I once knew a man with five planets in Scorpio. His mother was also a Scorpio. She loved going to funerals. She’d never miss a one, within a 50 mile radius. She always brought a casserole.
She was church-y (his description). He said she had a funeral to go to most weeks, so these casseroles were sort of unending.
She didn’t have to know you that well to go to your funeral, or even know you at all. She might know your sister or your daughter or your brother. You get the idea. This gal was going to your funeral and that’s just all there was to it!
I thought of this because, satori went to two funerals in a day. I could never have done that. I told her that it may be the right thing to do…but I’d have stayed home. I could not have handled it.
I remember debating this, decades ago. You’re supposed to go pay your respects to the dead. People will judge a person who does not go pay their respects.
I argued on the non-judgmental side, of course. I think people mourn in different ways. You can be at a funeral for show, right? And you can just as easy be at home, grieving deeply.
I’ve seen numerous people over the years, incapacitated by death. We’ve got people who put “funeral potatoes” on Pinterest to make up for them.
How do you feel about going to funerals? Do you want people to go to yours?
I have two planets in the 8th house and i would be sad if people i cared for didn’t attend my funeral but then again i’d be dead so maybe i wouldn’t mind. when someone i care about dies i try to make it to the funeral and sometimes i bring a hot covered dish. Grieving people shouldn’t have to cook.
I try very hard not to attend funerals.
Being in a building with that many emotional people is too much for me.
Although, recently someone I know had a funeral for their mom about 6 weeks after she passsed. It was brilliant. Everyones emotions werent so intense. It was more about celebrating that persons life than a sad, tearful goodbye.
I’ll generally do funerals, it’s the weddings that I try and get out of
Interesting. I’ve never heard anyone say that before.
I feel that way too. I hate weddings.
It’s not that I enjoy going to funerals, it’s more that I feel obligated to do so. The funeral is final, and there won’t be another one for the same person a few years down the line. They are also over fairly quickly, and you are not expected to make small talk with random people.
Weddings – it takes up most of the Saturday, you are stuck at a table with a bunch of people you have nothing in common with, the food is usually crap, you have to get a gift even if you barely know the couple. Then theres a >50% chance a few years later they get divorced and re-marry so you have to attend another one.
Also I am not really interested if two people want to commit to each other, that’s their business.
Ok – so I sound miserable and harsh, the astrology is quite obvious though.
My 7th house is Scorpio, tenanted by south node, Pluto on the dsc opp my sun and moon, Saturn is also in there opp my Mars. Yuck- So ya, hard for me to see what they are celebrating. “I do” – sounds like the door of a cell being slammed shut. For me marriage = doing time. Lol
I don’t like funerals. I never lost a really close person, but when this happens, I won’t go, not because I don’t love them enough. Its just that I love them SO MUCH that this is not how I wanna have them in my memories, in a wooden box, with wool tucked in their noses. I wanna have them in my memories ALIVE.
Well…I lost mom back in April, about a week before Easter. I am still just barely coming out of my grieving stage as I still can’t help but cry miserably when I think of her and how much I miss her. I did NOT attend her funeral.
My opinion is, funerals are for the living, not the dead. It’s a way for some people to express their grief, or share it with others, to get whatever support they may need, etc. I just don’t see the point in it, for ME.
I have no interest in seeing a dead body or an urn that cannot possibly contain the beautiful person I knew. Both are just vessels.
I also have no interest in being around others at that time as half of them don’t even give a shit about the person & are just going for show. That sort of hypocrisy enrages me and I can’t handle it.
I pay my respects to the dead privately, as I do most other things. There’s no need for anyone else to see me wailing and carrying on. I am a very, very private person when I am hurting. (and in most other cases, as well)
I still remember being forced to go to my grandfather’s funeral when I was 14. I really didn’t need that. I gave my kids the option, and they chose to spend that time with me instead of going to the funeral. People need to respect that not everyone grieves the same way, as I got flack for “keeping them home.” Whatever. They’re my kids and old enough to decide for themselves whether or not to go.
Anyway, long story short, I don’t go. I’m not having one. Cremate me & toss my ashes into the sea, please. (Oh, and I hate weddings, too.)
((((Lilly))))
(((Elsa))) thank you…sometimes I forget there are people out there who care.
Your pain is palpable.:(
I am so sorry.
I’m so sorry Lilly.
Thanks, allie…it’s getting better. All in good time, I say.
(((Lilly)))
(((arachne)))
Totally get what you’re saying. (((Lilly))) I hate this phrase but I totally mean it “I’m so sorry about your loss.”
(((Cici)))
Totally agree with what Lilly said. I spoke at my own mother’s funeral when I was 16 years old. I remember standing at the podium looking out over a small sea of people, and thinking about how most of these people either didn’t know her, couldn’t be bothered to show up when she was dying of cancer, or just didn’t spend enough time with her or with is to justify their presence. I thought about how funerals are a numbers game – you show up as a number, and people conclude that the dead were respected in life. I thought about how there were only two people in the whole darn church, outside of family, that I wanted to see – the mom of a friend, who had been looking after me, and at least one doc from the team who had treated her for terminal cancer – one did show, the oldest one with the fewest patients, but he came. Bitchy and judgmental of me? You decide. Oh, natal Moon-Sat tight conjunction in the 8th House, that’s me…
I think it was only natural for you to seek the people who were there for you and your mother. Some people are hoarders of stuff. Other people are hoarders that keep people in their life they don’t need. I’m done with flakes!
I don’t care for funerals (or weddings either). Too much emotion going on and I can’t help but pick it up. I’m alright myself but it’s the other people falling apart and stressed who I don’t want to hold up. Even though they need comfort, it’s like having a bunch of drowning people pull me under.
That is exactly right! Other people’s mourning and intense feelings devastate me for days sometimes. It just hurts so much, it is almost unbearable to feel all their pain. I choose to remember the person as I last saw them. Even when my daughter died, I wouldn’t see her in the casket and so many people told me I would regret it. That was in 2005 and I still don’t. I did of course go to her funeral, but only because I had to. She was not in that box, she was flying free past all her disabilities and no longer in pain. Death to me is a continuous travel and it just means that person has moved on to another realm and I won’t see them anymore.
I understand a person’s personal preference to mourn as they wish. I hate funerals, the whole thing. When my father died we had a memorial service, so we had it at a time when people who wanted to could attend. I dreaded it, with all the emotion and stuff, and I didn’t even want to have it (but I didn’t say that out loud).
Anyway, it ended up being cathartic for me. It seemed to put things in order for me, in my head and emotionally. So, for me personally, and if it is a close person, I guess it is a good thing to have a service of some sort.
I attended 1 funeral in my whole life…I was 7. My catholic friend begged me to go. Mom said ok. I was clueless. To this day (I’m 63), I have had so little death occur in my life…very untypical. Anyway, I went. I walked around observing the whole weird scene. It just did not ring true on some level. My reverie was interrupted as my little friend clutched my arm and said we had to go look inside the casket at her dead aunt. I knew that was all wrong, but she gripped me tighter and dragged me up the platform where we stood on tippy toes to see. I squeezed my eyes shut, but she hissed at me, “You HAVE to look!” When I looked inside, the most awful thing happened! I burst into hysterical laughter. Unstoppable!! The whole thing was hilarious and not at all real. Well, everyone was in shock and I was hustled right out of there through the glaring and indignant crowd.
To this day I still have the same feelings. I politely decline funerals now, of course, knowing I would probably not be able to suppress my hilarity. But even in the occasional time that I thought I should go for the overculture’s sake, no matter how hard I’ve tried, the way is always blocked. So I eventually got the Hint and have let myself off all the hooks and I just follow my Original Knowing….
Man, I just love this story! You went to the wrong funeral!! Your reaction might have been welcomed in a country with less etiquette and more SOUL! I mean, forbid your happiness that this person is at peace! 🙂
Ha! so true!!!
I laughed out loud, tears and all – I mean what the hell? This story got me so curious about your natal chart. You must be one unique individual.. 🙂
Doesn’t bother me one way or another. I grew up in a culture where everyone goes to funerals,kids as well. By the time I was twelve I’d been to about five or six so I take them in my stride. Close family is the hardest of course, but i do think they are cathartic so would always attend the funeral of family members. Neighbours I wouldn’t bother with so much unless there was a particular reason, I’d feel a bit hypocritical. Where I live now everyone in the surrounding area goes to every funeral, which wouldn’t be my way.I’d like to think that those who respected me would attend my own funeral, to bear witness to the life that was.
I had to organise a funeral, that’s including the service. You have to select what you want in it, how edit this and that. It’s a lot of hard work.
What amazed me.. people said… they loved the service and the selection of people I used. There is a form of spectacle involved. Such a show, and people judges each others funerals. Morbid.
But I choose not to go, unless I really know them. That’s it.
I’m a Pisces Sun with one planet and my NN in Scorpio, and an empty 8th house. Like Nick above, I don’t mind going to funerals but will pull out all kinds of excuses and rationalizations to avoid weddings.
During a recent Saturn transit, I considered what I would like done at my funeral if my survivors insist on throwing me one. I’m a musician and you’d expect that they would sing a lot of Bach at my funeral. OK, fine. But the one piece I insist on having performed is “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.” It would get a terrific laugh!
I do not like going to wakes. I don’t like the small talk. I don’t mind going to funerals. The casket is closed and it is easier to detach. I go to pray for the decease’s soul and for the family. I wouldn’t mind people praying for my soul and for my family. I think we need all the prayers we can get.
Something funny.
My husband went along when he was young to the family funeral of his Uncle Jack. He sat in one of the official black cars with his mother, father, brothers and sisters. His mother said, ‘It’s funny to think of Jack not being here any more’. ‘Yes’, said my husband ‘it’s odd to think of Jack in a box’. Whereupon the whole carload of them broke down in hysterical laughing, anyone seeing inside the car would have been totally freaked.
On another note.
A colleague at work had been suffering and battling breast cancer for some time. Her daughter died, and she followed not long after. We were all given leave to go to the funeral. I decided, that although I wanted to pay my respects I would go down to the beach and look at the sea and my and my dog would do that and it would be a good way to remember her and honour her. As we sat on a big rock I saw a flock of birds circle up from the ocean into the sky. I knew she was there somehow. When I saw a copy of the order of service, the poem she had chosen was:
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
That is beautiful, Stargirl. *offers hugs*
I don’t like to go to funerals because I cry so easy, I’m just too sensitive. The absolute worst is the Viewing Visitation, I don’t handle that well whether I’m a part of the family that is grieving or a visitor paying respects. It has given me a migraine more than once.
My mom believes that I should go to 90% more viewings and funerals than I do, but we are not the same human (she’s an Aquarius Sun/Aries Moon), let her go if she wants to. She has finally stopped scolding me about not going.
I forgot to answer the second part of the question. Yes people had better come to my funeral and cry too! 🙂
No, I’m not attending anyone’s funeral and as a matter of fact I wouldn’t want a funeral for my death either. I always say I’d like people to celebrate after I’m dead, drink a few pints of beer and have a lot of sex in my honour.
My cousin died this morning of cancer. He was only 46, I really don’t enjoy large family gatherings. I will go because my 8th house capacity certainly knows the ropes!
I’m sorry, Kaz. How sad. 🙁
My first attendance was as an 8 yr old kid. I thought my job was to go over and talk to “the other side of the family” since no one on “my side” was going to. I put on my Sadgy smile and chatted them up, much to the horror of “my side”. Of note, my mom gave me a book to read about funerals before I went (the way she always handled me w/serious topics – Merc in 4th). I was comfortable with funeral homes since our close family friends ran one (Mars rules my 8th, and it’s in my 3rd) & I would ride my bike over and visit them for cookies and milk.
I have not had many deaths happen in my life, including as a hospital nurse (only 1 on my watch!).
For the most recent one, I attended the celebration of life. We all laughed and shared. His wife later told me that she held it together until I spoke; I shared my Sadgy optimism by quoting a song: “I know that goodbye means nothing at all.” I said it to give her some solace, after his very very sudden death. I still miss him too, and it’s been a year 🙁
My Irish grandmother, a Scorpio, would go to funerals regularly, and CRY!!! This was back in Beantown when I was a kid. I’m close to her age now, when she was doing this. I still love my Nana!
I helped plan the funerals of my parents and my husband and hope I never have to plan another. I’ve told my son I just want to have my body cremated and have a party to celebrate my life. Lots of food, drink, music and memories.
As far as going to funerals, when someone I care about dies I attend.
People put pressure on others to go to these things. I went to my mother’s when I was six. I have a deep respect for the dead (Pluto Scorp 8th), but I don’t think anyone should be forced to go. I mean, horrors! The last funeral I went to was a combined memorial for my aunt and grandfather who died within 2 days of each other. I was quiet, in all black, minding my own business when someone made fun of me for wearing all black (“This isn’t the 70s anymore! Hahaha!”) Someone else piggybacked off them to say, “I knew you were an artist when I saw you in all black!” So, I was learning that funeral behavior can mimic high school with the fashion police and popularity contests (“Who knew the deceased best?”). I was so angry, because I detest people who think there are rules about fashion and try to enforce those rules on others.
I don’t care who shows up at my funeral, but my money/possessions (loaded 2nd house/double Taurus) will definitely go to the right hands, even if that means charity (Aquarius Rising).
I’ve only been to three funerals in my life — one was for a distant relative of my mother’s, when I was a child, and I barely remember it. We went because we were visiting her relatives at the time.
When my brother died we had a funeral, mainly for his friends (my father’s family of origin didn’t bother to attend or send flowers), but it was very hard on all of us. My mother thought funerals were barbaric, and it was in her will that she didn’t want one for herself. I had to call her friends to let them know about her death and to a one they were all upset with me because of it — no words of condolence, nothing.
Upon my father’s death I did arrange a funeral, but no one came except for me and his brother’s stepfamily. They treated the reception afterward like it was a party just for them, laughing and joking around in the corner, and the only words they said to me were “We’re leaving now”. It was a nightmarish experience for me. They took their flowers home with them along with a large quantity of the catered food I’d bought. It might sound terrible, but my father was beyond difficult during his life, had no friends, and I wish I had just had him cremated.
For myself I don’t want a funeral… I plan to donate my body to science and be useful in that way. If there are loved ones in my life at that time, they can choose for themselves whether to have a memorial, but I don’t want to be a burden on anyone ever.
A good friend of mine who is 93 is leaving her body to science, she is a wonderful, uplifting and practical person. Whatever you decide I am sure you won’t be a burden, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with your loved ones passing, it sounds very hard.
I am the moral emotional support Scorpio Moon funeral-goer. I go for my loved ones AND go to a stranger’s funerals only because this dead stranger was very close and important to my close friend and my close friend is in need of all support during such a tough time. I think death is a tragic yet beautiful thing at the same time. The most profounding funerals were that of my maternal grandparents. So much love, so much pain, so much wonderful memories of their lives intertwined with mines spilling out into eternity. Without death, you would not know the incredible beauty of life, human connections, love. I’ve gone to my husband’s (boyfriend at the time) father’s funeral. Never met the man but went to acknowledge the life he had shared with my then boyfriend even though they didn’t have the greatest relationship . I’ve gone to my best friend’s paternal grandmother’s funeral who I also never met. I’ve gone to my elementary school friend’s father’s funeral who I met when I was a teen. Lost count of how many funerals I went to. I desire to go to a funeral as much as I desire to go to a wedding. It’s all life.
What cuspy said! I’m a scorp moon too and in my culture, funerals are as much of a celebration of life as a morbid affair. I sing at funerals, or read, or lead prayers. I order sandwiches and I bring flowers or at least a card with a charitable donation if the family requested it. I’ll go to a funeral to support someone I know well even if I didn’t know the deceased. I certainly don’t go for show, I go to legitimately support the living. That’s what it’s all about. Same as weddings, baptisms, hospital stays – I attend them all. These are important rituals in the lives of people I care about.
“How do you feel about going to funerals?” I feel good about funerals, but it is true that your grieving can’t be measured by your presence at a funeral. As I see it funerals are around the one who died but made by the living, and that makes funerals so unpredictable. What I like is when a funeral is a last gathering of the special energy of the person who died.
“Do you want people to go to yours?” Yes, I do. And I hope they will sing and laugh 🙂
I’m not so fond of funerals. It is a heartache to see people mourn. But there are a lot of peeps who need the idea that their beloved one was much appreciated and they measure this in how big the attendance on the funeral is. So why not give some support for the living?
Personally I didn’t feel any support by the people who came to Dad’s funeral. But I appreciated that they felt like coming. We told only a handful of people that he died and when the ceremony will be, but news spread.
I don’t know if I want anyone to come to my funeral. I don’t think that I’ll have a chance to stop them. I’ll be dead.
To me there are certain things that happen with death and it’s important to stay with the body for a few days. It’s important to see a soul off. At the same time my way might not be how another person can grieve that death and that’s okay. I understand the need for people to gather with others to commemorate; even for someone they didn’t particularly like. The laughing, the inappropriate moments; they all seem part of it to me. I feel humans need ritual; need a container of some sort to feel their feelings in. I don’t think the western format of funeral always meets that need well. The format has lost some connection with the meaning. Personally I think we need more contact; washing and wrapping the body of a loved one for instance. It’s a very loving way to say goodbye.
Yes I pick up a bit too much as well, that needs managing. It feels like all the ghosts attend.
I’ve been to some beautiful commemorations of a death and some pretty ordinary ones. I went to one that changed my life, it was that profound. It was a different culture’s (to mine) way; death is seen as something like a spiritual transition for the whole community. Now doesn’t that just make sense? But you have to have a community unified in some way for that to be possible. It was a very sad death and that ‘ceremony’ transitioned those living, so beautifully. Can’t do it justice here.
I could talk about this subject for hours, it’s very meaningful to me.
Yes I hope those who love me have a process that’s meaningful to them when I die. I”d happily be cremated and sprinkled under a tree or in the sea. That feels restful.
Great thoughts, I agree with all of this.
*sorry if this posts twice. Im not sure what happened the first time I tried*
Recently I found myself walking through a cemetery and feeling absolute peace that I can’t explain. Sometimes I like funerals because it lets me say goodbye with other people who maybe feel what I’m feeling. Other times, when the person is very close to me I hate them because I feel like I’m on display. Its a terrible feeling especially when all I want to do is cry and be ugly and not say a single word to another person. A lot of times at momentous occasions likes weddings and funerals, people just want to attend to say they attended or gossip about others in that circle. Its false and annoying. I hope people come to my funeral but if not, I’ll understand or I’ll be dead and haunt them or cease to care.
I understand the mother in the story because funerals are nice when you aren’t close to the deceased. Its a time to hear all of the most wonderful things about them, to learn and appreciate their life and the impact they had. Maybe she was going for the social aspect. People may be much nicer at funerals. May have better stories. Perhaps she knows that when you’re grieving the best thing a person can do is bring you food because you probably don’t have the strength to think about cooking or eating but you and your family will eventually get hungry.
When my uncle died, I had no one to bring me food and I couldn’t afford to travel to the funeral which happened 2 days before a wedding I was in. Its a nice gesture to grieve with someone if that is truly the intention. I don’t like crowds or being emotional in public but when someone let me cry on their shoulder I collapsed.
Incredible responses to this topic. If a funeral is for somebody I truly will grieve for I will dread going, but I do love to go to Catholic funerals – the ceremony is truly amazing to watch every ritual. An Orthodox funeral is also quite interesting and amazing, but very long.
I always go to funerals if I knew the person fairly well or it was someone very close to a friend or family member. I hate going to funerals, but I do anyway. Worse than a funeral for me is a wake. I go to them too.
I’ve been to quite a few funerals in my life, unfortunately. I go to comfort the people that lost someone. I pray for the person that passed privately. I’ll offer to help in any way I can.
My Saturn/Moon in Scorpio conjunction would not allow me not to go. I must. Still, I don’t think anything less of others who don’t go for whatever reason. Everyone deals with death differently.
Elsa, your blog post reminds me of this movie I saw a long time ago called Harold and Maude http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_and_Maude I don’t know if you ever saw it, but its about a young man fascinated with death and funerals who meets an old woman who lives life to the fullest. Its a very interesting movie if you ever are looking for something new to watch.
Love that film. <3
Me, too. Love that film!
The truth is it depends. My grandad who was 91 in a packed Methodist church, who thought no-one would see him off. A distant acquaintance who walked into the sea, who had an emotional, humanist funeral in an Anglican Church. And my close friend who was cremated in a Scottish landscape with a raging, transforming wake afterwards. I hope I will be remembered and missed. I don’t want to think about the details just yet!
I’m very traditional when it comes to funerals. I go to one if it’s someone I’m close to.
I don’t usually go to funerals b/c most of my extended family live in other towns (my parents moved around a lot when I was in my teens and I haven’t lived in my hometown in over 40 years) but if I do go it is usually a close family member or friend. Yes, I have a friend who is a Scorpio and she goes to a lot more funerals than I do. For instance, she went to our manager’s husband’s funeral and she will drive hours sometimes to go to a great aunt’s funeral, etc. But somebody has to do it so thank God for Scorpios.
Lilly, I am very sorry. I can hear how much pain you’re in. :hug:
I’ve only ever been to one funeral, my father’s, when I was seven years old. That was enough funeral for a lifetime. I remember sitting there and telling myself, ‘Daddy is in that box’ with a sort of uncomprehending wonder.
I think it was fine that I was taken to his funeral and burial. So much of the past is a mystery to me, and if I hadn’t been at these services I might have stayed very prone to the fantasy that he was just away, and someday might come back.
I have had many other people in my life die young, but because their deaths occurred hundreds or thousands of miles away, I just didn’t go to the funerals. I realize now that I just didn’t want to.
*hugs* thank you, Oakmoss
The deacon at my church tells the story of an out of town funeral of a family member he was at. When everything was all done, there was still an old lady in the back (who he didn’t know). He asked her how she had known the deceased. She told him about how she had spent her life serving the Church in some way shape or form, and now, in her old age (and living across the street)being able to attend each and every funeral was all she could do (living alone, no car, very old).
When she died a few years later, the church was full of mourners – representatives of the families that recognized her comfort and kindness in their time of mourning.
It means a lot to those families to have their loved one recognized.
I’ve been to so many funerals my whole life that I’ve never really thought about it.
I like what some of the others had to say about people who go to funerals to “show out.” I remember posting one time about the distaste I felt for the way people use someone’s death as a ploy for attention. I’m not taking about those who lost a best friend, a close family memeber and such. I’m talking about the people who attend the friend of a friend’s cousin’s baby’s daddy’s funeral and posts funeral selfies on Instagram. It’s disgusting.
As for me, I absolutely want people crying and throwing themselves onto my casket (after I’ve lived a long life, of course). Is there any other way for a Leo to step out? 😉
Funny, but I just wrote about this in a comment on FB yesterday. I was posting very old photos of our great-grandparents from Finland/Sweden. Of all my great-grandparents, I was lucky to actually meet one of them – my Great Grandmother, my grandma’s mom. I wrote how attending her funeral in Bakersfield when I was 4 years old was my first and my last funeral. I found the whole thing macabre. Fortunately, my parents were attuned to me and I was not forced to join the line to view the body – though afterwards I asked my brother what she looked like. He replied, ‘a dead cowboy on TV,’ this was in the early 60’s. Later, at the cemetery and knowing dead bodies were under the lawn, I refused to leave the side of the limo and the safe asphalt of the road. There was no way I was going to walk on top of dead people underground. My father was very tender and just stood with me against the car while family viewed the burial. Fortunately, most of our elders since that time have chosen cremation and no memorials (which I sometimes attend and speak at if it was important to the dead relative). In some ways I don’t seek ‘closure’ for they are always with me and I can still ‘hear’ their laughter and their wisdom and feel their love and mostly their ever-shining souls. Julie
(((Lilly))) I am very sorry. ” For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun? Andwhat is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.And whenyou have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.
Kahlil Gibran
May she truly dance
Thank you (((LN)))
I don’t like funeral ‘homes’… yeesh! *shudders* When I was a kid I was forced to lead my grandmother’s funeral procession and I never forgot it. I am extremely resentful- they wanted the youngest kid in front of the coffin. I wasn’t especially close to her, but i was humiliated at the prospect of being the frontispiece of the whole event.
But I love reading about viking funerals, Roman funerals, big pagan flame throwers! When I go I want a big FIRE!
I was destroyed when my mother died – we flew in and missed her by approx 30 minutes. Since I was there, I “had” to go to the funeral although I hated funerals & thought public displays were a waste of time and money, and that because it was not for the deceased but for those left it was somehow insincere. I was so surprised at how lovely, moving, comforting and meaningful it was to me, like being wrapped in a blanket of love. I now go to funerals & I try to convey the same comfort to the people who mourn. I don’t want a funeral for myself but I’m more than willing for my kids to have one for me if they think they’ll be comforted by it.
Funerals feel fake to me, because our way of dealing with death is inauthentic for the most part.
My own funeral, or lack thereof, I believe is none of my business. I have made some provisions, but whoever is left can do what they will with what’s left of me and my life.
I’m a double Scorp, Capricorn Moon. 😛
There was a phase of my life when my mom requested that I attend funerals of her friends/family I did not know well as a representation for her. She moved to NC and could never make it back home to attend herself. The last “stand-in” I hailed a cab, walked in, kneeled at the casket, shook hands of condolence down a procession of people I didn’t know and B-lined it back in the cab.. I have never attended another funeral since.
I do attend funerals for several reasons: To say goodbye ( hopefully their spirit is still close by), to comfort a grieving family and to hear/share stories others may not already have known. For me, it speaks volumes of the persons character who takes the TIME to pay respects, comfort, etc. It is love showing up.
When my 85 year old mother-in-law passed away an old school mate from her grade school showed up and was telling us stories we never heard. The stories were so funny. The grandchildren enjoyed hearing them.
Agree! I never cry at funerals. Well, except my Mom’s. But that was because our adult bonding was such a near miss.
She had a premonition of her death. Two days before her death, we both knew. We sat on her couch holding hands listening to Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller tapes I’d brought her. She and my dad used to go out and trip the light fantastic. This day felt like we touched souls, finally. I would have liked to enjoy this new relationship for awhile, but didn’t. Yet, I should count my blessings for the miracle that happened the last day I saw her.
oops. got off on a tangent ,. .please excuse. My bottom line was supposed to be that I believe people die and simply change into an ethereal form rather than flesh.
I’m with you. I don’t even go to family funerals, it’s morbid and there’s a lot of falsity and hypocrisy to them! I don’t want a vision of someone in a coffin to be my last memory of them and I will grieve in my own time and own way. If some need this for closure then go for it.
I will go to funerals of those whom I was very close to. I feel that they are watching. I have had a couple of great psychics, one who mentioned that the deceased came through and loved what someone did at their funeral. She was very specific. I think our loved ones are there – on the other side of the veil, so I will go. But I don’t want to be put into a box – so I’ll have them cremate me and spread my ashes over a place that was sacred to me.
If the deceased is someone who touched my life in an important way. Yes. It is a way of honoring their life and what they gave me.
Some older people really like funerals for the food that follows. I find those people amusing. In the village churches there is usually a full blown meal in the church basement following the memorial mass. Ye ha. Free food! 😀
If you’ve ever attended a birth, the energy in the room at funerals is the same. A veil is lifted.
I am attracted to change, emotion, motion, and transition. Virgo, Libra rising, Aquarius moon. I always go to funerals. To me every tear is a gift of love. It is a shared experience because we all have to leave the world, and we all lose loved ones. At funerals there is sharing and community and rare affection. People talk about the good things the person did and gloss over their shortcomings. They dress up, wash their cars, act respectable, behave. It’s a ritual and we are sorely short on rituals.
Yes, people say and do stupid things at funerals, as they do other times. But as my daughter always says: People are goofy as fuck, and half the time they don’t even know what they’re doing.
I like the flowers, I like sharing food, I like seeing big men cry. I like the prayers and the way everyone stops in their cars. When my dad died I saw a man on the street corner take off his hat and hold it across his chest. That simple gesture of respect, of tenderness, of acknowledgement of the pain and suffering of those in the procession, gave me hope for us. I like reading about the funeral rituals of ancient people and what they buried them with: flowers, their horses, their slaves, their weapons. How we say goodbye to those we loved says a lot about how we lived.
Yes, exactly…the veil is lifted. There is so much to learn at a funeral. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
when my grandfather died i went to his service, but not the internment. i didn’t want to watch them put a box in the ground. it wasn’t my grandfather.
when my friend shot herself, there was no funeral. we organized a dance event with her swing dancing club and i think that was probably better.
yeh, i’m not fond of funerals, in general, as a way of celebrating the life of the dead. i like the jazz funeral idea. and wakes, sometimes… music always helps.