GRIEVING; PART 2; THE FUNERAL

 

All religious communities ( Christian and other religions) have worked out the rituals of death quite well. Now, the religious rituals speak the meaning, purpose and destination of death. 

 

Here is where the ritual is so powerful. You may not know the meaning of the prayers, readings or songs, but if you do the ritual correctly it will carry you through this dark event. The rituals have power to carry us along;  even if we do not actually plug into their meaning. Think of the rituals of dying as a river: it flows at its own speed and carries many things along with its daily flow.

 

The funeral is never a one-hour event in a church or the funeral home. The funeral embraces all the people who have come to support your family, the stories they tell, the food and coffee they share together. It is in the memories shared and treasured. All the telephone calls from people you worked with years ago are part of the funeral. The funeral is a three to five day event. 

 

Always think of the funeral time as: it is the time to place the departed where they need to be and to move the living to where they need to go.

 

You must embrace the pain and the loss. Feel the anger, the frustration and the incompleteness with the death of your loved one. The purpose of the funeral time is always for the living. We embrace the pain, share the tears and then we must move back into life. Now, it is time to go home and feed your kids!

 

There are many people who leave clear instructions: no funeral! We say from long experience (generations of experience): Don’t ever do that! You handcuff your family from entering the space to grieve, to share and support one another. The funeral time is always for the living! We the living need the space to grieve.

 

If your father leaves instruction that there is to be no funeral, politely say, “We will respect his command.” But he did not say that we cannot have a barbeque in his memory. He did not say that we could not get together over the barbeque and remember him and share our appreciation for his life. A barbeque may not be a formal funeral, but it is a healthy time for grieving and sharing his memory. 

 

There are many different ways we can mark the passing of our loved ones, but it is always the need we the living have to ritualize and make real this passing. Many persons of this generation have had very little experience with the rituals of dying but we know that the rituals are powerful and can carry the people who have so little meaning in death through this very painful time.