To hate that funerals take place weeks after the death?

@Bloodybrambles sorry for your loss. I think everyone is different and there is no one size fits all for grief and bereavement.

There was a very long gap between the death of my parent and their funeral for very specific reasons. I won't say how long as it could be identifying but it was well over 2 months.

I was really really glad because it gave me time to get used to the shock of it and to move into a state where I was capable of preparing a eulogy and being able to read it with love and without being unable to do it because of racking sobs.

I also liked the feeling of knowing that they were still 'here' as it were prior to the funeral which helped me.

It was all so helpful for me that I would be the exact opposite of you and say 'Isn't it terrible that some funerals take place within such a few weeks or days of a death'? For me months++ was a really big part of helping the grieving process.

The funeral is important and if you want to read something or speak of your love, being able to do that to the standard you want publicly does (at least for me it did) help the grief. I would recommend it as healing. I think it must be horrible if you would like to speak in honour of your parent or loved one but don't or can't because it's too soon and you can't manage it.

I do understand though that people are different

For me I would really commend a longer delay as it really helped me.

A pp said that they had to wait 10 days for the death certificate, so how are certain religions able to have the funeral after 2 days without one?

I was offered a date 3 weeks after my dad died. The funeral director blamed the cemetery and the church. Basically everyone said it was someone else causing the delay. I took matters into my own hands, spoke to the cemetery and church and made a pest of myself. I got it moved forward by 2 weeks.

A long wait is just awful.

Couldn't believe the wait for a most basic cremation of my mother. It just drags it out. Grief does not stop,with the funeral but the enforced delay for funerals adds to the stress and can intensify grief

For Jews and Moslems a prompt burial is mandated by their faith

My DH died in December. He didn’t want a funeral and I’m so grateful for that. I know some people need a funeral for “closure” but as a family we don’t.

I’ve also opted for direct cremation. My family are fine with that.

For people who can't believe that ordinary cremations can require a long wait:

Population: in the 1970s only 12-13% of the population was aged over 70, now it's more like 20% and the population has grown, so there are many more people requiring a crematorium. All those boomers! (I am a boomer, by the way). It also appears from a quick google that getting planning permission for a new crematorium can be difficult. New ones need to be sited a distance from housing. Local residents don't want the traffic and potential air quality concerns.

Many, many people will only accept an 11am-2pm spot to enable people coming from a distance to get there and back. If the services are scheduled every 45 minutes, that means there are around 28 prime slots in a week. If there aren't many crematoria in an area with a reasonably big population you may have to wait longer. Some crematoria used to (don't know about now) shut for staff to have lunch. Some are open limited hours. My local one offers slots from 9.30-3.15 four days a week and the last slot is 2.30 on a Friday.

If you want your vicar/ priest/ celebrant to preside at the crematorium, you may have to wait — particularly during the winter when more deaths occur. The vicar I spoke to when my aunt died in January said I was the third person that day to contact him regarding a funeral, and that January and February are always his peak months. June, July and August are peak wedding. Remember that some people who've not been to church for decades will still anticipate having a vicar or priest preside at their funeral. Vicars and priests normally have responsibility for several churches/ parishes.

The Jewish and Muslim communities often have their own separate cemeteries (for burial, not cremation) and facilities and, being a much smaller population, with cultural expectations of speedy burials, have developed processes to move more swiftly.

6 weeks for my dad, partly because he died on New Year’s Day, partly because I needed to find a church for the service and I’d fallen out with his over his long illness, partly because I delayed by another week to attend my best friends child’s christening. It didn’t help that my Irish colleagues and french relatives expressed shock and dismay at this long wait. But frankly, after 7 years of dealing with his Alzheimer’s and agitated dementia that was the least of my woes.

That will have in part been availability of the cathedral and also they'll have taken some of the diaries of people they wanted involved into account for that one.

It's because things are in place for it.

Round here if you want the crem or council cemetery then it's weeks for a slot.

One of the churches still has spaces in their churchyard, and they also have a gravedigger on their staff, so if you qualify to be buried there then it can happen as soon as the church has a slot. Usually within 4/5 days.

Where there is a custom for quick burials there are usually staff (or volunteers) who do the jobs that take weeks if you're waiting for a council slot.

Sympathy to the OP.

Two things I've done in England that I'd recommend are:

• organise the fastest possible (direct?) cremation possible and just invite a few people obviously closest to the deceased. Then spend time organising a memorial event where (hopefully) lots of friends and family can all attend, contribute (speak/video/etc.), share photographs and memories, raise a glass to the deceased and celebrate their life.

• for older people with fewer remaining friends and family, organise the cremation quickly and make more of the ceremony of scattering/burying the ashes much later, hopefully on a significant date and a significant place. I have to recommend the National Trust support we received at Sissinghurst Castle - they were just wonderful. (Although none of us are religious, so that might simplify things.)

I’ve been lucky enough to not have had a funeral for about six months (big extended family) so it has maybe changed. But four in a day seems very few.

(Delays seeing a registrar) can't be that rare, you HAVE to register the death within five days

You're correct about the 5 day requirement, @Negroany, but a longer wait happened with both my parents and I just got a flappy-handed "well we can't do anything about it" so presumably whoever's supposed to follow up on this isn't doing - or at least not effectively

They've now opened somed kind of sub-registry office at the big hospital itself, but unfortunately it's rarely staffed and I'm told it's made very little diffference

Our area used to be like that buf have recently ruled that there can only be 4 funerals per day.
Is that in all areas of Scotland or just ours?

Sending sympathy and hugs op. I'm in NI and the wait is about 2-4 days. It's super quick compared to GB.
I don't know how you cope with that long limbo in between. especially since it's all been organised already. Can you busy urself helping with the house and your parents personals?

Because the vicars will have many other commitments other than funerals in place already.
our vicar mentioned in passing to me this week that already he has only 3 hours unaccounted for in March already.

You have my sympathies OP, I lost my DM 6 months ago. I can't imagine having to wait so long for a funeral, it must make you feel like you're in limbo. Here in Ireland, funerals are generally held 3 days after death which is quite quick.

Same for me. Had to wait almost a month for my dads funeral. Purely just down to crematory spaces. That waiting period was difficult, and it was only once the funeral was done with, that I could begin the process of "moving on".

Unrelated, but I promise you that you will feel "normal" again.
I lost my dad 7 years ago now, and although I still think of him pretty much every day for one reason or another, there certainly isn't that "actively missing him" component any more. I'd say it took about 3-4 years to reach that point.

So, six funerals, seven days in a week, two funeral slots a day (minimum) - not sure why that's causing delays. Even if you take Sundays out of the days of the week. Still twelve slots any week.

I have no idea what happened in England 40 years ago. I know what happens in the UK today and what happens in Australia for no reason at all.

The law in Spain requires burials/cremations to happen within 72 hours. It accommodates having family and friends coming from overseas but still having a funeral within 7 days.

I still don't understand how a country to 50 million people can do this by law when the OP is dreading attending a funeral of her parent weeks after the death.

Something is seriously fucked up somewhere.

Certainly in my area a wait of several weeks was the norm well before Covid. My friend’s mother died 11 years ago on Feb 12th and the funeral and cremation wasn’t until March 20th.
Unless a grave plot has been reserved there’s no burial space remaining and until recently there were only two crematoriums serving a very large area which included a city. Thankfully times are shorter now as several new crematoriums have been built since then. In 2022 my mother died and her cremation was 15 days later.

The waiting time is unreasonable though, it’s unfair on grieving families.
Thinking back years ago to when family members died it was less than a week, and back then burial (at least in our family) was more common than cremation so that involved a grave being prepared. My Grandad died on a Wednesday and was buried the following Tuesday and it was a sudden death so a post mortem had to be carried out.

It is working fine in my experience. My auntie died in December and she was buried two days later.

Exactly. Where I am one vicar covers 3 churches and another has 2. They can only be in one place at a time. If there are 2 deaths in a week from each of the 3 churches that is 6 funerals to try and get coordinated rather than the two it would have been a few years ago.

It's to do with registration. A funeral can not happen without it. I know of funerals being cancelled as the registration hasn't taken place 3 weeks after the death. This is due to the Medical Examiners who now have to sign off the death before the registration can happen. This was brought in in September last year and the new system isn't working. Its terrible for families who have to wait.

That is a really long delay for you, I agree.
Three to ten days is what is usual in our state. Mostly about four days but some have to wait for family to fly home etc.

Can you not have the public funeral service and then have the cremation some days later (or in the evening) - with just a handful of people?