To hate that funerals take place weeks after the death?

[Bloodybrambles]

I have the funeral of a parent this week. They had organised every part of their funeral and as their death was expected, there wasn’t no postmortem. However, between the funeral directors, the church and the crematorium, the earliest date we could have was just under a month.

As my parent had been ill for quite a few months, I had to put life on hold just incase that I was needed/having to do a trips back to my home town. Also didn’t feel in the mood to be living life normally with everything going on.

Life in this country continues after death, back to work, kids needs to be parented, trips to the bowling alley etc. Can’t say life is completely back to normal but I’ve made peace with them passing and it’s no longer consuming my thoughts constantly. I know I’ll never be 100% back to normal but I feel like I’ve been happy again this last week or so. I’ve been singing along to the radio again.

What I feel like I’m dreading is the funeral. I feel like it’s picking at a wound that’s started to heal. My parent wanted a very traditional funeral, no expense spared, very somber, no ‘celebration of life’ type affair. DH says what they’ve asked for is completely normal, for people to be sad and mourn for them.

I’m just rambling now, but I wish we could have had this in the first week. I’ve already had to make peace to continue waking up everyday for my family. I don’t want to grieve again, especially in a very public, and ceremonial type affair.

I know I have to put on my big girl pants and go. This isn’t about me. But if I could choose to have a 24 hour bug I’d take it.

I guess, for those of us from outside England, is why is there a delay at all? Every other country in the world seems to manage to have funeral within a week,at most, of death.

Its the State supressing Faith pratice.

If I am of faith X and the pratice is I burry family within 1 -2 days and the State decided I need paperwork to carry out the burial why should the States choice to under resource the department issuing the paperwork be my problem?

The coroner could provide but choose not to.

Yes it is. The body is never left alone either and either family friends or volunteers sort with it 24/7 until the funeral

We are Jewish, My dad died at home recently late afternoon on a Thursday. His GP came out and said she would pass the info to the medical examiner 1st thing in the morning. The ME would then notify the registrar who would then issue a certificate to the United Synagogue Burial Society. This process took the whole of the Friday during which my dad remained on his hospital bed in the living room at home.
The undertaker finally arrived just before the Sabbath came in on Friday evening and his Lavoyah (funeral) was held on the Sunday as funerals cannot be held on Saturdays due to the Sabbath.
I can honestly say this was one of the most stressful experiences of my life getting this organised and trying to preserve my dads dignity.
I completely understand why a long wait is also stressful (my DH is not Jewish so I also experienced this when he lost his dad).
The Synagogue is set up to get burials done quickly, but we still have to wait for the officialdom and bureaucracy the same as everyone else before the actual funeral can be arranged.
I have been to Jewish funerals where the person died early in the morning, and the funeral has happened the same afternoon!

One problem is if crematoriums did services to 6-7pm, some people won't like that especially they can't 'switch off' all day. Others got further to travel back home etc.

Or some employers may not pay employees to have bereavement leave if they overhear that they are attending their aunt's funeral at 7pm at the local crem. As they think they can go home, get change and out again. Err no.

I’m with you. The funeral didn’t release me from the limbo of grief so waiting a month didn’t make a difference. I wouldn’t have coped having a funeral 2-3 days later – too shellshocked. I wouldn’t have felt there. Keep seeing references to moving on, getting on with life, a month-long wait meaning you’re out of the mourning period and I can’t relate at all. A month is nothing.

It was the paperwork that held everything up when my father died, not the availability of the crematorium. We couldn’t get an appointment to register the death for about 10 days - the registrar (in a large UK town) only had very limited dates / times they’d book. I don’t know if this is different if someone has religious requirements, but it did feel like complying with the actual law to register within 5 days wasn’t a great concern and technically breaking the law (even though there was NOTHING we could have done about it) was a real additional source of stress that wasn’t needed.

I can only guess it is due to stricter medical checks and the amount of cremations in the UK.
Much of Europe have much higher burial figures than cremations. More churches and more graveyards.

Would it even be allowed? Would the undertakers accept the booking? If you didn't die before the booked date, would you have to pay the fees? Is there a cancellation policy for funerals? So many questions...

How does it work for those cultures who must have a very quick funeral?

No. With my mum I tried to get things set up but they wouldn't do anything.

I think quick burials are mandated within Judaism. Others have said up thread the delays are due to a lack of cremation slots, so I suppose it being a burial, and presumably in a cemetery connected to the synagogue, makes the difference

Following on from earlier comments. I was an administrator at my local church and a man came in to book his mother's funeral. I asked the usual questions including the date of death. He said, "Oh, she's still alive, but should be gone soon".
He was irate when I refused to book a date!

TBF very few employers will give paid leave to attend an Aunts funeral. You may get an hour or so off to attend the service but that's all. I can understand it would be a long day for the immediate family, but perhaps preferable to waiting four weeks.

I had to re-read that to ensure it hadn't said mother in law. 😁

Well I suppose if you come from a faith where a quick burial is required, and your family are also of that faith, then it adds to the distress and pain felt by the bereaved in a very specific way, as they would feel the deceased is effectively being buried outside the faith.
I'm an atheist and happen to think British funerals take far too long, but I don't think this justifies facetious claims of unfairness or discrimination.

I once arranged a funeral where the widower was adamant that he never got out of bed early and he wasn't even doing it for his late wife's funeral so he wanted the cremation to be as late in the day as possible. I pointed out that on the shortest day of the year in Scotland, he would be arriving at the crematorium in the near dark and exiting it in the pitch black; he agreed to have the second last slot.

I have sat down with families before someone has died, in one case with someone who knew they didn't have long, and put together all the details of what kind of service they want and where, along with noting their choice of music, flowers, etc. Nothing was booked but we put the file aside for when it was needed.

Ah yes, thanks, I know lots of the details can be agreed upon on advance, and I believetgis is quite common for terminally ill people. I was referring to the idea that you could book the date of the funeral before the death had taken place.

I was going by your statement about England and its traditions with Australia following them - I was going to funerals 40 years ago which were traditional and they didn't have a long wait after the death, 5-7 days was the normal tradition. Though 40 years ago there weren't 40% of the population over 50 years old which made a difference to the numbers of people dying. For various reason funerals take a long time in England, undertakers have concerns about this fact when taking care of their customers. The reasons vary from getting the death certificate promptly due to staff at register office, to simultaneously organising a vicar or celebrant and the popular times at a crematorium.

One problem is if crematoriums did services to 6-7pm, some people won't like that especially they can't 'switch off' all day. Others got further to travel back home etc.

Saturday funerals in a cremation often cost £500 more than weekday, so costing may also be an issue

Sorry for your loss. I agree it’s hard having such a long wait. It’s almost like you’re in limbo until the funeral. The grieving process starts after you lose the person but the funeral brings it all back up to the surface.

Just had my DSis funeral - 5 weeks after death.

I am drained, emotionally and physically ( had to clear her home) and I could really do with another 5 weeks off work to recover.

It's awful.

Having been in a place where I was helping book funerals you get everyone wants to book the crem between about 11 and 3 or preferably either at 12 or 2 depending on how far people have to travel. So I don't think extending the times would please many people.

But also some people have other expectations like:
the minister to come back from their holiday (or do it on their day off) to do it on the date they want,
the church to be available for the time they want (despite the church being hired out to other people),
to be able to get in several hours (or the night before) to put out anything they want,
the church to provide volunteers to do the catering/steward/musicians (what do you mean the musicians are normally paid; they should do it out of respect for my relative that they've never met) and
the order of service to be prepared and printed out to their exacting standard.

And when you have that you are working a balancing act with diplomacy to try and sort as much as possible without causing distress to the funeral party, but also without upsetting your regular hirers who are needed for finances, and your volunteers who do a heck of a lot for free and you really don't want to turn around and say that they're never doing it again because they feel they've been taken for granted.

So finding a date can be difficult.

Exactly, which is what I was getting at in my earlier post. The more flexible you are, the earlier you'll get your funeral.

The other aspect is the undertakers themselves. Most will only have one hearse, 1 or 2 cars and a fixed number of drivers/assistants. They can't do two funerals at the same time, probably struggle to do two funerals in a day unless there are several hours between them. And the drivers/assistants are often casuals who work between a few different undertakers as they won't be full time permanent staff. All in all, not only do the undertakers have to juggle all external elements of the funerals (vicar, church/crematorium, etc), they have to juggle that against their own internal resources, i.e. hearse, cars, staff, etc.

If the only convenient slot at the crematorium is, say, Monday 15th, and they've already got a funeral booked on Monday 15th at a different place an hour or two before or after, then they clearly can't book the crem slot for you, can they?