The Haters: Part 1

10/1/09

It's no secret that a lot of people hate funerals. They don't ever want to go to them and don't want one held when they die either. I understand that everyone hates a funeral because it means that someone has died, and many people tell me that they don't want one because they seem gloomy and sad, when they want to be happy and laugh. I knew there was more to it than that, though, so I started searching the Internet for posts that included the words 'I Hate Funerals'. Most of what I found were comments posted on personal blogs and online discussion forums.

Included below are some comments dealing with the emotional nature of funerals that are representative of many of the posts I came across. Some of the comments surprised me, and some I'd heard many times before, but I found all of them to be a bit troubling. People seem to think that if they avoid dealing with the difficult parts of life, those aspects of life will not effect them. Many people think that if they don't cry, they won't be sad; that if they only deal with and participate in the good times, their life and legacy will be all smiles and laughter.

Unfortunately for these folks, the opposite is true. If we don't allow ourselves to face the sadness and loss, to cry and comfort one another in grief, we don't move forward to a place where we can enjoy the happy memories without the ache of unresolved grief getting in the way. We are not sad because we have cried at a funeral, we cry at a funeral because we are sad. When we avoid the funeral to avoid the sadness, we are only preventing the healthy release of our emotions, and avoiding that emotional work keeps the sadness with us.

If we don't support others in their time of grief and allow our friends and family to do the same for us, we don't get the full measure and benefit of our relationships, and our happy times lack the depth that a fuller relationship provides.

If we ask the loved ones we will leave behind "Don't cry for me!", we are giving advice that will hinder their happiness in the long run, not help it along.

I was surprised by how many people hated funerals because they didn't think they could handle the situation emotionally. This was actually the most common type of comment.

I hate funerals, because I am always the one that cries the most. Why do I have to cry so much, more than the relatives, the friends, the people who knew the passed person a lot more than me? Why can’t I sit there and listen to the readings and the music without needing to wipe away tears constantly, blowing my nose loudly, and biting my quivering lower lip? I hate funerals, because I can’t keep it together, and that makes me feel embarrassed. I don’t want to show more emotion than the closest relatives, but I can’t help it. I feel so sorry for everyone involved, and I feel sorry for myself too. I can’t but imagine how terrible I’d feel if I was the one

who had lost someone. And that makes me cry more than anything else.

http://www.karinreport.com/

Why does this person cry so much at funerals? Well, everyone deals with their emotions differently, but a funeral is an acceptable, safe, and supportive place to cry. My guess is that if this person really does cry excessively at any funeral, there is some unresolved grief in there that needs to come out, and that dealing with this grief more, rather than less is the best course of action. This next entry is very similar. I can almost picture a giant well of emotion that is barely contained by the avoidance strategies of these people. This is no way to go through life.

I will go to a funeral only if I have to drive my elderly mother. I hate funerals -mostly because I cry —even for those I don’t know.

I get very emotional at funerals. I usually get out of them by volunteering to stay at the house (thieves check out obits to target the homes of those who will be attending funerals) or I prepare food for the wake at someone’s home or at the church hall. I let everyone know, a long time ago, how much I hate funerals, so they don’t expect me to attend. The last funeral I attended (other than as a driver for my mother) was my only sibling’s and I will have to go when my mother dies –but that’s it for me. My husband and I don’t want funerals or memorial celebrations, so I’m off the hook if he goes first. If I go first, he has been instructed to have me cremated, then sprinkle my ashes anywhere he wants.

http://atheism.about.com/b/2008/10/16/daily-poll-do-you-attend-church-on-religious-holidays.htm

Some people seem to feel 'put upon' about bringing down the light hearted and upbeat nature of their day by exposing themselves to the sadness of others, or feeling it themselves. In turn they feel guilty about this, and it just adds to their negative ideas about funerals.

A good family friend of ours passed away in his sleep last night. He was one of the most kind and giving people I've ever met, in my whole life. The funeral is tomorrow. I want to go, but there's also a part of me that doesn't want to go. Not at all. I hate funerals (understandably, I'm sure). This is my spring break. I'm tired of people dying. Every break I've been on I've gone to a funeral. I can't deal with the emotion anymore. I can't deal with the eulogies and the weeping and the...everything. It's selfish, and I hate myself for it, but even though I want to go, I don't. I hate myself for it. I'm a terrible person. I'm selfish, I'm uncaring. I hate that he's dead. I hate it. But why do I hate that he's dead? For totally selfish reasons. Because I'll never see him again. Because I'll miss him. I don't care about his family. I've never even met them. All I care about is me and the fact that I won't ever talk to Barry again. I hate myself for it. I'm a terrible person. I'm selfish, I'm uncaring. Rest in peace, Barry.http://www.postsecretcommunity.com/chat/viewtopic.pp=4823982&highlight=&sid=383362e38792fe11cefa739f336fab3c

This last piece is a particularly troubling entry from a young man who seems to believe that only laughter and smiles are acceptable in life; that if people cry at his passing, they are betraying his memory. I wonder how many people actually expect to be able to live this way, and how much of life's difficult work just remains undone in these lives.

So I was in the car doing absolutely nothing with a crew when rich said listen and turned up the stereo. The words that came on hit me it said swear to god that you won't cry at my funeral. I’ve said my entire life that I don’t want anyone to cry at my funeral, but I never really told anyone. I think that it would be an insult to me. I live my life to see others happy. I get joy in seeing people laugh, so even if you are sad that I've passed on to whatever, if anything, awaits me, do your best to keep your smile up, don’t let my fading away stop you from laughing. I hate hospitals, I refuse to go to them unless I absolutely have to. It's not because there are so many people who are dying or sick that hospitals irk me it's because not a single person there has a smile on their faces. It's everything I'm not...sadness, pain, hurting, and so much more. I've never been to a funeral and will never go because I'll be the one in the crowd laughing at all the good times I've enjoyed with them. I will not cry over a death as long as I still have those memories. And I want that, not tears and sobs but tears and laughs, tears of people laughing so hard they can't help it.

Remember me as the guy who striped in the shop right parking lot, the tunnel, and the back of the GMC Jimmy that so many memories have been burned into. Remember me as the guy that would walk around very public places acting literally like a retard. Remember me as Josh and make me a legend in your mind, tell stories of me at parties, make me the butt of your jokes, Just remember when the laughter stops so do I so don't let it stop. Especially at a funeral where I don't even want to be. P.S. I don't like funerals so don't be surprised to find an empty casket. I'll run away from my own even if I'm the main guest. Promise not to cry at my funeral. Swear that you won't cry at my funeral. http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm504618.html

It is not just grieving and health issues that suffer. Relationships and a great deal of emotional growth demand facing and dealing with difficult emotional issues. I'd like to think that this comment above is just adolescence talking, but unfortunately, many adults are saying the same thing.

(the photos above have been retouched to reflect the sentiments expressed in this story- to my knowledge, no funeral haters have yet taken to the streets in protest -Ed.)

The Beauty of an Irish Lament: Marie Murray

February 11, 2010

Funerals are the means through which we travel from death, back into life. They are important and meaningful to us as individuals and as a culture. In contrast to the United States, where funerals and other memorial rituals seem to be on the wane, the people of Ireland hold fast to their funeral traditions. The following article by Marie Murray, (author of 'Living Our Times') and published in the Irish Times, on February 9th, conveys the importance and meaning of funerals better than any I've read in a long time. I'm grateful to Ms. Murray and her publishers for graciously allowing me to share this article with you. Thanks also to Charles Cowling for bringing this article to my attention.

WHATEVER HAS been lost in Irish culture, the tradition of funeral going has not died. Attending funerals remains an integral part of cultural life.

Funeral going is psychologically complex. It is comforting to those who mourn; recognition of the life of those who have died; and a celebration of their existence. It allows lament for their departure and acknowledgment of the loss for those who loved them.

Funeral attendance is a statement of connection, care, compassion and support. It encircles those who grieve and enriches those who attend because it connects each person there to the profundity of living and the inevitability of death. Funeral attendees witness the raw emotions of grief and the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit to love.

Traditional Irish funerals have their own tone, history and vocabulary well documented in Irish literature, verse, story and song. They have their past and present rituals. They are comforting in their predictability.

At funerals there is consciousness of the pre-mortem vigil that will have occurred if the death was lingering or the shock for mourners if it was not. There is post-mortem display of the remains, requiring sensitivity about who should attend at that stage. There is the funeral itself drawing together people who may be disconnected from each other but connected to the event.

In the front pew the mourners are aligned, ranked by relationship to the deceased and by their shared memories of a collective past. There is the shuffling of attendees toward them, murmurs of sorrow for their troubles, of deep condolences, of handshakes and hugs, the squeezing of arms and promises of post-funeral support.

There is consciousness in that line of sympathisers of the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of words. There is tongue-tied compassion, frustrated by an inability to say something of comfort or understanding about what cannot be understood. This is because however formulaic funeral rituals may be, each grief, as each life, is unique.

While the three-day “wake” may be no more, there is hospitality that must be given, and offering sustenance to those who have travelled a distance continues to this day. While the lament or caoineadh may not be expressed in keening or song, the beauty of lament is still understood.

The funeral is the place where the details of the death are recounted, where memories are revived and connections made. As clusters of people gather together before or after proceedings there is an emotional edge that makes laughter louder and sorrow deeper, and the alternation of these emotions stark in the short spaces between them.

Each time we attend a funeral we confront our own mortality. If we have not yet experienced personal loss we are made aware of the emotions and rituals that surround it and the sacredness of sorrow. If the territory of death is familiar to us then resonances are evoked and we have the chance to revisit our own remembrance of others who have died.

The extent of funeral attendance in Ireland often bemuses our neighbours in England, when whole businesses close for a day as a mark of respect, when offices are abandoned to attend mortuaries and removals, and when all-day journeys are undertaken to be at the funeral of someone whom one may not have known, as a mark of respect for the bereaved.

But there is psychological reason, social solidarity and cultural cohesion in funeral attendance, and even as the ceremonies, the belief systems they operate from or the expression of grief may change, the meaning of marking death remains, and long may we travel highway and byway to do so.

mmurray@irishtimes.com

Artwork on this post, Copyright 2010 Patrick McNally

Attending to a Patient's Funeral

Doctors have a special relationship with death. In May, I wrote about the difficulties that Doctors and others have in their responsibilities to inform patients and families of death and the prognosis of death. Doctors also have a unique perspective on the aftermath of death because of their relationships with the deceased and the expectations of their role in prolonging life.

"Country Doctor" W. Eugene Smith 1948

I am very pleased to be able to share with you a post from The Examining Room of Dr. Charles. Dr. Charles is a physician who writes an insightful and informative blog about his experiences and perspectives, and he has graciously granted me permission to share this moving post on doctors and funerals.

On the way to the funeral you wonder how you’ll be received by the grieving. Although you are confident that your care for the deceased was sincere, professional, and adept, you still question if others will so assume. There is silence in the car. This is a trip you make alone.

You manage a bitter smile as you recall stories the patient shared in unguarded moments, behind the door of a small examining room. How he beamed with content at the thought of his grandchildren; how her eyes glowed as she remembered the view from the Eiffel Tower; how the tears and sobs and memories of a lost child wracked his otherwise impenetrable façade. Sometimes you knew his spirit as well as you knew his medical illnesses, and often he hoped you would tend more to the former.

You walk into the funeral space. Many people are gathered. You sense pockets of light humor and recalled happiness amid dark clouds of sadness and gloom. Although you know this is not about you, your ego can’t help assessing how others perceive you. Most of those present barely notice, but others recognize you. Is it surprise registering in a few faces – that you’ve come to observe your patient’s defeat, that you’re emotionally invested in the person who once called you their doctor, or that you’re willing to dirty your powerful white coat with the stains of ultimate impotence? Or is it gratitude, that even in this darkest of reflective hours you’ve come to pay your respect to another who trusted you, confided in you, and who reached out to you for whatever healing you might bring?

As you shake the warm and cold hands of family and friends, you are reminded of the wide, verdant, chaotic world that existed outside the person’s small doctor-patient relationship.

It’s not just the hubris of the doctor that defines death as defeat. Very few persons seek out a physician to help them die well, at least in the beginning. And even when it is apparent that Time has overpowered us, it is only very late that we let go of the spiraling merry-go-round.

As you approach the coffin you are keenly aware of your own mortality, and yet in a state of denial. You think that your purpose is to mediate between life and death for others, and that somehow you exist in a space between. But as you bow your head in front of the lifeless body, placed serenely into its luxurious coffin, you are reminded of your illusions. You hear the sniffling misery, taste the salty ocean, and glimpse to where you’ll return.

You bid the family well, express your genuine sympathy, and leave. The air never tastes fresher, sweeter, more living than it does outside a funeral.

Back in the office you must move on. You have hundreds, thousands of other patients forming a queue that you imagine stretches across the fabric of the community. You are indispensable, and worthless.

But before moving on, you study the deceased patient’s chart one more time. It is certainly not literature, but if you read between the lines you can find poetry. You retire another legend of the examining room, slinging a stethoscope around your neck as you knock on the next door, hoping to be of some service while you too struggle on.

For more from Dr. Charles, please visit his blog at http://www.theexaminingroom.com/