To think that were are slowly moving away from the Victorian way of morning and dealing with death?

[HangingBasketCase]

Sorry if this upsets anyone, but having recently suffered a fairly close bereavement it's something that I've noticed. The wearing of black, the maudlin music and hyms played at funerals it's slowly disappearing. I often read the obituaries in my local paper and more and more of the notices announce that the funeral will be a "celebration of life" and ask mourners not to wear black. The more traditional funerals tend to be reserved for the elderly, which is rather odd considering you should be celebrating a long life that's been lived.

Recently a young woman nearby died fairly suddenly and her family asked for bright colours only to be worn at the funeral. She was placed in a wicker coffin and during the service her favourite music was played. Afterwards at the wake pink balloons were let off, one for each year of her life. It seemed like such a lovely way to remember her, despite her only having lived a short life.

AIBU to think that by the time I reach old age the old the old Victorian way of mourning and dealing death will have vanished?

I think as society and public opinion has evolved, people are doing things differently, less focus on religion and things aren't so formulaic - I find overdoing the outwards signs of sack-cloth and ashes/black can make people feel even more depressed after losing a loved one.

My DH died very suddenly but we still managed to pull together the most wonderful, respectful and fitting tribute, with gorgeous music (The Stones Wild Horses was one) - no piss-up, but a nice after-service gathering with quite a few tears - because it was way-before his due time. I treasure the memory of his funeral because it was uplifting and it really celebrated his life in the Humanist non-religious way I know he would have approved of.

I'm tearing the arse out of it right now, and not in the least bit worried who mourns my passing. If they do mourn me I'd rather there wasn't a piss-up but I won't be there to stop them - and I do want some funny stories about me (plenty of material to choose from).

I wore a dark purple to DH's funeral, because I didn't want to feel more depressed and upset than I already was. I would have gone for cerise pink (I did a lot of 'out-of-character' things just because I was railing against the madness that is life), but didn't because I felt it would have been disrespectful to his DDd and DMm.

I agree with Viv in that it is okay to mourn how you want to and how will help you best deal with the death. I don't think that that necessarily has to conflict with how you want your own funeral to be.

I wore hot pink suede heels to my Nana's funeral. I drew a few looks. Eventually someone asked whether there was a reason for them. I smiled and said that I'd been wearing them when I went to say goodbye and she'd told me very earnestly that I must always wear fabulous shoes. When I recounted this her friend welled up, my Nana's love of shoes was well known.

It spread through the wake and acted to remind us of who my Nana truly was. Sure she was a loving family woman but damn she liked her fashion. That was real not disrespectful.

For me the Victorian model of mourning feels prescribed. I personally struggle with the idea that upon death we become "good people." I lost my father at a fairly young age and one of the reasons I watch The Apprentice is because Alan Sugar reminds me of him. My dad did not suffer fools, was supremely arrogant and lacked tact. Black didn't fit. Ostentatious sunflowers the colour of his sports car did. His colourful funeral kept it real. It didn't make it any less serious.

We can't have a funeral in my family without a piss up and a row. My Mum is usually at the forefront of the rows, and over the years we have had:

A huge bust up over someone being given a Catholic funeral when he wasn't Catholic (he wasn't, but his widow was).

A row about who is more important and should travel in which car.

A screaming row because "the wrong hymn" was played.

A row about who was supposed to get Auntie Monica's engagement ring.

Someone unworthy "nicking all the money."

Shall I carry on?

I am leaving my remains to medical science, but I do expect a funeral of sorts. I require lots of sad hymns, wailing and black. I am Victorian to the core.

Our family funerals are usually followed by a piss up funnily enough. It's not my thing personally, but each to their own I suppose.

What is a wake? Is that where people file past an open coffin with the dead on display?

Hell no.

When my kids dad died he had two weeks to plan his funeral. He wanted only his widow to wear black. Everyone wore black! although I did put a norwich city shirt under my boys' jackets and they had the jacket open during the wake.

We cried heaps at the funeral and at the wake we celebrated his short life. I was glad that the mood lightened somewhat as it gave my children a bit of a break from crying. Everyone got drunk and we had a good laugh. After four years of being sad and then the two weeks watching him die we all needed a good laugh. Of course we were sad under it all but for that moment laughter took over the tears.

What I do find sad is how people don't stop for funeral processions. I always put my head down and stop when one passes me. I remember being in the funeral car for my ex and a couple of young people stopped in their tracks and bowed their heads. I always do it but very rarely see it anymore. It touched us all that they showed us that sign of respect.

No, it's where everyone goes to the pub/ someone's house/ hall for food and usually drinks.

In the UK we rarely have open coffins. Never heard of one ever.

waitingforme I also wore hot pink suede heels for my dd's funeral, everybody else wore some pink too (even our 3 week old ds had pink socks). She entered the church to a Disney tune and exited to the euro Disney parade song! Looking back at the photos of the wake, it just looked like a garden party, or how our 5 year old and his friends remember it "Pippas party" (there were about 20 of them roaring round the garden eating plenty of E numbers :)). When it's my time, I'm having exactly the same, no ones going to forget me in a hurry....

I work somewhere where the deaths of any of our members and any funeral details we have for them are announced publicly on Sundays. Usually we have a minute's silence but recently there have been more and more requests for a minute's applause instead.

I find it strange but if it's what the family wants then that's what we do.

My husband died aged 50. The church service was fabulous, funny, uplifting and poignant. The cremation service was utterly harrowing. I have both memories of the day.
I do think though that people expect you to move on too soon. I am 2 and a half years since my husband died and still struggling. Some one asked me a while back if I had a new partner. I could have decked them one.

A wake is the bringing home of the body so that friends and family can say goodbye. I know seeing the body of a loved one is not for everyone, but here in Ireland (generalising but I am sure it is very common) it is an important way to say goodbye.

I could not countenance a funeral of a family member without seeing them at home, it is how I was brought up and it has helped me, and my son, say goodbye.

It is different for others, of course, I wouldn't expect a wake from English relatives unless they wanted it.

No matter the details of my funeral, I would never, ever want to go without a wake.

I agree with admit. Also, this user name is for you and comes with a ready made 'sorry'. It will now disappear and never be seen again.

My DH has made us all promise very solemnly not to have him cremated. I don't understand it myself as I do believe that when you're dead you are well and truly dead but it seems to be important to him. I want absolutely no fuss whatever and if it were at all possible would donate my body to science for them to have some fun with it. I do not want to be buried anywhere and if push comes to shove then I'd want my ashes scattered somewhere that was special to us as a family. They know where that place is but if they choose to ignore me I guess I'll never know!

This is an interesting thread. I've thought about this a lot since DF died very suddenly a few years back.

When I rang the office to tell them he'd died and I wouldn't be back at work for a bit, there followed lots of complicated discussions about how many days I was entitled to, how much leave I had left etc. I understand that this is how it works, but it just felt a bit insensitive.

Equally, when I returned to work, for every person who was lovely and gave me a hug, was another who couldn't look me in the eye or bring themselves to mention it.

I just think that in the West we are really 'bad' at death. People become embarrassed and don't know how to react precisely because we've lost touch with so many of those rites and rituals that were commonly observed when someone died.

Now we all just 'get on with it'. There were so many days in the months after he died that I wished we still observed those customs, such as wearing black when still in mourning, so that people would be aware that I still felt fragile rather than assuming that everything was okay.

I want black horse drawn hearse and an unknown gorgeous mourner.
But afterwards one hell of a party, just would be a shame to miss it myself.

At my sisters funeral we all wore leopard print. Whenever I see it anywhere now I smile.

People mourn in different ways I think. My mother is currently going through a phase of saying she just wants to be put in a cardboard box and taken to the church in the back of my brother in laws ute, blah, blah. I think she's just saying it though because she knows it's a bit upsetting to some of us, and that amuses her. She's like that.

Funerals are warmer, supportive and more personal. My dad died in February and the choosing of the poems, music, photos and flowers was a very important part of the grieving process that helped mum immensely. The traditional gloomy "man that is born of a woman and has a short time to live" type funreral wouldn't have reflected dad's life or our future at all. The saddest part of the day was seeing all the old family and friends, people who we hadn't seen for years , and wishing we had got together when dad was alive to enjoy it.

I think it very much depends whether the death was expected. I have lost friends to cancer and they have played a part in the planning of their own send-off, choosing poems, music, colours etc. That felt right for them. But another very close friend died totally out of the blue last year, aged 41, leaving her children motherless. I wouldn't have felt right turning up in bright colours. Her death was nothing short of tragic, and the formal, high church funeral she had was what was needed in the circumstances.

When my dh died we found his written request for a simple funeral with no religious service followed by a cremation.
I contacted the Humanist Society and they sent us some alternative Orders of Service. There were poems and speeches and he went out to Rachmaninov's piano concerto. It was a day of sadness cobined with relief that his years of gradually worsening suffering were over. He was 44.

Do you think it's because we are exposed to so many different cultures and traditions nowadays We see the best bits of say a Sikh or west African funeral and include them in a Christian ceremony and that could be why the Victorian traditions are 'dying' out?

Unfortunately I attended a west African funeral last year and it was unlike anything I have been to before - and there was an open casket for whoever said do we do this now. It wasn't compulsory to file past, but most did.

Me, I want a cardboard box, black horses with ostrich plumes on their heads and a cremation and scattering of ashes on my favourite place.

I'm curious as to whether the change in funerals is in any way linked to how poor we are these days at dealing with grief?

It's true haunted - we are bad at dealing with grief. I wonder why that is really. I think I'd look very well in widow's black with a mournful look on my face but I'm not terribly good at crying in public - I feel so silly!