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?

I've never cried at a funeral and try not to judge people who do.

Having said that I was irritated at my lovely mum's funeral when my teenage nieces were (in my opinion) overly emotional, clutching each other etc. Don't know why because they loved her and I'm sure were not acting. I think I just wanted the funeral to consist of my dad, sisters and me. I know that's selfsh.

YANBU.

I also find I get upset at funerals, the deaths of friends parents remind me of the loss of my own mum and dad, and upset me more perhaps than others whose parents are still around. I'm therefore crying not just for their loss but for the memory of mine, if that doesnt sound too selfish.

YANBU and I can't believe anyone thinks you shouldn't cry.

A little more empathy would make this world a better place for all of us

YADNBU - I went to the funeral of a colleague (she was old) and they played My Best Friend by Don Williams and I had to leave the crematorium - I was crying so hard! It was such a beautiful song from her husband to her. My other colleagues were looking at me funny but I couldnt stop the tears.

Changing - I've started crying at you just writing that!

But I didn't cry at my Mum's funeral (6 months ago) and have hardly cried about it at all.

I supported dh at his uncle's funeral - his grandfather is one of 13 kids so dh wasn't that close and I'd only met him twice. I blubed completely as the service was so moving. At the end the vicar came and spoke to us (we were at the back) and said we must have been close. I politely nodded and left - was so embarrassed!

I used to help out at funerals and frequently got tearful about people I didn't know - and I didn't know their nearest and dearest either.

I got upset because I was sad at seeing their families sad. And sometimes this was exacerbated by there being few people present, and sometimes by rage at the hearing the undertakers smoking and joking outside the church door and not wanting to draw more attention to it by opening the door and telling them to Shut The Fuck UP This Is A FUNERAL.

I did try and hide my tears though.

YANBU cos funerals are obv sad but YABU if you didn't know the deceased. Mind you it's better than no-one crying. I cried at my 63 yr old neighbour's funeral seeing her elderly mother so lost and confused, also knowing that my lively neighbour had been so excited about her uni course when she died :(. Also i know she was a loner but apart from my dad and her best friend no-one else looked bothered!!
At work i've found that i can hide my feelings well if patients die but it's not healthy to bury emotions. The most harrowing was a happy 83 yr old who died of post op complications - i've seen bad things happen to younger patients but this lady's death upset me most for a lot of reasons. At work we don't 'debrief' which would have helped. I knew this lady only 3 hrs but it even affects me now.
Ironically at my close g/dad's funeral i couldn't cry at all + was just numb. I was there for my mum + nan but ignored my grief as it was too painful. Also i had lots of guilt i couldn't cope with. Now 7yrs on i can cry about him because it's not so raw IYSWIM.

I met a friend in the street a few months after we lost DD. She asked after her and when I told her she had died she totally lost it! She was sobbing and had to sit down and kept saying ' I cant beleive it, I just cant belive it' I had to sit down with her and calm her down.
I know she was shocked and upset and I know she is a lovely, genuine person but I somehow just cant quite forgive her for it.

She didnt even know DD that well and we had only met through a particular circumstance. It hasnt made me dislike her but its changed the way I feel about her. It didnt help that I met her with her DS a while later and she said something like this is xxxx's mum, you remember I told you about her getting all upset in the street the other week?'

So its all a bit complicated isnt it? I like her better than the woman who I met in New Look, whose DD went to school with mine for years who said 'I just saw you but was trying to avoid you because its just easier that way isnt it?'

YANBU, I cry very easily because I feel sad for the family/friends.

MrsDeVere that's

I've cried at the funeral of someone I'd met once, but didn't remember at all.

It was DH's god-mother, who died very suddenly leaving a shell-shocked son and husband.

I think you would have had to be made of stone to not weep when they played "You'll never walk alone". Seeing her loved ones so racked with grief was obviously highly emotional.

YANBU.

I don't think it is unreasonable at all.

My MIL wanted me to take her to the funeral of her sisters second husband, they had lived abroad for years so I had never met him.

I persuaded DH to take her because I knew I would sob like a baby. I cannot look at his wife and children and not feel their pain.

My Mil didn't even cry at her DH's funeral.

If I could find a way not to cry it would make me a happy women.

Don't think YABU-funerals are sad. As long as you wern't making a fuss though and drawing attention to yourself.

YANBU, in relation to a friend or the funeral of an acquaintance, my grief is because of those they leave behind.

I have attended in the past 5 years, the funerals of 2 school friends - one died aged 21 leaving his baby son and a distraught mum and dad. The other died at the age of 28 after a 5 year battle with breast cancer.

On both occasions, we were long term friends of the family - we saw them mainly at Christmas or bumping into them in town but they were part of our youth. Memories of playing out with them, memories of their mums handing out drinks/ice lollies/standing chatting to my mum.

So at the funeral I cried for the memories and each time I cried for the loss of the potential life they each had. One who would never see his son grow, and one who had so desperately wanted to be married (was engaged) and have children but would never fulfil that dream. Am filling up thinking about them now.

In both circumstances I had not seen either person for at least 5 years. My family's presence at both funerals was greatly appreciated by the family, it meant a lot to them that we made the effort to go.

I think the 'grief porn' (disgusting phrase IMO) is an outlet for those who feel that their grief is so great - how dare anybody else try and 'out grieve (sp?) them'? Which is understandable - they've lost their husband, their life. Then somebody who barely knew him is sobbing uncontrollably? I get that and I think I'd be angry too in the same situation.

YABNU, I cried at the death of the little girl aged 9 Christina-Taylor in Arizona, something just made me cry, poor little child.

I prefer the term emotional tourism but I know lots of people dont like that either. But I have seen it and experienced it. Its obvious, its not like the OP discribes in her post (I wouldnt see her reaction as such), its ostentatious (Sp), look at me, look how careing I am because I am so SAD! The people are always the ones who start the fights at the wake because they feel someone isnt being 'respectful enough' etc.

I know parents who have been distressed by people they barely know turning up and taking over funerals or memorials. I know of girls claiming to be the girlfriend of son's and hanging around weeping and no none knows who the hell they are!

MY DD had about a hundred 'best friends in the world' , girls who I have never met. I cant say it bothers me know but when things are really bad it can be quite distressing.

I think the thing with funerals you think about your loved ones, or at least I do, I think about not having my mum, dad, etc and that makes me cry at funerals, it makes you think that no one lasts forever.

I went to my grandmother's funeral because I thought I should. She didnt like me and was quite unkind to me. She felt very differently about my cousins and her sons and they were upset. So I was shocked at how upset I got, not for her but for them.

But I rarely cry at anything and am the opposite annapolly I feel I have lost something of myself because I find it so hard to cry now.

I'm a teacher and went along to the funeral of one of my tutee's mothers who died of breast cancer.

I had met her only briefly a few years before.

I cried, and it affected me for days after.
The thought that a mother will not be there to see her children grow up is heartbreaking.
The vicar read out a reading that her children had written and it was just beautiful.
They also played Mr Blue Sky by ELO at the end.

I still think about it now - especially when the kids are getting on my nerves and then I remember how lucky I am.

I cried most at a funeral of a friend's dad that I had never met. I was so sad for him and how unfair things like that are for certain families. My friend had a younger brother who was killed in a road accident at 10 (friend was 13) and his dad died suddenly just before his 50th birthday. I thought about my little family and how his mum would have been similar to me and had no clue how her life would be 20 years after being married and having kids.

My friend had a long conversation with me afterwards and was comforted by other people being concerned for him rather than just being upset.

I avoid going to funerals if I possibly can, because they make me cry so much. I really, really can't help it.

I try to analyse why I cry so much. 'Grief porn' is a disgusting and totally offensive phrase, as it implies that it's for the 'satisfaction' of the one who is crying. A kind of hedonism, and implies some kind of enjoyment.

I think, for me, it is undoubtedly empathy. When my brother's FIL died I was really finding it hard to stop crying. I didn't know him that well - but I knew how devastated my SIL was; I also knew that my brother was mourning his death, as he was close to him. And my nephew, who was only 2, had been deprived of his grandfather.

My own mother made a huge thing about how much I had been crying - it was embarrassing - and clearly thought there was something odd about it, because I wasn't that close to him.

If I could stop doing it, I really, truly would. But it's just so unbearably moving.

thefirstMrsDeVere I'm not sure of the circumstances of your daughter's death, I am assuming she was in her teens? I think sometimes for school friends it can become a bit of a circus. It's horrible for the family, but teens tend to get caught up in their own heads and not look at the bigger picture.

The reason I feel able to say that, is having experienced a major event when I was 14. There was a bomb in my town, 2 boys were killed and one attended my school. The media swamped us, we had condolence books sent in from all over the world. We were all distraught. I remember sitting in class with my girl friends and one of my classmates had been a good friend of the victim, we were talking about the events - almost gossiping, but not meant in a bad way at all. The classmate turned around and wiped the floor with us, rightly so. We hadn't meant any harm, we had 'just' been talking about how it was affecting 'us' - selfish teenage girls, wrapped up in ourselves, not thinking for a moment that there were more important people grieving.

YANBU
I am quite an emotional person, I cannot help it, I don't know why I am. something to do with upbringing maybe.
I went to a colleagues daughters funeral within the last 10 years. I didn't know her, she was 23 and had dropped dead in an A&E dept when she was on her way out of that dept with a DVT. They tried to save her but couldn't her mother was with her and was a health professional herself.
I felt very emotional ( but in a quiet way) at her funeral as all I could think was that she was just 23 and I felt so sad for her mum who I had got to know as a colleague and friend.
Everyone is different, we are not the same.
I feel sad seeing the tragedy in Australia, Brazil etc.
Empathy for others I think.

I've felt incredibly sad all week upon hearing about the death of a little girl I have never met. I've corresponded with her mum for the past 3 years as both this girl and my dd are the only known cases of a combination of genetic disorders.

I've felt sad mostly for this poor woman who now feels like she has nothing to live for

But I also feel sad thinking about how this is what we are going to face at some point in the future with our dd. This makes me feel a little bit guilty as I appreciate this loss isn't about me

I've also got upset at family funerals when I've imagined being stood there for my dd's funeral

@ grief porn! As long as it's not faked, it's empathy!

And no, YANBU.

As AMumInScotland said, if you have been to a funeral of some one you loved, then going to the same church or another funeral can bring it all back. You feel how you feel, and no one else has the right to say your feelings are wrong.