You gotta die sometime.?

Question

My wife gets upset with me when I tell her that I don't want a funeral at all. I would prefer a closed casket (maybe with a photo) available for visitation. Iwouldn't mind friends and family gathering at my house, very informally with food and drinks. Nothing at the cemetary either. I hate funerals and so does everyone else. I have never felt the need to see a dead loved ones corpse in order to gain closure. I thinks funerals are a morbid and and cruel tradition. As far as paying respect to the family that can be done more effectively in the comfortable setting of someones home instead of a funeral home. So what's your opinion on the subject?

Answer 1

Funerals are for the living. They give the people who love you a formal opportunity for closure. Feel free to put your wishes in writing, but do something that will be kind to the people left behind.

Answer 2

I totally agree!
Recently, my fiance's oldest son (J.) - who had lived in another city in our state - died. My fiance, B., is not the strongest and healthiest, either, and I was really concerned about the effect that travelling to that other city and attending a funeral was going to have on him. (He's already survived two major heart attacks, and he was seriously dreading it all, too.)
Of course it rained that day, and that made the drive down there all the more difficult.
When we got there, though, we discovered that J.'s brothers had already had his body cremated and scattered the ashes where J. had wanted them. Instead of the morbid scene B. and I had been dreading, of having to look at the body and then stand around a gravesite in the rain, it was a nice short church service followed by a pot-luck dinner furnished by some of the women from the church, where we got to watch a slide show of pictures of J. and his family and some relatives got up front and told various anectdotes from their lives and experiences with him. B. even managed to get up and tell a story about J.'s love for fishing.
I can't exactly say we had a good time - i don't think such an occasion could EVER be classed as that - but it was far from the emotionally wrenching ordeal we had both dreaded.
J.'s memory was beautifully honored and no one had to endure the cruel misery of a "traditional" funeral. (B. told me afterwards that he didn't think he could have made it through if he'd had to see his son's body.)

Share this with your wife if you want to. You are absolutely right on this matter as far as I am concerned!

Answer 3

Probably you are young. Here's the deal: I worked with this man for 12 years, when he suddenly died. He was famous for busting through a door like Kramer and was a talkative fellow. I did not attend his funeral, for reasons I can not remember now. To this day my mind halfway expects to see him come busting through the door. If I had attended his services, my mind would not go there. As a young person I also thought funerals cruel and unnecessary, but if this were true the tradition would have long been stopped. That's the best I can explain it. The funeral is for you (the living) , and for you to console the dead person's family.

Answer 4

Years ago when my aunt died I remember the trauma of my cousins picking out the coffin, I remember the horrendous cost!
My mother is my aunt's sister, when we left the funeral parlour I turned to my mother and said: " if I die before you do mom, I want you to make damn sure that I'm put in a pine box, and nail the lid shut, no embalming, and throw me in a shallow grave". She gave me a rueful smile. I said something like ...I'm serious mom, the body will be dead I will feel no pain and I don't want anyone making any money on my death it's outrageous! Oh ..I said ...and rent a frigging van from U-Haul to take the cadaver to the cemetery. Mom laughed and promised if that does happen she will see to it. After all she said ..."funerals are for the living, not the dead".
So I have to agree with you my man, the living shouldn't have to pay for our deaths more than once.

Answer 5

I tell my wife to just through me in a pine box and chuck me in a hole. She has different ideas though. I could write down my wishes, but she is going to do what she wants. I respect her, because she's my wife and after I'm gone she can do what she wants.

As far as a funeral goes. I don't care if I get one or not. It's for the my loved ones to decide.

Answer 6

i want to be cremated. no open casket. if my family wants pics, thats okay. if they want a visitation, thats okay too but i get to pick the music and there has to be a bottle of jameson's irish whiskey. i don't really care what they do. i won't be there anyway. funerals are for the living. if i'm lucky enough to be loved to the point that they feel the need to grieve for me,then they can do whatever they want. i'll have already been grateful for having them in my life.

Answer 7

I agree that funerals are extremely depressing and often instill an excessive morbidity into the collective psyche of one's family and friends. Funeral homes are just too creepy for words. Strange dead bodies in every room....*shudders*

It's your life, it's your death, it's your body -- In my opinion, I would say you should have total say in what happens to you after you die. Let's hope it happens later than sooner :o)

Answer 8

maybe you should stop thinking about your dying and funerals and all that c#$%, you got time to live on the planet use it wisely , death will come thats for sure, so why waste precious mind power on it

Answer 9

Friend, You are a gem like me! I think you are talking like a man.