Do you go to the funeral?

At least once in a lifetime, each of us is faced with a situation where we need to decide for ourselves whether to go to a funeral or not. As a rule, this concerns the death not of the closest people, but of colleagues, neighbors, parents of a friend or distant relatives. Seeing off any person becomes not only the final important event of his life path, but also a significant occasion for the meeting of his relatives and friends.

Social norms

In all cultures, there is a rite of passage of a person to the afterlife. Somewhere this is a moment of endless sadness, and somewhere – joy. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was customary to hire mourners for the procession. Nowadays, in Ghana, they dance with a coffin at funerals, and in Taiwan they even invite strippers to the celebration. In some cases, we easily decide whether to go or not. But often we are pressed by the conventions accepted in society, which nevertheless should be taken into account.

Sergey V. (41 years old) shares his opinion on this matter: “There are certain generally accepted social and moral obligations. Close relatives and friends may not understand the absence of a relative or friend at the funeral and interpret such behavior in their own way. That is, burial is also a way to maintain social ties, and if you do not appear at the funeral, others may perceive this extremely negatively.

Why go?

1. Parting. Every life ends in death. And putting an end is always important.
2. Empathy and support. “I went to the funeral to support my mother. Her friend died, and I knew how hard it was both physically and mentally. Of course, this is a sad event, but it was good for me to understand that I helped my mother survive this day, ”writes Irina (46 years old).
3. Awareness of the reality of what happened. It also happens that it is only at a funeral that a person “gets” that his interlocutor, project partner or relative is no longer alive. This is the first step towards acceptance – one of the stages of living with loss.

When not to go?

It’s worth listening to yourself. If there is no need to say goodbye to a person – your acquaintance was formal or not close at all, if there will be mostly strangers at the funeral – you can think about whether it is really necessary to go there and “keep face”. And it happens that you really don’t want to see a well-known person dead and there is a desire to remember him alive. In this case, you can offer help to the family in preparing the wake, if they take place at home. It is hardly worth going if the presence at the funeral for you will be only an unpleasant duty.

“How should I behave?”

Sergey reflects: “The funeral can be compared, oddly enough, with a birthday. Of course, the emotions are completely different, but the motives for making a decision are similar. If this is the funeral of a well-known person and you know that there will be only your own, then the question is not even worth it – you are going. You can not be shy of any emotion, laugh, cry, remember ambiguous stories. But this rarely happens. Basically, this is a mix of friends, colleagues, relatives, that is, people unfamiliar to you. There you will need to wear social masks, choose words, look around to see if anyone is around during your revelations about the deceased. You just don’t know how to behave. True, in the case of funerals there is a certain “advantage”. You can always make a stern face or leave, explaining this with a desire to be sad in loneliness.

Psychotherapist Gurgen Khachaturyan comments: “I have worked with this topic and I can say that sometimes people simply do not know what to do at a funeral. How to behave, what behavior is appropriate, what is not. Hence, perhaps, the simplest answer: if you know how to behave at a funeral, go. If you don’t know, don’t go. In such a situation, ceremonies and rituals are very helpful. Everything has long been invented, you can just do as prescribed.

In general, people go to funerals to give support. And it is not necessarily expressed in appropriate words. The grieving person shares his grief with those who have come. And it’s a little easier to carry. Stories, memories of the departed are always appropriate and correct. You should not think that everyone who comes is obliged to demonstrate some kind of orthodox grief that he does not actually experience.

The main advice – if you go, then experience the feelings that arise in you. And even if there is no sadness, just be there and show the person who is experiencing a heavy loss at this moment that you are with him. Support, hug, take by the hand. All this is necessary, it alleviates his condition.

Should you take children to funerals?

“Children usually take death quite calmly, and if you bring a child to a funeral, nothing terrible will happen. Should I take my child to the funeral of a loved one? My position is to take. And the situation when the death of a significant relative is hidden from him is dishonest. This supposedly “lie for good” leads to the fact that, growing up, the child learns the truth and begins to suspect others of lies and falsehood. Therefore, children can be brought, but they need to be helped to experience all the feelings that arise. And then in adulthood they will retain a calm attitude towards death, ”explains the psychotherapist.