), and the ensuring gossip machine inevitably creates a vacuous dust bag that the person is sucked into and spat out of. Repetitively. The person is redeemed (hopefully…) at the next funeral, or family gathering, where someone else does or says something which questions the “ingroup” bias at that time.”
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