Thoughts on grief

[WorkingBling]

I didn't want to put this in bereavement because I think people there are actually living their grief right now. But DH and I have both lost loved ones in the last few weeks and it's made me think.

In the past, someone dying involved complex rituals and traditions. Every culture has them but what they have in common is an acknowledgement of the person who has died and an opportunity for the friends and family to gather, acknowledge their grief and to share the opportunity to say goodbye. Closure, to use an irritatingly modern word.

But now we often seem to be discouraged from embracing these traditions. Before passing, the loved one beseeches family not to wear black or to be sad, but to celebrate their lives. Memorial services or funerals are regularly helpd just for close family or even not at all, particularly if the person isn’t religious.

DH and I are too far away to engage with many of these traditions. But it has made me think about the process of grief.

When someone I cared for, or liked, or respected passes, I want to be able to go to memorial service. I want to stand among others who felt the same way about this person and share that sense of loss and sadness. I want the opportunity to say goodbye in an appropriate environment. Wearing black doesn’t feel depressing to me, but rather offers a physical symbol of the grief that we feel. And, like any other occasion for which we have to dress a certain way, prepares the mind and the emotions for the activities to come.

I don’t see why a memorial service, with people dressed sombrely can’t also be a celebration of a person’s life. I’ve never been to an Irish wake but my understanding is that that’s exactly what it is – bad jokes, ribald toasts and funny or embarrassing stories as well.

So I’m going to tell my family that when I pass, I want the pomp and circumstance. I want them to gather somewhere to say goodbye and I want them to wear clothes that make them think about their loss. Then I want them to go for a slap up meal, with wine flowing, and remember the good times, laugh at my foibles and remind each other why they loved me. And, in due course, when it comes time to say goodbye to my parents or other loved ones, I’m going to hope that we can do the same for them.

[Lookingforfocus]

Rituals definitely help give some structure and public recognition of big life changing events in our lives. I think people often find it hard to acknowledge death these days and grief has been made a private hidden suffering. It's meaningful that the person's life is remembered in a communal way - cathartic.

[AMumInScotland]

I agree to an extent - I like wearing black to a funeral. It feels right to make a point of dressing suitably for something serious and meaningful, not to dress up as if it was a party.

The funeral service is about saying goodbye and acknowledging both the good stuff about their life, and the fact that they are gone and we're going to miss them. It ought to be at least a bit sad, even if you all acknowledge it's part of life's rich tapestry.

My Dad died a couple of years ago. His funeral was a celebration of his life. He'd studied, worked, had hobbies, had children and grandchildren, picked up new hobbies and interests in retirement. He'd had time during his final illness to spend time with loved ones, reminisce, put his affairs in order, let us know he loved us and thought well of us and what we'd all accomplished in our lives.

It was a good life, and a good death, in that it was at an old age and not marked by too much suffering.

But the funeral was still sad, and a time to express grief, before picking ourselves up and getting on with carrying on without him.

When my time comes, I want black, and a hearse, and a procession, and people struggling to sing hymns while the backing tape plays a little too loud, and for everyone to go somewhere after and have a drink and a sausage roll and say nice things about me. Then they can wear bright colours next day and stop being sad.

[thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts]

Part of the problem is that death is no longer a community event. It mostly happens in hospitals or in nursing homes and away from the place where the deceased lived. Death is seen as a medical failure rather than the natural end to a life. We live in a society that values individuals and that becomes very stark at a funeral when the world carries on without narry a flicker of concern when the beloved passes away. We don't live in close knit communities where everyone knew everyone else and the whole village would show its respects at a funeral by closing the curtains or shutting up shop whilst the cortege went by.

Those close knit communities could be a burden as well as a blessing but that everyone knew that you were bereaved without having to be told and that there were conventions that were followed to bridge the liminal time of early bereavement could be helpful. Nowadays everyone seems to expect you to be over the death of a life partner, dear friend or parent in a couple of weeks and get back to the important business of being a consumer to keep the economy going.

Death has become a taboo which is why, I suspect, there is so much emphasis on the celebration of a life at a funeral. I officiate at lots of funerals and there is a good reason why the coffin is there - it is to make sure that the reality of death is faced and that bereavement can begin to move into a new stage. I'm planning to have the reception of the coffin into church the night before my funeral as it gives the family some private time to face the fact that I am really dead and to do that in private rather than with all and sundry around them at the funeral itself. The current fashion for funerals without the coffin as the deceased is cremated privately before the funeral is possibly not good for those struggling to come to terms with bereavement.

Just a few thoughts from the coalface..