Always go to the funeral (2005)
1–10 of 322 posts
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#2I agree with this completely.
A small but important suggested addition: if it's someone who's funeral you would go to, tell that person now what they mean to you. Then they can hear it while they are still alive.
It is not a given that you will have enough time to tell them later.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#3I agree with this completely. A small but important suggested addition: if it's someone who's funeral you would go to, tell that person now what they mean to you. Then they can hear it while they are still alive. It is not a given that you will have enough time to tell them later.
sometimes, not going to the funeral is the message to be said and saying it to them "now" is considered rude. clearly, the message of not attending is being said to others not to the person, but you get the gist
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#4Big life events are always worth a visit if you get invited, and you always learn something from the mix of people who attend. Whether it's a funeral, wedding, baptism, and so on.
Does this person have friends from childhood? Do his friends come from the same place, or all sorts of places? Do they know each other, or does he have a lot of singletons there?
Who considers themselves close family? Second cousins? Or did their cousins not even come?
How well represented are various social classes?
I always find these things super interesting when I go to one of these.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#5Do the right thing even when you really don't want to is a valuable lesson, but I'm not sure I believe that the right thing to do is attend funerals for people who you were not actually close to. It feels extremely insincere.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#6A valid point and a good approach. But it's quite a bad pun when used as a title here on HN - and with the capitalization, too.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#7Wholeheartedly agree with both the nominal and underlying advice here.
Doing the right thing all the time is painful, tedious and can cost you. But doing the wrong thing will cost you too. Both compound.
The literal advice about going to the funeral is about showing up for people who meant something to you. There are only a few special times in your life when you get to see a large chunk of other people's important people:
* graduations
* coming of age ceremonies
* weddings
* funerals
Being there gives you a special chance to know the person better. Just do it.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#8Ecclesiastes 7:4 "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#9I agree with this completely. A small but important suggested addition: if it's someone who's funeral you would go to, tell that person now what they mean to you. Then they can hear it while they are still alive. It is not a given that you will have enough time to tell them later.
sometimes, not going to the funeral is the message to be said and saying it to them "now" is considered rude. clearly, the message of not attending is being said to others not to the person, but you get the gist
The person died, what message can you want to send to a dead person. He/She is dead. He can't hear it. But you can forgive and believe me, feel better about whatever happened that made you want to send a message that would never be received.
Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)
#10Do the right thing even when you really don't want to is a valuable lesson, but I'm not sure I believe that the right thing to do is attend funerals for people who you were not actually close to. It feels extremely insincere.
It's not just whether you were close to the deceased; it's do you know the survivors. I've attended funerals where I never met the deceased but knew a survivor.