We were chatting about funerals today, Mrs H and I. Not that we were feeling gloomy, but we have been
to many funerals over the years and in just over a week we have another to attend. At
our age this is no great surprise, funerals occur fairly regularly now but our
memory of them is surprisingly hazy. Many funeral details we can’t recall at
all even when we organised them.
It is as if we drift through them from a sense of duty and a kind of sombre inattentiveness. A diminished inclination to observe
and remember the day, an underlying inclination to have done with it and move on.
5 comments:
Let's put the fun back into funerals.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/12-bizarre-caskets-and-coffins-from-around-the-world-2015-6/
My wife and I also talk a lot about funerals; as a priest, she conducts a lot of them. Her main points are
1) Crematorium funerals are back-to-back, and crematoria seem to have no staff around. So she just turns up and starts, often having little idea where the buttons for music, lights, and removing the coffin are. As she says, "What could possibly go wrong?!"
2) Preparing a eulogy for the dead person is almost impossible when all you have is an interview with grief-stricken relatives to go on. She refuses to try now, unless she knew the dead person in life.
3) Mourners never complain about funerals, whereas complaints about weddings are common.
4) Funerals are moving away from a public committal which takes place against a common faith, and towards a "celebration" of a person's life. Quirkiness and individuality seem to be our favourite means of confronting death.
Like you I found myself attending frequently at funerals for both immediate family and work colleagues .My overwhelming feeling is that they are all a waste of time and money. I have given strict instructions that when I go in the not too distant future, I am to be put in the cheapest possible box and delivered in a van to the nearest tip.
If he didn't go to mine, I'm not going to his. simple.
Sackers - at my father's funeral we played Laurel and Hardy singing "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine". It went down well but I wouldn't go much further - I prefer to get it over and done with.
Sam - interesting. I'm not sure about quirkiness and individuality, it feels like the kind of thing which builds up and up as fashion takes a hold. Minimalist feels about right to me.
Anon - but the jobsworth at the tip could make a fuss about paperwork creating no end of complications. Or suppose somebody opens the box to see if you have anything worth nicking?
geebeetwo - that's probably the best approach although it can be an opportunity to chat with people you only ever see at funerals.
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