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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to technically gatecrash a funeral?

71 replies

RainbowBodyDouble · 22/10/2015 16:17

I'm a bit at my Aunt for saying I'm morbid and insensitive to sit in a funeral for a stranger.

Long story shorter is....

I have at least ten separate major family hurdles all at once so I escaped from the house, popped to the cemetery to visit my brother's headstone, noticed a very small funeral starting and sat in on it.
I initially thought it was for someone who I vaguely knew but it wasn't, I didn't leave though I stayed because the service was nice and it was just nice to hear happy stories.

So is my Aunt right or would it be the height of rudeness to just wander off out again?

OP posts:

OnlyHereForTheCamping · 22/10/2015 18:08

In ireland, there is a competitive spirit over how big a funeral is 'how many cars were there?' Etc

Qwebec · 22/10/2015 18:13

I once attended a funeral of someone I did not know. A famous choir was going to sing and a few other people attended for the music. There was a seperate place so we could attend with out being seen by the family.
I cried my eyes out, the eulogies were so touching.

Now that I am older and wiser I would not do it again, at the time I figured if my friends went it was ok to go.

lorelei9 · 22/10/2015 18:14

Dinosaur - that's shocking, how horrible. And tbh a very good reason why I think the OP was being U!

Owllady - I think there's a big difference between popping into a stranger's funeral randomly and going along because you know of them in some way, even if remote.

My parents are the sort who know 1000s of people many horrible and I dread the thought of dealing with those people, never mind flipping strangers. Left to myself I'd have totally private funerals for both of them, but they wouldn't like that - they are the sorts of people who would be happy to have the young lad who delivered their paper in 1987. (well, obvs he's not a young lad now!)

DinosaursRoar · 22/10/2015 18:18

Actually, this thread's got me thinking morbidly - I have several 'mum friends' that I see at toddler groups, school run etc who I've got closer too over the years, but DH doesn't know, if I dropped dead tonight, there's a good chance there'd be quite a few people he wouldn't recognise at my funeral, unless he made it 'invitation only'.

Similarly, I know the names, but wouldn't recognise a lot of his colleagues, including his boss, and would assume people from his office would come along to his funeral if he dropped dead. There's also a few of his cycling club friends I hear about but haven't met.

OP - it's more than likely that the family, if they spotted you, just assumed you were a colleague or old friend of the deceased they didn't know/recognise.

DinosaursRoar · 22/10/2015 18:26

lorelei - to be fair, I think they did us a service, in the end, once we'd got over the sheer brass neck, my Great Aunts started laughing and joking about the piece of her mind "Our Irene would have given them". It was a very sad day, but just a moment of hilarity when we realised what they'd done.

Are your parents also the type to expect you to remember this 1000 random people and be interested in their new kitchen extension, or that they've got to wear glasses now or that their DCs are getting married/divorced/buying a puppy? MIL funeral will be standing room only if all the people she regularly updates us about turn up.

Sansoora · 22/10/2015 18:29

and people who may never have actually met the dead person will attend the funeral because they want to support the deceased's son-in-law who is a colleague/ neighbour/local shopkeeper/married to a friend of theirs. And a small funeral would be seen as a pitiable thing, neglectful rather than not intruding.

Yes. Its the same here in the ME. You see a crowd outside a Mosque and its not prayer time, or a house, you just go in because its probably a funeral. It matters not a jot that you don't know the person. Then when the body is being taken to the graveyard everyone in the procession, men only, are given the chance to carry the deceased. The people up front carry the bier then retreat to the back of the procession after handing over the bier to the next lot of mourners. Its like a big conveyer belt. My son and his brother have been out digging graves since they were about 8. They'd hear someone in the neighbourhood had died and they'd be round to the graveyard like a shot. Even at that age they knew they're were certain respects that should be given.

Blodss · 22/10/2015 18:32

I am pretty sure you can have a private funeral.

Viviennemary · 22/10/2015 18:34

I think you did the right thing in not leaving when you realised you didn't know the person after all. It would have been a bit rude to have left after the service had started.

pinechesterdrawers · 22/10/2015 18:35

i find it a bit strange but not offensive and def better than to leave mid service.

Glad you found comfort in your brother's grave.

my dad died in the summer and we had a buffet at the church hall after the burial. a man came in to the hall, started off looking a bit red eyed and then cried like a child. we listened to him for about 20 minutes in total and then asked the funeral directors to gently usher him out.

lorelei9 · 22/10/2015 18:36

Dinosaur, my parents won't but I just hate the idea of all those people when I'll be in a state. Just have to drink a lot I suppose. Tbh all the funerals I've been to, I've had to put my "show face" on. To some extent, that's the nature of the beast with funerals I guess.

thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts · 22/10/2015 18:57

I've led a lot of funerals and there are always people who turn up on the day that the chief mourner(s) didn't expect and doesn't know. The most dramatic I've been involved with was when the family ordered 100 orders of service and 350 odd people rocked up. It took ages to get them out of the church and we nearly missed our crem slot.

As long as you don't stand up and deliver an unexpected eulogy or rush to the graveside, throw in a rose onto the coffin and sob 'love you always Mavis'* no one will notice.

*name changed but this did happen to me - still don't know who he was.

Original poster

RainbowBodyDouble · 22/10/2015 19:01

Mawkish That's the exact word my Aunt used

I didn't mean to imply I enjoyed the funeral more the fact that I ended up glad to have stayed and heard the stories.

If that makes any more sense thanks for the condolences for my DB, he died a while ago but he has an anniversary coming up so I have to check it's all tidy and looking smart.

OP posts:

Original poster

RainbowBodyDouble · 22/10/2015 19:05

Greenheart I am glad I skipped giving a speech

OP posts:

Owllady · 22/10/2015 19:16

Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Nothing you have posted makes you sound mawkish x

limitedperiodonly · 22/10/2015 19:59

I will carry my anger to my lonely grave that at my mother's funeral there were only nine mourners because my sister didn't want 'all and sundry' to attend.

My mother could have easily packed the church and had screens set up in the yard for the overspill with her 'all and sundry' or as the normal amongst us call them: her friends.

ragged · 22/10/2015 20:10

:) @ OnlyHere.
As long as you pay your respects, I don't see anything wrong with what OP did.

Crabbitface · 22/10/2015 20:22

I often go to funerals to support a friend when someone close to them had died. I have probably been a face that wasn't recognised. My feelings are that funerals should be a celebration of and a thanksgiving for the person who died and the more people there to hear their stories and give thanks for their life the better. No life or death passes without influencing others and in this case the person who's funeral you inadvertently stumbled upon has influenced your life by giving you a moment of sanctuary at a difficult time. I think that's lovely and it would make me smile if it happened at my funeral.

BlueJug · 22/10/2015 20:25

It's fine - and certainly used to be perfectly normal. You were on the spot, you were respectful. It's fine.

BlueJug · 22/10/2015 20:26

It still is normal - I meant it used to be what people did,especially in a small town

StarkyTheDirewolf · 22/10/2015 20:41

I've probably been to between 10-15 funerals this year, only one of those i was immediate family to, the rest I didn't know. I press the button on the music for my DM (the vicar). I'd hate to think the family of the deceased would think "who's she sat there?" (As I sit right at the front, and you can't really see the music system, so I probably look like a spare part.)

EBearhug · 22/10/2015 20:53

I will carry my anger to my lonely grave that at my mother's funeral there were only nine mourners because my sister didn't want 'all and sundry' to attend.

I was only 11 when my grandfather died, but looking back, I think it was absolutely terrible that my grandmother insisted it was only for her, their children and grandchildren - not his sisters or any wider family or friends, yet he'd known so many people over the years, and was well-respected. It was my first funeral, and even then I thought it would have been far better to have lots more people, especially for the hymns.

My parents' funerals, the church was packed out each time. There were loads of people I didn't know - I wasn't involved with all bits of their lives, and while I had met people they'd worked with, been to gardening club with/swimming/evening classes and so on, I hadn't met all of them, nor many of them for long enough to be able to remember them again. There were also people I hadn't seen since my childhood, and didn't recognise them to look at, though I knew the names. If we had a few extras in the back, I wouldn't have known, nor cared - as has been mentioned upthread, it is what you do in a small town. In any case, our parents don't belong to just us, they were part of all those other people's lives as well, and I felt quite proud that they could both fill a church, that people wanted to pay their respects and say goodbye.

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