Grandad's funeral ceremony

[Blueuggboots]

My grandad has recently died.
He was not religious in any way shape or form and never expressed a desire to be so.
Before he died, he said he wanted 2 songs at his funeral which are hymns which we have adhered to.
When we talked to the celebrant yesterday, my mum (DIL of grandad) announces we were having the Lord's Prayer. When I said no to this, she announced that as a professing Christian, she felt it was right to have this. I pointed out that as my Grandad was not a professing Christian that I didn't feel it was remotely appropriate and that a period of quiet reflection would be better....
AIBU?

MIL has recently said she doesn't want a funeral and DH has been incredibly hurt by this. I really don't think its her call.

Really? I think it’s the one time in your life - or rather after it - that it’s absolutely your call and no one else’s. It’s the one day where you’re the only person who counts. If we don’t even have control over that, what do we have?

But the OP's DGF did not give his family that directive.

He didn’t need to. The op clearly states their grandfather was in no way religious, just happened to like these couple of hymns. That doesn’t equate to ‘ah, he wouldn’t mind a few prayers either I’m sure’. It’s absolutely a case of given an inch and taking a mile for those who want to add more religious aspects to the funeral.

Still you'll be dead. So what your grieving relatives do will not matter a jot to you. It will matter quite a lot to them. Virtually all societies have some kind of ceremony when someone dies and it's an important stage in the grieving process for many.
I'm.not going to go into MIL's slightly bonkers thought process here but she really hasn't thought it through at all.

you'll be dead. So what your grieving relatives do will not matter a jot to you. It will matter quite a lot to them.

If they’re grieving that much they’ll want to say goodbye to me in a way that would mean something to me. Otherwise why bother?

I've reconsidered. The gentleman must have been quite old if his son has been married for 50 years.

Someone of his age specifying which two hymns he wants suggests to me that he is familiar with the traditional, standard funeral format and is expecting that. Two hymns, a eulogy and some prayers. Including the 'Now lettest though thy servant depart in peace' bit. It's like 'you may kiss the bride'. So standard, no one thinks to specify.

I'd guess that he went to a lot of funerals about 20+ years ago, when that would have been the norm.

when my father died we took his ashes to be scattered somewhere that meant a lot to him. However, it meant nothing to me and my sibling and actually we really hated the day, I was still grieving and it was like, why are we here? Never been there in my life before - never been since. Meaningless. Horrible. (Though, to be fair, as he died completely out of the blue, pretty much everything would have been horrible, I guess.)

The dead don't trump the living. If the OP's mother, who clearly loved her FIL very much, would like the Lord's Prayer then she should be allowed to have it, if it will help her in her grief.

I’d actually see the Lord’s Prayer as cultural as well as religious- not sure why really but it is the one prayer than many people can recite even if not church goers, often it is used in schools etc. If you’re having hymns, I don’t think it would kill you to let your mother have the prayer.

It’s sort of like the selection of certain bible readings at church weddings. Corrinthians 13 seems to be the default one for not particularly religious couples.

I agree picklemepopcorn.

I would describe my own father (who is 92) as not in the least bit religious and I was really surprised when I asked him his thoughts on his funeral. He said he just wanted the "usual" format of all the funerals he'd been to.

He knows the basis is religious but for him it is the cultural norm. For him, hymns and prayers are just a part of it. He certainly wouldn't differentiate between the 2 in terms of one being religious and the other not. He was actually surprised to be asked.

Funerals are a compromise. My Dad asked to be cremated. My DSis and I did not like the idea one bit but felt it was his right.
On the other hand, he wanted non-relatives (DSis’s inlaws) excluded from the funeral, and since it would have hurt them a lot, we did not follow that directive. Why hurt the living for the sake of the dead?

I tend to agree with you, OP.

I think I would go with the suggestion upthread about suggesting people could use the quiet contemplation time to pray or to remember in whatever way works best for them.

My MIL had a humanist funeral and cremation. She was a very much lapsed Catholic. Humanist funerals allow for either no religion or a mix of anything and everything as appropriate. My MIL had requested Ave Maria as the only nod to her Catholic upbringing. So we had that, but everything else was non-religious, including the music she used to enjoy.