To wish more formal mourning rituals were still observed in society?

[Celia24]

I suppose this might have been class related (not sure) but the idea of wearing black for a period of time and everyone knowing it was due to a period of mourning.

With fresh bereavements in the past I’ve struggled with people being happy go lucky during periods of grief.

currently I told a manager I am on leave for the week and she replied ‘oh nice, I’m on holiday soon too.’ This manager has been piling the work on too and I dread her asking how my holiday was when I return or expecting me to be rejuvenated. Not just her, but others who see leave=holiday. I don’t need everyone to know my business but there’s no way I’d be replying ‘good thanks!’ either.

I think deciding if you do something to show something to others they will have to react the way you have decided or you will think they are in the wrong when they have actually sone anything

so a person decides to wear black, for example, so they have decided this mean they want others to treat them differently and if they dont get the treatment that makes the other person wrong

it has been said before, people are not something you program they will only react to you how they want too

People can only control how they think and feel themselves not how others are

Grief is personal and should be handled the way someone knows how themselves, it is not something to put on anyone else

Sorry OP but it’s beyond mental to not ask someone if they had a nice time off just in case they went to a funeral. And grieving can be hard, I’ve lost a parent, but it’s really not normal to want everyone to be morose around you.

I think a big part of the problem is being terrified to talk about death. We need to stop treating death like it’s unnatural or offensive. To not even say “Unfortunately I’ll be at a funeral” or similar for some reason makes people feel awkward and people need to break that cycle by talking about it

OP, bereavement leave for a week is extremely generous. I'm sorry for your loss but if everyone assumes you're on holiday and you want them to know you're on bereavement leave you just need to tell them.
And no one is stopping you from wearing black. If I knew someone who had been bereaved and they wore black for weeks I would take that as a sign to ensure sensitivity around them.

There's often no respect for people's feelings who are in bereavement. Of course, it's not universal but it is all too common.

Funeral in the morning...so you'll be back to work in the afternoon...yeah?

Funeral...tut...what another one?!

Funeral...do you really need to go...you weren't that close to them/it was only your cousin/friend/dog/cat not your baby.

It's all to easy to be eye rollingly so-what when it's not you who is grieving.

The soldier on no-matter-what and do it with a smile mentality in this country leaves little room for human emotion.

I'd say that the UK is generally much more generous than most places, and the fact that it is rather accepted to get signed off for bereavement is a great thing. In California we get 5 paid days for immediate family - which means that most of us are going back to work long before we are ready to face anyone, never mind discussing it with any but those closest to you.

You're clearly bowled over by your bereavement. I'm sorry

I think perhaps you've settled on this idea of symbolic grief as though it could take away some of the burden you're feeling. It wouldn't, I'm afraid. You just have to let it take its time.

Please don't feel you must 'spare' other people. They'll spare themselves if they need to! When my father died, I took a week's leave and everyone was really lovely when I went back to work. Even my clients were, actually: one in particular gave some valuable advice.

Death is a part of all lives. You don't need to hide that it's recently become part of yours.

So work places can afford people to have as much time as they want off anytime they feel like it, paid or not?

people want time off for funerals, exams, their child is sick or has something on at school, they need mental health days, doctors appointments where can the line be drawn that is acceptable?

My friend shaved his head when his husband died. He said he wanted an outward sign of his inner pain. I think it's a common feeling.

Required rituals could be quite constraining I imagine.

An issue now is toxic positivity. People don't wait to see how the other person is before projecting (often fake) cheerfulness onto them.

What we need is more honesty, understanding and acceptance all round.

Sorry for your loss

You could wear a black armband.

Everyone has their own ways of dealing with grief. Some people don't want to tell others that someone close them has died, because they don't want the floods of sympathy, or "you'll get over it". It is a shame that we as a society struggle to talk about death. A close relative of mine specified for her partner's funeral "no dark suits - wear colours, please". She also said that something she saw happen to other people who lost their partners is that their friends avoided them, because they weren't sure how to behave around them. Fortunately, this did not happen to my relative.

Prisoners are usually allowed to attend funerals of their loved ones (with supervision), so we haven't completely lost sight of the importance of mourning. It was especially cruel that people could not have proper funerals in 2020.

Important point. The more strongly embedded mourning rituals are, the more likely it is that people will be policed into observing them. We all know who's going to be most likely to experience any downsides for not doing it 'properly'.

Even when more formal displays of mourning existed years back, Workplaces wouldn't generally give you much time off even then.

It’s going to vary per person. For you, it sounds like you just bury it, so you have to process it later. For me, enforced mourning sounds horrific.

Kindly, the issue here appears to be that you’re trying to cope with this as I would - hiding it, not being open about it, but also want people to know and empathise with you. And that’s fine, but you do have to tell them, in that case. Most people will care, and they may well surprise you.

Why are people so very hostile to OP even asking the question? I think its a good one to ask. she isn’t wrong to point to the ways the very privacy that we enjoy in modern society means a loss of shared grief or a community response to individual loss.

The UK is, generally speaking, quite hostile to displays or reminders of loss and grief. That’s why the hysterical outpourings of gifts and glurge and sentiment at Princess Di’s death was so shocking. And now so disavowed.

I think a discreet arm band or sign of mourning would be useful. Helpful in that it would allow some ceremony of recognition of loss and grief for a set period.

No Man Is An Island

No man is an island`
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of they friends`s or of thine own were.

Any man`s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

Agreed.

Why are people so very hostile to OP even asking the question?

I don't think people are being hostile. People putting forward their own opinions, on a discussion thread, is not 'being hostile'.

I have often thought wearing mourning bands was not a bad idea. Perhaps only in a wish to way than a have to like they uses to. However I certainly had days after loved ones had died where I was more fragile.

We will have to agree to disagree then. Posters have, in my opinion, been really hostile to OP and accused her of a kind if hypocrisy (a special horror gotcha on mumsnet)?for both being private and seeming to want some social special treatment for her mourning. They have also implied she got special treatment/undeserved/costly treatment by being allowed to take compassionate leave. IIRC there was a flurry of race to the bottom attacks on OP for having wistful expectations of humane or compassionate treatment by coworkers or her organization.

I don't read any like that. Having a week off for bereavement is fair unless we are talking about a child. Most adults know that the normal running order of things is that we bury our parents.

This stood out to me. I’ve always been fascinated by funeral rites and I’ve read extensively about how they take place in different cultures and across time periods (the Victorians were ace at it!). But when it came my turn to deal with a close death, I didn’t want any of it. I’m deeply private, and I hate public displays. I was constantly told how I should be feeling by other people, and I really didn’t feel the way they did.

I think rites and rituals have a place. Possibly are even helpful for the majority of people. But there are certainly those of us who are repelled by the idea of prescriptive bereavement. I wonder if it’s related to the complexity of the relationship with the person who has died.

I could not think of anything I want less. Box and burn for me.

Me too, quick humanist service at the crem, through the curtain and my friends and family off down the pub to get pissed.

So people should just know because you're wearing black and booked a week off? People wear black all the time it's never been an only for funerals colour ...unless you wear a veil.
Why wouldn't you just say I'm on leave for a bereavement?

I really don't get the whole happy celebration of life theme that is increasingly popular at funerals.

When I shuffle off I want really really sad depressing mournful music at my funeral, everyone dressed in black and if everyone isn't blubbering their eyes out at the end then it's been a bit of a crap funeral really 😀