Is no funeral selfish?

[BitchyArriver]

Now, I know the bear pit of AIBU is not the most appropriate place for this. Really it should be in Bereavement but I really wanted the traffic and to enable voting to understand if I’m in the wrong or not.

My DH lost his father yesterday. It was quite a shock but we did know his health wasn’t the best. They had been estranged for years after he walked out on his family when the kids were little and never sent even a birthday card let alone CS.

Despite this they had made up with each other in recent years, seen each other very occasionally and he attended our wedding, sat at front row, in family pictures etc.

I’ve just been told today that there will be no funeral. Apparently his last wishes were to be cremated privately without any mourners. His immediate family (second wife and children) have decided to grant this wish even though they feel strange about it.

AIBU to say that funerals are for the living, and if you’re dead why would you care? I think that a funeral and wake would really help my DH to process this.

I’ve got my hard hat on. I also should have name changed but I think I’ve got zero fucks to give by now.

YABU it was your DFILs choice, and only his DW has any say in it.

YANBU not having a funeral is selfish and takes away the opportunity for people who weren’t at the hospital to say goodbye.

@Pocupineinwaiting if I despised someone why would I go their funeral? If they want a fancy funeral then they can pay for it

The problem imo is that it's a shock to family and friends who don't know that's whats been planned. It's the last thing you can have any say in. I'm on the fence with this one but I know someone who had a parent do this. The other parent knew that was the plan and they are doing the same. It was difficult for their dc as they weren't told until the parent died but now they know what to expect when the time comes and are respectful of their last wishes.

The only thing is that a funeral helps with closure and the start with the grief process and moving on.

I'm not exactly sure what a 'direct cremation' is (I'm in the US) but I assume that's where the funeral director takes the body and you get the urn and ashes back? If that's what FiL wanted, then MiL is correct to follow his wishes.

But if it involves the family escorting the body to the crematorium door (sorry, that sounds blunt) or a brief period to 'say goodbye' somewhere beforehand and they're excluding your DH, then that's cruel.

We aren't having a funeral for our mum (aged 97) when the time comes. All her siblings and their spouses are dead and all our cousins & their children are scattered to the four winds, except one. Her friends are all dead or so ill they couldn't attend. What would the point be? We (my siblings and I, and our one local cousin) are just going to meet at the cemetery for the committal to say a final goodbye. Then we'll probably get pizza or takeaway and go to our cousin's house to reminisce.

If your husband wants and there's still other family around, he could always organize a meal or a get together.

The cost of funerals these days is obscene. I would rather my money was spent on something sensible.

I knew a lovely old lady who donated her body to medical science when she died. It was exactly the kind of choice I would have expected from her.

It did mean though that there was no funeral and as she was estranged from her only child, no memorial service was organised. I would have liked to have been able to go to some kind of ceremony to say goodbye and to show that she mattered to me. It did feel very inadequate to simply be told she had passed by a mutual friend but have no opportunity to do anything else.

I voted YANBU as a funeral helps you with the grieving process. While I did respect it as it was her wish, I do wish my Mum had wanted a funeral. I truly think it would have helped me in the grievring process.

I agree with you Nearlyalmost50. The funerals I've been to have been very moving celebrations of people's lives, mixed with a chance to grieve. People must have been to some awful ones from the sound of it. The only awful ones have been religious ones where the person wasn't religious, and it's given the vicar carte blanche to flog their scriptural and moral thoughts on the captive audience.

Whereas the one led by a humanist celebrant was wonderful. No hymns, some beautiful music, tears, lovely reminiscences and also an opportunity to grieve. Not having a focus for that grief would have been really hard for me and many of the other bereaved people.

I wouldn't expect the bereaved family to have a funeral if they didn't want one, but if they do I do think it's selfish of the deceased person, who won't know anything about it.

The one I helped organise last year was for a woman who was not religious. There was music, but no hymns or singing. A celebrant with a few poems and a lovely bit said by the celebrant.
I have also been to a very religious funeral, but the woman who had died was very devout, so that was very apt for her.
But you have so much choice over what you do.

I do think a memorial service is just a funeral by another name and without the coffin there. I have been to a memorial service which was actually more formal than some of the funerals I have been to.

I have been to one where as part of the immediate family we all had to line up and talk to guests as they were leaving. That is too hard on the family I think. But every other funeral has been everyone comes in and sits down, music, or hymns, poems or readings or memories, and celebrant or priest says something. Everyone leaves and some go for drinks/food afterwards. It also seems standard to have no flowers or very few, and if anyone wants to give donations to give them to a charity. Even the most traditional funeral I went to only had flowers from very immediate family.

Coffins have been cardboard, wicker, wood or pretend wood. The latter is cheapest. Cardboard coffins decorated by family or children add a lovely personal touch.

I think England is very poor at dealing with death anyway. Its almost always after the funeral, thats it. Back to normal. I cannot imagine having to deal with grief and not have that basic ritual and public acknowledgement of the death and people's grief.

I'll c/p what I posted in an almost identical thread. How is it selfish? I think wanting a big service for yourself is selfish. What your FIL wanted (and it is about HIM, not you) is the opposite of selfish.

Besides, it's your wishes about want you want done with your body. If you can't be 'selfish' about that, when can you? Being selfish is not always a bad thing, and you are the one who is being selfish trying to impose your wishes on him. It is his funeral, it is for him. You get to choose what you want with your funeral. You sound very, very selfish and unreasonable.

Funerals where the celebrant (whether a religious figure or not) doesn't know the person tend to be awkward and unhelpful IMO.

Where a person is religious and is a member of their congregation, knows their religious leader personally and takes comfort in the ritual of their religion a religious ceremony seems fitting and the celebrant/ priest/ whoever the leader is will actually know the person they're talking about.

Where people pay a professional funeral celebrant of any religion or none to talk about someone they didn't know in life it's pretty fake and never has the desired impact IMO. It often feels upsetting or somehow wrong and jarring because little things won't be quite in tune with the person who has died.

I'm not of the opinion funerals are always helpful, and I've also been to quite a few. Some people (not everyone by any means, no idea which group are the majority) do need a ritual to process loss though.

Personally I'm of the opinion that when you're dead you no longer really have a say, but if the living can't agree between themselves and the dead person has left explicit written instructions (not "it's what X would have wanted" because people outright lie about that for their own ends) of course those overrule any disagreement.

My dad had a direct cremation. We just got a phone call telling us that it had been done. It felt strange. It has taken me a long time to process that he is dead.

My mum is a bit of a strange soul and didn't want a get together of just her and her children and grandchildren. Us children wouldn't have done it without her.

Now even a few years later I still can't get my head around that he is gone and won't be coming back. I haven't had the closure that I needed.

@TreeTopTim I am sorry to hear that. I can imagine that that is very hard.

It's impractical that the celebrant can always know the person, that is only likely for religious people, but it's not true that a celebrant can't do a good job if they make the effort to find out about them. I was talking about religious services for non-religious people. I was once recommended a vicar for a non-religious person that he didn't know, he came round and wasn't remotely interested in finding out about the person and the same applies to all the other religious services I've been to for anyone where they didn't know the person.

I also think that although your funeral might be about you, it's not for you as you're not really there. It's for the bereaved and I know a number of people that are devasted many years later that they haven't been able to grieve in the way that would help them. It doesn't sound like even the family want this, they're just following the deceased's wishes but if it keeps them stuck in their grief, that's a real shame.

However, if the bereaved family wants a private service, that's of course a different thing, and should be respected.

Where people pay a professional funeral celebrant of any religion or none to talk about someone they didn't know in life it's pretty fake and never has the desired impact IMO.

My dad died last year and a professional secular celebrant led the service (Dad wasn't religious at all). My mum, sister and I had gone to see her beforehand and spent a long time talking about him. She was a great listener and very good at asking the sort of questions that helped her to understand him. The way that she talked about him was amazing. You would have thought that they'd been friends for years.

I'm not planning on having any kind of funeral for myself, but if dd doesn't respect my wishes then I'd hope to get the same sort of service that my dad had.

When my Dad was placed on palliative care I bought the celebrant in to meet him as I felt if he was going to speak on his day then he ought to have met him given the opportunity
He was brilliant and we all chatted for a few hours about it all

You show your respect by actually respecting the dead persons wishes.

Where people pay a professional funeral celebrant of any religion or none to talk about someone they didn't know in life it's pretty fake and never has the desired impact IMO

The humanist celebrant who conducted my dad’s funeral was brilliant. He spent a lot of time listening to us tell stories about him and put together a script for us to approve which summed Dad up to a T.

At my dad's funeral, my brother led the service. You don't need a paid person to do it. It is a choice.

Dying is the hardest thing a person has to do. A person has to grieve for the loss of his or her own life as well as all the people he or she will lose. It's actually selfish to be critical of the choices the dying person makes about this ultimate loss, my dear.

Dying is the hardest thing a person has to do

Since no one ever has come back to report on the experience, this has to be one of the silliest comments ever posted to MN.

Dying can be easy or hard. Watching my young friend dying of cancer I think her dying was hard. But my mother had a brain haemorrhage. Someone was with her, she was chatting, and then a few seconds later she was gone. Dying was easy for her, it was bloody hard for those left behind.

karencantobe that sounds more meaningful, though of course relatives won't always feel up to it especially if a death was unexpected or traumatic or the loved one was young.

I'm glad the celebrants got it right for you 1066vegan and Alsohuman ; it's just been my experience that although they are often good speakers it's usually obvious they didn't know the person who's funeral it is because they say things that are absolutely wrong for the person - factually inaccurate or out of step with the person's world view/ humour/ beliefs. I've always had an odd feeling at funerals where I've known the deceased fairly well and it's been obvious the person standing up talking about them as though they were close has actually never met them. It makes it feel false, like a piece of theatre, at an already sometimes quite disconnected, unreal feeling time. That makes the reality of the situation harder, not easier, to process, for me.

However it's good if it's not that way for other people.

I find I usually process grief better alone, but I'm aware that many people find the ritual helpful.

We used a celebrant who had never met my mum. She was bloody excellent.
Ironically the worst I have seen was the priest of the church my gran had went to for over 30 years.
It isn't about them being a good speaker. It is whether they spend a lot of time beforehand talking to you to find out things, and they should run it by you first what is going to be said. That is especially useful if there are tensions in the family that means innocent things can be misconstrued.

Yes I know many people are not up to taking on the role of a celebrant at a funeral of a parent. But just wanted to point out that anyone can do it. It does not have to be a minister or a paid role. It is simply someone who says a bit about the deceased person and introduces any songs/readings/or poems.