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'm so sorry for your loss OP. Yes it is the crematorium that's the hold up. It's a lot quicker when it's a burial. My dad died over 45 years ago, on a Wednesday, and was buried on the Saturday.

@Klovos Jog on.

Of all the threads, you choose this one.

Warmer countries historically buried their dead quickly, and this tradition has continued.

However the delay in the UK is primarily due to a lack of crematorium and the difficulty of aligning a church service and crematorium slot.

Domeone up thread mentioned that there were only two funerals listed on an afternoon; the rest of the slots will be direct cremations, so all the slots will be used.

Burials can be quicker.

@Bloodybrambles , massive empathy, my mum passed away on January the 30th and it looks like the funeral won’t be until march . I feel in a horrible limbo

I accept, OP, that there has to be the type of funeral that your parent wanted. However, why do you have to go? That's your choice.

Well I would also prefer that my mum didn't have to wait 5 weeks to be buried but unfortunately she wasn't Jewish or Muslim.
So wait we did.

Possibly a hangover from the days before refrigeration !

Huh? How is anybody meant to “plan the funeral ahead?”
It’s not like we get notification of expected passing date

We managed to get a date ten days after my parent died and I remember people being surprised that it was so quick. I agree with those who say they wouldn't want to wait around. The hiatus between the death and the funeral is very stressful, you can't do anything normal and if the person has also been ill for a while that makes it worse.

The length of time between a person dying and their funeral used to be five working days, which was ok.

A friend in America mother died about a week ago...the funeral was yesterday! I was amazed how quickly it was arranged, especially as the mother hadn't been ill beforehand, it was a sudden death.

It does seem to take far too long in the UK.

There's a new system were the death has to be reviewed and signed off by a medical examiner, the difficulty is there is not enough examiner's in certain areas particularly rural, I've been told in briefings Wales is struggling in places.

You can't register a death without this sign off so it's at the very front of the process.

The next problem is not enough crematoriums, they are hugely expensive to build and at present the funeral industry has tried to keep costs down so some companies aren't investing their capital in more crematoriums as they have less margins.

Then don't get me started on the affects direct cremation has whilst I accept people's choice all it will do is force prices up and means less capital investment again so even less spaces.

Having been in the funeral industry for most my life grieving people all over the world since time began has done a ceremony around death and it concerns me that some think that isn't important.

It all adds to a rubbish time for families.

Sorry for your loss OP

@Meandhimtogether
"How come some people have to wait up to 6 weeks.
Yet one of our Jewish friends was buried within 2 days."
The OP says at the beginning, she had to book a crematorium slot, and your post indicates a burial.
Some religions demand a burial within a number of days, and presumably do not require the same number of doctors to sign as one has to for a cremation.
Assuming one has the medical cause of death (MCCD), and then the death certificate, then it would depend on the burial ground availability and religious personnel involved.
At a recent funeral I attended, it took several weeks just to get the death certificate, and although the funeral directors could 'pencil' in a date for the funeral (cremation), it could not be booked until they had the death certificate.

Co-op were in the news a couple of years ago for investing in that water aquamation thing.. I think they're waiting for it to be legalised or rolled out. Not sure what's happened with that.

Ours used to be about a week, Scotland, now can be a month, I’ve no idea why.

Just to add I think the way religious funerals that require quick funerals are being handled and achieved is two fold, often these religions are clustered in a small area in a big city, which means there's more medical examiners available. Plus the medical examiners know the distress it would cause so try to help.

More and more I have really strong objections to people dictating funerals from beyond the grave.

Funerals are a ceremony for the LIVING and they should be the ones who decide what that looks like. And intimately, if they want a funeral at all.

I’m sorry bc or your loss, OP.

An "unattended body disposal" is what is called a direct cremation. 20% of deaths in England now have this, and they are increasingly popular. It is what I want for myself (and for my husband, if I get a choice).
Not everyone feels the same about such things.

Yes but that still needs a building, staff, meeting water regulations etc and what we are seeing is the wider funeral industry are reluctant to invest as they are either feeling the squeeze or worried they are about to.

I'll stop answering though as don't want to highjack the OPs thread.

Lol not in the north where my family's from. Climate is like Wales!

Of course you cannot book a funeral in advance of death. In last two years I have organised three funerals. I had the name of a funeral director knowing that the end was in sight. I also googled what would be expected of me so there were no big surprises. I know I needed assistance with parents estates so already had a solicitor to help with the forms.

Everything was OK bar the local authority. They were completely useless. One of them told me due to the wfh measures now in place for their staff everything had slowed down. One LA employee ended up slagging off her colleague who I couldn’t ever get hold of. Apparently they couldn’t either! The issue was grave ownership (parent had brought the grave plot and the name needed to be changed).

Bar that take a deep breath and just go with it. Don’t get me started on the financial institutions after death though and what they would say to me. Get hold of the Breavement Dept of the bank or institution rather than a call centre. After I cottonened onto that it got easier. Sky in particular were excellent.

We're in a similar situation OP, a death of a family friend was 3 weeks ago and the church funeral and cremation is next week. It feels like an extremely long time and as some family are abroad it's all more complicated and stressful with them going back and forth.

Sorry for your loss and wishing you well in the future.

Haven’t read the full thread but my sister took her life in another country. She was on holiday visiting my dad, it’s where we’re from originally. She died on the 19th, had her autopsy on the 21st, was cremated on the 23rd and her memorial service was on the 25th. It all took less than a week. I’ve never understood why it takes so long here. When my gran died here it was of natural causes and it still took a month for her body to be released to us for her funeral. What is it!? Why?

Yes that a long time. My DM passed away last November and we managed to get something within two weeks. I was surprised it was as quick as it was, but even that was more than long enough. I think we are so used to hearing about a wait of month or more it seems the norm but being in limbo is hard.

I think there is a new water cremation in the pipeline which is less high in carbon foot print

Redditch crematorium heats the local swimming pool, which off sets some of the carbon foot print

Are you implying that there’s some kind of bias that benefits Jewish and Muslim people in this area? Maybe I’ve misunderstood your post but it kind of reads that way.

To be clear, it isn’t the case that services for people of these faiths are being privileged over others. It’s that the actual logistics are different.