To not want a funeral when I die?

From most of what I've read here, people aren't saying that they would not have a funeral in order to avoid the sadness of grief.

I've had a couple of people die recently who opted for direct cremation. Both had their lives celebrated at a different time and it was a good experience.

One was due to geographic logistics and his grieving widow was saved a lot of trouble - she organised a church service and wake and it literally was like any funeral but without a coffin.

The other was partly logistics as it was a widely spread family, and partly honouring the deceased's preference for no funeral. We all got together to scatter the ashes a few months later, words were spoken, memories shared, glasses raised - I don't know if it would have been the widow's choice to have left it so long tbh.

I'd be very happy with direct cremation and for dh/ds to organise whatever they like afterwards, but I've said to dh to do whatever is easiest for him - I won't be there so it's about those left behind really. He shouldn't worry about not respecting my wishes, because I have none.

Exactly this. It’s up to the people that you leave behind how they choose to remember you. I think it’s a bit cruel to try and tell them they can’t hold a funeral for you.

I've told family that I want a direct cremation but I guess if I'm dead it doesn't matter anyway

I'm not having one.

DS, who will quite feasibly be my only mourner when I die, is autistic and cannot cope with funerals, so there's no point. I will pay for a direct cremation in advance and save him as much distress as I can.

This.

You could donate your remains to medical research.
Then anyone remembering you can plan a party to remember you if they like. Or is that the bit you find awkward?

The funeral isn't for you, it's for your family and helps with grief. You don't need to request something fancy

I don't want one either. If the family want to get together for a few drinks and a reminisce, great. But watching my coffin being ceremonially being brought in . No thanks.

But some people need to see the coffin, have all the rituals etc. in order to grieve properly.

I actually think it's a sign of a very emotionally unintelligent population that people have become so averse to feeling any negative emotion whatsoever.

It's not bad to feel sad or even highly distressed when someone has died. It's normal, natural, and necessary to help heal.

I went to a night out recently and three of the people there had been bereaved and all their loved ones had chosen to have no funeral, just cremation whenever and a party when the families felt up to it.

I think we are so atheist and untraditional now, and the country is basically getting poorer every day, so not a good time to be in the funeral trade I wouldn't think.

My parents have left clear instructions for their funerals. They think that will make it easier for us when the time comes, and perhaps it will.

I think I’d like my ashes to be scattered in a lovely public garden (hopefully they’ll help the flowers grow) or on a beach. I like the thought of becoming part of a beautiful place and my family being able to remember me there. Also, there will be no grave plot to renew or memorial to maintain.

My family can decide if they want a service, but I’ll leave suggestions for it if they might find that helpful. I definitely won’t be forbidding them from holding a funeral.

It’s usual paid out of the estate which reduces inheritance.

My husband doesn't want a funeral and wants his ashes scattered in his favourite racecourse. I do want a funeral and want my ashes to be interred in my family grave with my parents. I think the important thing is to respect the wishes of the person who has died not what the next of kin wants. I don't like the idea of not having a funeral for my husband but I think it would be so wrong to ignore what he wants.

For some reason this has been on my mind recently, I'm an Atheist so the whole church thing would be ridiculous so I'd "like" a funeral home but only for my family & friends to say goodbye with a few prayers thrown in for my aunties sake & then a cremation, the idea of a priest who's never met me or doesn't know anything about me is frankly ridiculous, even that will cost a couple of grand which again is ridiculous, I don't want to be interred either just flung somewhere nice, maybe the beach?

It's not for you though, it's for the friends and relatives you've left behind to remember you and pay their respects. So while I personally wouldn't care about being shoved the furnace and no funeral, I can't imagine being happy to do this for any of my nearest and dearest.

Weird one, but you might want to check this. My great aunt donated her body to science. We still had to choose a buriel/ cremation and so we ended up having 2 funerals really (thanksgiving for life and funeral 2 years later). Both were joyful/ lovely days though.

Why does there need to be a funeral for closure. I can understand a burial as you see the coffin go bye bye. But with a cremation the coffin just sits in a back room
in line waiting to go. You could all go say goodbye in the funeral
Home and then off to the pub for sandwiches and photos with a cheers to Don’t’s Life.

Let them pay for it then!!!

My mum's was a couple of weeks ago. It was £3,500. We had the most basic coffin (which was really nice) and no bells and whistles or choices of stuff that we didn't feel the need to veer from the basics at all. Just a hearse with no following cars (which I hated with my father's funeral). We all just met at the crem. Had a celebrant who was lovely.

My friends cousin died in an accident (they were both in their 30s).
There was no funeral (his parents' choice) and my friend found that hugely difficult. She and the cousin were close, she was devastated, but there was no closure for her. It wasn't that she liked r idea of a funeral, but she needed that event to make it real and draw that line.

I felt for her but didn't quite understand what she meant at the time. But when my husband died, I understood it completely. I dreaded his funeral, but the event itself started the whole healing progress, and I felt that almost physically at the end of that day.

A wake alone wouldn't have worked for me. That might work if all your family and friends are local, social, and mostly know each other. But that didn't really apply to my family and friends, especially the distance thing.

the most psychological bit of the funeral I think is the coffin going behind the curtain, or in the ground. I think it’s the bit where it really clicks they have gone.

I've had my funeral planned for a very long time, I think since I was about 18. Nothing has changed other than now not wanting to be embalmed so I don't poison the soil around me. Hymns and readings all sorted.

Ideally I'd be buried in the same church we were married in, but that depends if there are any plots available.

My mum and dad both paid for direct funerals for me it felt like I had no closure but it was what they wanted I just had my goodbyes with the ashes.

I dont want one but if my family need to have one for closure I dont mind.