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Always go to the funeral (2005)

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Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#251

Post by hombre_fatal »

anal_reactor wrote: post #98
hombre_fatal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with social events. All my life, I always get this last second resistance to going, yet I'm always glad I went. The reasons my brain comes up with for why I shouldn't go are just lies. Just go. And take what you can get while the opportunities are still coming.

That's bad advice to always go to social events. I tried to follow it in order to expand my social circle, but I ended up staying in places that sucked, with people I didn't like. I try to dedicate some effort to tell whether I actually want to attend or not, and then follow through. I follow my gut, but never change my mind after making the decision.

I don’t think that’s a counterpoint. That’s just the reality of taking a chance in life. Just go.

It’s like saying it’s bad advice to approach women because of some bad experiences you had. Meanwhile the next woman you meet might be your wife.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#252

Post by maleldil »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #249
seanhunter wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ this. Also, don't allow yourself to be put off by the idea that you don't know what to say or whatever. Just go. If you think it's hard for you it's doubly hard for the person who is dying and noone is visiting them because they don't know what to say. My cousin was in hospital dying of cancer. I spoke to my mum and she said she wasn't sure what to say etc, so she ended up not going. I went. I said to him "hey this…

[flagged]

You have zero context other than what they said. What about withholding judgement about things you know nothing about before saying people are bad? The full story is likely much more complex.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#253

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #128

"By the time I was 16, I had been to five or six funerals" May be an Irish specific thing but I probably had been to 16 by the time I was five or six.

I think I'm the most sheltered person I've ever known. 1 funeral, mid-30s. I'm expecting 1 more regular one when my dad dies, then a horrible one when my brother dies, and then my cohort will be called.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#254

Post by georgebcrawford »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #249
seanhunter wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ this. Also, don't allow yourself to be put off by the idea that you don't know what to say or whatever. Just go. If you think it's hard for you it's doubly hard for the person who is dying and noone is visiting them because they don't know what to say. My cousin was in hospital dying of cancer. I spoke to my mum and she said she wasn't sure what to say etc, so she ended up not going. I went. I said to him "hey this…

[flagged]

That's really harsh. Grief affects people in different ways. It can be overwhelming.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#255

Post by ilamont »

The best arrangement I've witnessed (for family friends from my hometown) was a private funeral for the close family members, followed 6 weeks later by a memorial service in a nice rented space with a slideshow going, drinks, and a general air of a big reunion.

The large amount of time between the two events was better for the family, who didn't feel the same sting of fresh grief. There was no awkwardness, either. Everyone could remember the deceased in a way that she would have appreciated - old memories, laughter, and positivity.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#256

Post by keybored »

> "Always go to the funeral" means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don't feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don't really have to and I definitely don't want to. I'm talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex's uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

This hinges on your level of self-importance.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#257

Post by [deleted] »

cobbaut wrote: post #177

Please visit people when they are still alive. My aunt was alone for the last three years of her live, up to 94 years old. She had almost no visitors, and was not able to go out by herself. I went there about every week, and was always the only visitor. Then came the funeral, with well over 400 people there, and around 200 people at the coffee table after the funeral. And I was like: Where the hell were you guys the…

[deleted]

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#258

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

smeej wrote: post #129
blahedo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister and I were talking about this recently (at a funeral in our family). We're in our 40s, and people older than us had largely been to a dozen funerals or more by their teenage years, while people younger than us often went to their first in their 20s or later (or perhaps when their own parents or grandparents died and to no others). We have not-entirely-negative memories of growing up going to funerals, becau…

I was forbidden from going to my great-grandmother's funeral with my parents even though I was 11 and an extremely well-disciplined child. "We want you to remember her as she lived, not as she died" was the reason given at the time, but leaving me out of the event where people were remembering her as she lived didn't make sense to me. When my grandfather died when I was 15, not only wasn't I allowed to go, but I had…

Okay, same here. It's not like I'm cutting people off because I'm a millennial.

My parents are / were just very distant from their families, didn't make much effort to tie their children into their adult social networks, etc.

I went to the only funeral I was ever invited to lol.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#259

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

pessimizer wrote: post #195
wvlia5 wrote: post #113

Losing relationships to death feels strangely not bad to me. Losing relationships for other reasons that shouldn't happen, like fights, feels bad. It's like eating a cake. You eat and at some point there will be no more cake, and you can rest content. But if the cake falls to the floor while you are eating, it's sad.

Be careful, or they'll lock you up. The appropriate reaction to death has been determined, and deviations are considered at best a form of mental illness, and at worst a form of terrorism. The appropriate reaction is the wailing and gnashing of teeth, an enormous amount of discussion, imitating as closely as possible the dress and decor of previous death gatherings that you have references to, varnishing, buttressing…

The appropriate response is certainly not to make fun of people online, and yet here we stand.

Re: Always go to the funeral (2005)

#260

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

wvlia5 wrote: post #113

Losing relationships to death feels strangely not bad to me. Losing relationships for other reasons that shouldn't happen, like fights, feels bad. It's like eating a cake. You eat and at some point there will be no more cake, and you can rest content. But if the cake falls to the floor while you are eating, it's sad.

Some people are just more accepting and more living-in-the-moment types.

As for me, I could always use more cake. I have high expectations!

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