Different ways to do funerals...

[wallthermo]

Reading a recent thread on 'I don't want to have a funeral' got me thinking.

I am due to go to a funeral next week - the person died in terrible circumstances and I know it will be horrifically tough for the family. There's something so overwhelming about a coffin being carried in, everyone in black, the sense of shock, fear and grief.

I can 100% understand why some people don't want that or to put their loved ones through it. For people already grieving, it feels to me like it's adding additional suffering on top...although of course, everyone is different.

In my cultural tradition, we don't have funerals in the same way. We usually have a small private cremation/burial first and then we have a Thanksgiving service either same day or a few days later. The thanksgiving service is a way to remember the person as they were and it often includes open mic so people can share nice stories, tributes and food. Black clothing isn't mandatory and in general, it's a bittersweet time, usually lots of tears but it's not got the intensity and formality of a traditional funeral.

Have you ever been to a 'different' sort of service like this? If you don't want a funeral, would you feel differently if it was more of a thanksgiving service like this or do you still prefer a direct funeral/cremation?

Funerals are for the people left behind and not the person who has died. In Judaism, people are buried within 24 hours of dying. My mother’s body was collected by the Burial Society within a few hours of her death and the funeral took place the following afternoon. This may sound rushed but it is what we are all used to. We then sit ‘Shiva’ for up to seven days which means sitting in mourning, doing no work and friends and family come to visit you and prayers are said every evening. There are no options about the actual funeral service although the family are allowed to read out a eulogy, otherwise the service is always the same and I find it comforting. A year later there is a Memorial Service or Stone Setting when the gravestone is unveiled. Again, there is a standard service for this too.

Not exactly “different” but I like how civil celebrants have become much more available for conducting funeral services, I’ve been to more funerals than I’d have liked over the last few years and celebrants have meant that people who don’t have a faith are celebrated in a much less “phony” way if that makes sense. People also seem to be much less bound by older traditional ways of doing things, so the services are much more personal