What funeral traditions do you find odd or difficult ?

[thetallfairy]

My sis in law sadly lost her father

She is in Ireland

So the house is open
She sadly lost her mother a few months ago

It was days and days of people coming and going to the house

She had lots of great support but found it hard to manage the constant stream of people going in

I know in the UK it was very different and the family home is often private

What have you noticed about traditions where you live?

I saw a child praying at the house in the room with the family

It was such a lovely sight

At my local crematorium they've stopped doing the curtain closing or the coffin moving somewhere. The coffin just stays where it is and when the service is over everyone walks past it. I've seen a brother put his hand out to touch it - his last farewell gesture. When everyone's gone presumably the coffin moves. I think it's much better than the curtain etc..

I agree. The whole point of a funeral is to give the living a space to grieve and say goodbye. It’s sad, solemn and deliberately so. You use that as the occasion to weep and lament together. It’s completely incongruous to say ‘wear something colourful and cheerful’.

I also can’t stand it when they play some naff song by Elvis or something from back in the day - yes the person might’ve loved it but the shell shocked mourners are sitting listening through their tears to some usually dodgy irrelevant lyrics - again incongruous.

Sorry but if your child is dead you can choose whatever you bloody want to happen at their funeral and no one has the right to question that or say it’s wrong or not respectful! Until you have faced the most awful loss imaginable please don’t judge anyone for what they choose to help them get through that day, please.

It's funny that, because I can't stand the thought of leaving them in the cold ground and visiting a grave. My family are Catholic but no one has been buried since the 50s (before i was born)so I've never attended a burial or had a grave to visit. I guess it's just what you are used to.

I think the whole trend for “celebration of life” that happens now. In theory it’s a nice idea, but at my mothers funeral we had this celebrant who tipped too far into sort of fictionalising my mums life and it felt really saccharine and not truthful or respectful. I prefer funerals to be allowed to have some formal sobriety to them.
Im not bothered by open caskets though and traditionally in my family we visit the body in the days leading up.(Not Irish)

That's what has happened at every cremation I've been to over the past 20 years.

I hate the line up after a funeral where the grieving family need to shake hands with everyone a lot of whom they may not know .
At df funeral we didn’t do this and people we knew came to speak to us outside individually .

My mum has prepaid for direct cremation, so when she dies DB and I don’t have to deal with all the funeral admin. She has then asked that we have a celebration party when we are ready, with all family and friends. She hated having to deal with all the arrangements when my StepD died, and doesn’t want us to have to go through that.

TBH I think it is a great idea. We are not religious so would not really be comfortable with a church funeral, and selfishly it gives us a chance to grieve without being stressed about arrangements.

The coffin is lowered into the grave at burials. Well any grave burial I've ever been to and I'm Irish born into a Catholic family - no longer believe.
ETA, my Uncle in London was cremated after a Catholic service mass. Not one person was questioning that. He lived a lovely life and was eventually placed next to his wife.

I find watching the coffin being lovered into the grave the hardest part. DF was cremated and, having been given the choice, we chose for the congregation to file out without the curtain having been closed around it.

i recall a friend’s dad dying 30 years ago and her mum going full Victorian, wearing black, curtains at home half closed throughout. I’m so glad we seem to be moving away from this.

Yes I’ve lived in Ireland for over 30 years and have become accustomed to the funeral being 3 days after death, the open coffin at the wake, the fellas of the family taking turns to carry the coffin to the graveyard and sometimes a bagpipe is played. My colleagues found it very strange that it took around 3 weeks for my mother’s funeral. I kinda like the Irish way

Oh, where do I start?
My mother’s funeral 22 years ago. My dead mother was kept in the house, In an open coffin on the dining room table, for 3 days until we buried her. The mirrors in the house were covered. On the day they took the coffin out, my traditional aunt started wailing, pulling at the coffin and asking my mother why she was going and leaving her kids behind, etc etc. This was not out of some big upset (my mom was her SIL) but because this was the tradition in her village, to show people how loved my mother was (like the traditional ‘criers’). In any case, this was very traumatic for me.
I then remember walking all the way to the cemetery behind the open vehicle containing my mother’s coffin, wirh people waking in front of the vehicle carrying all sorts of religious items. My task, every time the car stopped, was the throw coins to people on the street.
When we got to the cemetery I realised that my mother was going to share the grave with my grandmother who had died some years before that. They dug up my grandmother, put her bones in a sack (yes, I did see her bones :)) put my mother in the grave and then threw the sack containing my grandmother’s bones on top of her.

Ten years later we buried my father. By then things had ‘progresses’. We didn’t keep his body in the house on the table, but in the church. The other customs were similar. What I remember:

• after the funeral I had to pay someone to carry water to an old woman every day for a week. I obviously understand that the custom comes from a time it would have been very helpful to carry water from the well for an old woman, but in this day and age every woman in my home town has water on tap! I tried to explain all of this but I didn’t get anywhere so I had to pay someone to carry water to an old woman, only to pour it down her sink.
• for several days after the funeral, we had to go to the grave at sunrise and walk around the grave reciting some religion hymn.
• theres lots, lots more. I actually like the old traditions and don’t want them to disappear, although I think they’re already gone

We have suffered a lot of loss this year. Most recently I was in a funeral car - I couldn’t believe the respect shown to them. People of all ages and races doffing hats , bowing heads, taking hats off, doing the sign of the cross as we passed.

All the neighbours came out and saw them off. Awful but strangely comforting in such shitty divided times.

I find it awful that so many people still wear black for funerals in the UK, along with the length of time it takes to hold the funeral.

Here the funeral is usually within a few days of death, and is generally treated as a celebration of the person's life. People wear whatever they want, although within reason of course, and the fact that they took the time to attend is the main consideration.

In the Southern US, an open casket is common because it is considered shameful and that the family has something to hide. It's an old fashioned notion from when people had perhaps shot themselves in the head.

I like direct cremations with no service at all. My Dad had that and it was exactly the right thing for all our family especially my Mum. My siblings, my mum and my kids all have it written in our wills as a prefence.

Yes. We requested this for a family member’s funeral. No curtains, no disappearing. Let us walk past and say good bye. Much easier than the coffin moving away. Should be the norm I’d say. Much kinder to families.

I find burial a bit bizarre tbh, though I wouldn’t say it made me uncomfortable.

But pressure to wear black and slow funeral processions both make me really not want to go to one. Both those norms seem to be fading, though.

When the curtain is drawn and the coffin is behind it. Hate that. We asked them not to draw the curtain at my dad's funeral as for me it was too final. Also the shaking of hands which prolongs the whole awful scenario on the way out. We went straight to the wake.

I have taken out a plan for one of these direct cremation/unattended funerals because I believe conventional funerals are a tremendous waste of money. They are a vulgar show for the world. If people wan to say goodbye they can have a get togeher later. Mourning is done in the heart and not by wearing black clothes.

I'm in Finland and I find it strange that they take so many pictures at funerals here, people will take enough for an entire photo album. Pictures of the coffin, of the flowers, of different groups of family members standing by the coffin or the grave. I suppose it's because its one of the few events when all the family will be together but it's a bit jarring.

I would find that strange too. I find different customs very interesting on the whole. It's great that we are all different across the world I think. Having said that, the emerging trend for direct cremation in the UK is one I find really really strange. It is particularly foreign to me as an Irish person. But death is a time when individual choice of what someone wants is paramount.

I find that strange too. I absolutely want to be buried, so my loved ones can visit my grave and place candles there at Christmas and all saints day, which is tradition here. Its beautiful going to a cemetery on Christmas eve and the whole place is lit by a sea of candles. And graves are so well taken care of here, its clearly important to people to have a grave to visit.

It's not so much the cremating I find strange, it's the lack of a ceremony. It's bewildering to me. My brain just can't get around it, mourning with your community seems so basic to humanity. But before people pile on me, of course I respect someone's right to do what works for them, I'm only commenting as we are on an anonymous chat board.