AIBU to cry at the funeral of someone I've never met?

[suiledonne]

DH and I were at a funeral this morning for the parent of a friend of ours. I had never met this person but it was a moving ceremony and they were clearly well loved by everyone who knew them.

I shed a few tears during the ceremony but afterwards when we saw our friend I was quite upset. I suppose I am a sensitive person and I can imagine how sad and upset the family must feel.

DH thinks it is a bit silly. He commented on how I seemed to be the saddest person there and it is a bit embarrassing but I can't seem tohelp myself.

I do cry at happy/sad films, books, news stories etc.

Is anyone else like this? Do you try to quell the emotion in public?

YANBU - it's called empathy - you can put yourself in the place of another person and understand how they feel, and it's upsetting. You also (unless you're very unusual!) will have lost people yourself in the past, and being at a funeral brings it all back. I think it's only a problem if you make a big fuss about it and start demanding peoples attention - which I'm sure you didn't.

i made a fool of myself by really crying excessively at my step-aunt's funeral, I only saw her about once a year, but i was really feeling for my mum, stepdad and uncle.

Quite the opposite lol. I slope off quietly trying to repair the damage to my face before anyone notices.

I haven't lost a parent myself or indeed anyone very close (my grandparents died when I was quite young. We didn't live near them so it wasn't a close relationship)

I think I feel sad for the other people and also a little for myself because I know I have to go through it some day.

I don't know. I have a friend whose husband died recently and she finds it quite offensive when people who are little more than aquaintances get all over-emotional about his death.She is suffereing the real raw pain and they are 'playing at grief porn

I cried lots at the funeral of my friend's baby daughter, So did everybody else - she died in utero at 20 weeks. Another friend has a stilbirth and I've cried a lot over her daughter. You don't have to have met somebody for their life to touch yours.

katie I am definitely not 'playing'. I am really fond of this friend and he has had a rough couple of years. I am genuinely saddened and upset for him.

grief porn - What a horrible expression.

Katie - I know your friend is grieving but she's just plain wrong to feel like that. Of course her pain is intense - but that doesn't mean that other people ca't be genuine in their feeling.

yes, I was not "playing" either.

No but you have to be sensitive how you show that sadness round them.It is THEIR bereavment, not yours

well, not everyone can help showing it if they are genuinely upset you know.

I went to a funeral with my ex DP. It was of a young man who crashed his car whilst on the way to hospital with his wife in labour. About as tragic as it gets. I cried despite never having met him. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

'It is THEIR bereavment, not yours'

Seriously? Your frined feels that other peoples sorrow detracts from her grief? I don't get that at all. There isn't a limit on how much sorrow can go around. You feel as you feel.

Ok before this turns into a punch up...

I agree with the grief porn thing in some circumstances but they are usually fairly extreme.

If I see someone crying at the funeral or death of someone they dont know very well I assume they are crying at the sadness of the loss rather than their own personal grief. People often well up when I tell them about my DD and I suspect that is for many reasons.

But sometimes people DO go right over the top and seem to be enjoying themselves. This often happens at the death of a young person when their 'friends' gather and wail and moan and generally make a self conscious nnusince of themselves (sorry loads of words I cant spell there).

But in the case of the OP it doesnt sound UR at all.

Although I do not agree it makes anyone more sensitive if they tend to cry at these occasions. You can be very sensitive and never cry IMO.

Not related to anything the OP says but I have a particular dislike of people who say 'I couldnt go to the funeral/work with children with disabilities/volunteer at an old people's home because I am just too sensitive - I care too much' becasue those that do all those things obviously dont give a toss do they?

agree with katiestar. when my sis lost her baby my friend made such a fuss about it ("I feel your pain") it was offensive - it wasn't about her. when my kids lost their dad suddenly I had to learn to button up my grief in their presence (even though I had been married to him, there was no question that I was in the inner circle any more: my kids were) bcs they asked me to. i really understand the anger of the widow re grief porn.

that said, I cry at funerals and have to struggle to control myself sometimes (and weddings ). both are about my own pain/memories (grief never really goes away) but also re funerals compassion for the awful pain of the close relatives who have a long and painful road ahead.

life can be overwhelmingly sad sometimes and it's not surprising we are upset at how much some people suffer. as long as we don't take centre stage (and it sounds like you didn't OP)

grief porn! i think that is possibly princess diana syndrome, but this is not what the OP describing here.

As other posters have said, its Empathy.

I have recently learnt of the death of a local shopkeeper, such a lovely lovely lady and it was a tragic accident. I was surprised at the extent of my feelings about it to be honest, i didnt cry because im hard as nails but i was stunned and shocked and it affected me for the rest of hte day, and i only knew the women from the shop, but it was just i think, empathy for her and her family.

I also think that this sort of thing is easy to experss than our own greif.

When my dog died, i was inconsolable, literally hysterical, it was pants as i had decided to have him put to sleep so lots of emotion, but raw and out there. Easy to get it out and deal with it.

My father died about two years later, i still haven't shed a tear - i promise you, i loved my dad more than my dog! I can't explain it. People must have thought i was a bitch at the funeral, i was like, ok, thats that then, shall we go! I could hear people crying behind me, i certainly didn't think they were encroaching on my grief.

OP, don't feel bad - its good you can express your feelings, so long as you wasnt wailing and beating your chest i dont think you would haveoffended anyone!

When I was qt late secondary school, our family went through a tragedy, where my auntie, her H, and two young kids, and my grandad died in an accident. I didn't even notice how other peole were grieving about this, because I was bothered about how I was grieving.

However, a few weeks after a girl in my year's gran died of old age, and she was VERY upset about it. This annoyed me (i know it was unreasonable, but that's how I felt) because I felt that my grief was more important than hers because hers was natural whereas mine wasn't.

Since this I always get really upset at funerals and feel really guilty for doing so, because I am normally getting upset about remembering that horrendous funeral of 5 family members, rather than the funeral I
Actually at.

YANBU at all. I have cried a couple of times this week at stories on the news. I have never met these people but the stories are so tragic I think its only natural to be upset.

I remember my Mum crying all week when Princess Diana died. I found this strange as my Mum has never been a fan of the royals. When I queried her about it she said it brought back all the memories of her younger sister dying and made her feel very emotional. I think many people do cry about someone they don't know because it brings home the reality that one day someone close to them will die.

Northern lurker- 'Seriously? Your frined feels that other peoples sorrow detracts from her grief? I don't get that at all. There isn't a limit on how much sorrow can go around. You feel as you feel.'

Exactly and my friend has the right to feel the way she feels.I don't know why she feels like that exactly.But by using a bit of empathy I imagine if my DH died I would feel a bit pissed off if his aquaintances ( who it hardly affects) started making a big show of grief, they are either attention seeking, or remembering their own bereavements, neither of which would be appropriate at his funeral.

I think there is a line when it does becomes offensive, however op it seems to me that in this case YANBU, you where at a funeral and feeling your close friends pain. I would find it hard not to be upset at any funeral. if however you bawl now for weeks every time you see that friend it may be little out of hand.

I was going to say about Princess Diana too. People around me were very clearly split into 1) those crying about the funeral and 2) those feeling a bit about those crying.

A girl from Ireland was murdered on her honeymoon in Mauritius recently. She was the daughter of a well-known sports figure here, she was 27, seemed to be a lovely person and from what I can see, she and her new hubby were a lovely couple.

I well up every time I see a newspaper article about her or hear about her on the radio.

I didn't even know she existed before this week but the circumstances of her death and the overwhelming grief her husband, parents and brothers must be feeling is really getting to me. I hope no-one would regard it as grief porn. I am well aware that my sad feelings are absolutely nothing compared with how her family are feeling but given the poignancy of the story, you would have to be made of stone to feel nothing.

A work collegue of mine lost her husband suddenly in a nasty accident at his work and when she came back to work about 2 weeks if that after the funeral I spoke to her to tell her I was sorry for her loss- and promptly burst into tears.

I didn't mean to it was tears for her really, (I'd only ever met the man once at a party and everyone was very drunk) she'd lost her husband of 25 years, father of her 3 kids and the raw grief was still obviously there for her. We ended up having a long hug on the stairs for about 10 minutes and she sobbed into my shoulder. Never spoken about it since and we aren't particularly close now.

Oh and a lot of people I barely knew were crying at my Dad's funeral. I took it as what it was, that he really was as lovely as I thought he was to everyone he met and that he had made an impression on many, many people in many small ways. I found it quite gratifying. It meant his life had meant something.

I didn't shed a tear at my mum's funeral although I loved her dearly and was devastated by her sudden death. But lots of organising to be done, people to look after - I was too busy making sure everything went as she would have wanted it to let myself cry.
Fast forward 8 months to my neighbours funeral and I couldn't stop myself crying. I pulled it in as the day wasn't about me but i knew the grief was for my mum not my neighbour. I don't think that is so unusual.