I avoided funerals as a young person, for no other reason than a sense of inadequacy around communicating sympathy.  I would like to think that I have grown up a little bit, even if I still struggle to adequately express myself to those closest to the deceased.  Not one to excel at small talk, I would rather serve the tea and coffee, or deliver the eulogy.  Again, I like to think I have matured some, and overcome my own discomfort for the sake of others.   I have also come to appreciate the importance of ritual and traditions, and saying final goodbyes.

I have sat through some long funeral services, and one less than half an hour.  I missed others during Covid lockdowns, but was able to watch online.  In the last three months, I have attended three funerals in person, and am thankful that I was able to be a part of the rituals and traditions that acknowledged the life – and the death, of someone I knew and loved.

Except for Covid limitations, I have never been denied attendance at a funeral.  Have you? As I have discovered, not everyone has a funeral service, and some are ‘family only’.  How would you feel if you never got to say goodbye to someone before they died, and then was denied access to their funeral?  What if there was no funeral at all?  No graveside to visit nor plaque on a wall. Nothing at all, to mark the life and the death of the person gone. How then do people grieve or remember, if there is no event or place for final goodbyes?

Studying pastoral care at Bible College, I had the privilege of a closeup look at a crematorium, a funeral home, and a mortuary. One thing that stood out to me from each of these locations, was the intentional cues and rituals designed to facilitate grief and closure.  For example, at the crematorium there was a little button on the podium, that could be pressed at a significant moment in the service, thus closing a curtain behind the coffin as it disappears for cremation.  It was explained to us that this was just one of several cues or rituals that helped people move along the grief process, as they say a final goodbye to a loved one. 

I understand that we live in a culture that often shuns religious ceremonies and traditions, including funerals held in a church.  Instead I have seen celebrants officiate and services held in a chapel, often adjacent to a crematorium or a funeral home.  I have seen fewer people buried in graveyards and less ashes placed under a plaque; and instead, are scattered at some later date, in a place special to the deceased, and their loved ones. 

It is written in some places that surely the funeral, or the lack of, is the right of the deceased and their close relatives.  After all, a funeral can cost quite a bit of money and the deceased might have requested no fuss. Why not skip the gathering and avoid difficult conversations altogether, and exclude people who haven’t been around the deceased in decades?  But, what about those who don’t get to say their final goodbyes and struggle to relinquish their grief, all because of this lack of tradition?  Why must they find ways to grieve alone, when for centuries our community’s cultural rituals, in funerals, were presumed and known? 

Each funeral I attended recently was as different as the deceased person themselves.   Two funeral services were held in a church and the other in the chapel beside the crematorium.  One was followed by a large wake, another by a potluck lunch, and the other with refreshments over a cuppa.  Each service acknowledged the person’s life and legacy. Guests came from far and wide to support the family, pay their respects and to mourn the loss of the dead. In each case, I appreciated personally as well as for others, that this communal gathering provided various intentional rituals, that offered closure and the opportunity to grieve.  I also found that by reconnecting with some people we had not seen in decades, we were incredibly comforted, as well as nostalgic, and has resulted in reignited old friendships. 

My friend who couldn’t understand her exclusion from a private funeral, will have to find her own way to bring closure and acquit her grief.  If this trend continues, we too might have to find ways in the future to process our grief and loss in private or independent ways, without the communal rites and traditions we take for granted.   Writing a letter, planting a tree, or holding a private memorial are all excellent ways to process grief; but they remain individual. They also miss out on so much more; more that a good old-fashioned funeral provides. 

What you think? Just how important are communal rituals and traditions for saying final goodbyes? 

“Grief is the price we pay for love” – Colin Murray Parkes