Elderly Father insists no funeral

[Lesr98]

He says it’s a waste of money and so we’ve found somewhere that plant a tree in a love one’s memory instead. This is fine but I was thinking if someone could say a few words, talk about him, his life, etc.

Is this a celebrant? Or do they only go to crematoriums? There won’t be that many of us but thought it nice to celebrate his life. Has anyone done this?

I’ve not had personal experience, but I’ve known a family where the father requested no funeral, no wake, no get together, no dinner to send him off, and he was such a strong personality the family didn’t feel they could challenge it. They were so bereft at having no way of marking his passing, it was distressing to see how sad it all was. His wife would have liked an informal wake if not a formal funeral. They just tidied up and plodded on.
I did think it was a cruel request on his part. It is an opportunity to express support for the grieving families left behind.

We attended a funeral with a celebrant recently. Suffice it to say that although I’m not remotely religious I said to dh afterwards, don’t ever organise a funeral like that for me! Give me a good old CofE vicar and a few nice hymns any day!
The bloke wore the most hideous lurid suit and the way he spoke - I don’t mean his accent - was cringe-making. Sort of fake over familiar and waffly-gushing over someone he’d never met. I’m sure she’d have been appalled.

Just to add, an elderly atheist relative of dh had requested no funeral service, though he was cremated. There were only about 6 of us - we took wine, glasses and some nibbles into the crem chapel and had a little fond reminiscences party there, with his coffin on its stand nearby.

Crem staff were fine with it and the family all thought he’d have approved thoroughly.

Like in any job, some are better at it than others. The celebrant who did DH's was brilliant. He only asked me handful of questions and managed to speak warmly as if he'd really got to the soul of the man.

The vicar who did my DGM's was awful. Tried to talk her about part of the church family, but didn't know her as she wasn't able to attend in her later years and had clearly made no attempt to find anything out.

Think celebrations of life when the nearest and dearest have had a bit of time to adjust are definitely preferable.

However, the wedding/funeral industry has spotted this as a new revenue stream and reworked wedding tat is being increasingly marketed. We stayed well away from the COL table favours and the like but it would be easy to be emotionally blackmailed into it becoming very expensive to mark a loved one's passing.

Losing someone close is hard and lots of people struggle to cope, sometimes for years afterwards. The trouble with leaving strict instructions not to do anything at all is that those left behind are damned if they do and damned if they don't. So the choice is struggle with your mental health with feelings of guilt for not following instructions, or struggle with your mental health for following instructions that don't allow you to grieve properly. I find it hard to understand why anyone would want to leave that as their legacy to people they supposedly love.

I’ve been to lots of funerals with celebrants who were amazing - weird that you’d tar them all with one brush 🤷‍♀️.

The worst funerals I’ve ever been to were Catholic ones - I’ve been to two and they were absolutely identical, no reflection of the deceased at all.

My dad had a direct cremation - I do get the appeal but it was hard not to have a proper goodbye 😢

I can’t imagine going against someone’s specific funeral wishes (except for the kind of practical reasons a couple of posters have mentioned). It’s part of them and who they are and a last and final respect they should have. It just feels so disrespectful to go against that. People can choose how they wish to remember someone, of course that is up to them. However if someone decided to deliberately go against my specific wishes for my funeral - I just find the idea incomprehensible. I couldn’t do that to someone I cared about, even someone I didn’t care about.

We had an unaccompanied cremation for my dad (you are told afterwards when it has been done and where). Shortly afterwards on his birthday, we gathered as a family to celebrate his life. I made his favourite meal and I put together a big display of photos of him and we had a few of his prized possessions about. Over the meal , each of us talked about a favourite memory and we toasted him. We collected his ashes and they will be scattered with my mum's at a place where we all have very happy memories. It was just perfect.