Matthew Perry buried already?

[CherieBabySpliffUp]

I don't mean this to be an insensitive question but why has Matthew Perry been buried so quickly? Is it customary in America? Admittedly it was nearly 20 years ago but when a family member died unexpectedly at home in the UK we had to wait over a month before the body was released.

Mental health charities encourage a change of language, as one way to provide support to the bereaved

Your government controls how long you get to grieve in the immediate aftermath of a death?

That's abhorrent.

Whereas being forced to wait weeks (7 in our case) before you can hold a funeral for your loved one is just peachy.

I think it's just what you're used to. The idea of waiting 10-16 days to bury a loved one would be unbearable to me.

My Mum died Christmas 2020, earliest funeral we could get was mid Feb 2021. Totally inhumane.

Very customary. Used to be here too until things got so delayed. No conspiracy here.

Heartily agree!

After my daughter's dad died when she was 10 it made it so much worse having to wait so long for the funeral. We are truly broken.

It’s normal in the US.

In Ireland, you’re in the ground within around 48-72 hours.

When my dad died recently, I was offered a date a month later. I kicked up a fuss and established it wasn’t the church, nor the cemetery but the undertakers stringing it out. After I complained, they suddenly brought it forward by two weeks. Still too long imo, but better than a month.

You are not 'forced' to wait unless theres an investigation or something epic going on like Covid.

Yes it can take a few days to get the death certificate (especially if people died at the weekend as PP stated) but most of the issue for delay is people wanting popular times at the crematorium etc... which is a demand issue through funeral directors.

If you care to take 8am on a monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday then you could probably be cremated on the nearest of those days too you... no one ever wants those times here though.

It can usually be done much faster. Plenty of people are buried in England within 24 hours in line with the diverse cultures we have.

It use to be standard everywhere before refrigeration... no one wants a rotten body turning in the back bedroom posing a health hazard.

It was common in autopsies or suspicious deaths to have organs removed and kept in a jar cupboard while they buried the rest of the body and tests to be run later on the organs. Then they would dig the person back up if tests showed anything suspicious... hardly 'great'.

Like most things we have advanced past those horrible necessities and there is zero reason to HAVE to rush it now.

Also burial use to be the most common but cremation is now in England. It doesn't mean everyone is forced against their will to be cremated, times have just changed.

id think 10ams to 16 days would be optimal, enough time to arrange without rushing around.

There is no way I could have waited that time for direct relatives, I found our standard 3 days hard enough and the one that was 4 days to be excruciating. Every minute of every day leading up to the funerals just seemed to stretch out forever. I found that once the funeral was done I could then move on to the healing grieving phase, but no way was I there prior to the funerals.

Me too. I love that we do our funerals almost immediately. I can’t even begin to imagine that not happening.

For those who say you need 10 plus days to organise the funeral you really don't. It's a well oiled machine and everyone knows what to do in these situations here in Ireland. It's a cultural thing so I assume if funerals happened quicker in England then people would become used to it. Also here in Ireland lots of burials/cremations are being pushed out a bit as well (well where I am they are) but when I say pushed out it could be five days rather than the customary two or three days. This is due to lack of priests /wanting specific cremation slots / wanting specific churches etc so I can imagine as our population rises we will probably see delays becoming more commonplace.

For those who say you need 10 plus days to organise the funeral you really don't

yet your funerals in Ireland are already being delayed due to what you say below

but when I say pushed out it could be five days rather than the customary two or three days. This is due to lack of priests /wanting specific cremation slots / wanting specific churches etc so I can imagine as our population rises we will probably see delays becoming more commonplace.

it really can take 10 days to organise everything

When my dad died we had to wait 5 weeks. It was an awful time. I'm in the SE

How do people register deaths so quickly?

In the case of both my mother (in the US), she was under hospice care at home. The hospice nurse was there when she died, filled out the death certificate paper work then and there, sent it to the hospice physician who signed it, and made sure it was also sent to the funeral home. We had multiple copies of the death certificate the next day. The funeral home also handled filing it with the state. I think if someone dies in a hospital, it would be similar. I'm not sure how it works if someone dies at home and is not under the care of a physician, but it would take a bit longer.

@CarolinaInTheMorning in England you have to register the death with Registrar who then gives you death certificate but also the form you need to organise the funeral.

Where I live we parade the coffin up and down the country before burial. Well we do if its the Queen.

It was the same for both my parents (Dad, hospice at home and Mum, hospice in a care home). The 'paperwork process' was seamless and all handled by the hospice and the funeral home. We had the certified death certs within 48 hours. But the uncertified certificates with the doctor's signature were all that were needed to get things in motion.

If someone dies at home without being under a doctor's care 'normally' 911 is called, the person is transported to the nearest hospital and the staff doctor pronounces and does the paperwork. If the deceased goes directly to the county coroner, the same. The coroner pronounces and does the paperwork. The family notifies their chosen funeral home and in both cases the funeral home 'takes it from there'.

I think one of the things that helps here in the US is the popularity of 'pre need' planning. Usually for the elderly and/or people with terminal illnesses they've picked the funeral home and made their 'plans' with them. In some cases they've already paid all or most of the costs. For both Dad and Mum all we had to do was notify the funeral home they'd preselected and they took care of everything. Obviously in the case of a sudden death, the family has to start from scratch, as it were.

Were you there? The first possible cremation date we were given for my father was the day before his funeral, which was 7 weeks after he died. We even looked at crematoria 10-20 miles away and the waits were even longer. South Yorkshire/NE Derbyshire, end Jan 2023.

I agree with @AcrossthePond55 that pre-need arrangements in the US can make a big difference. When my dad died, he had already paid for everything, and he left detailed instructions about how he wanted things done, even to the extent of having kept the ashes of his favorite dog to be scattered with his.

I think that poster was referring to people talking about writing eulogies, getting the family together etc. Obviously if it's not possible to get a death certificate/crematorium slot etc then there's not much that can be done about it. Then if that's the case you're used to the other arrangements taking just as long. Whereas in Ireland because it's typically two to three days from death to funeral we're used to doing those aspects quickly and to a certain extent on autopilot.

I think because in England people aren't used to a short time in-between a person's passing and the funeral it seems so strange. I thought when I saw it that it feels rushed but then thought it is normal for lots of places. When MIL died it was in between Xmas and New Year 10 years ago, the funeral was end of Jan, no autopsy or anything like that, she was on end of life care in a hospice. It is such a long time to wait.