How important is attending the funeral of a loved one/relative to you?

Funerals are more about closure for me. It helps the family members put the facts into place. It shows more about how I cared about the individual and their family. Nothing to do with religion for me.

I do the funeral for the sake of the living, but recently I missed the memorial of my cousin in order to spend quality time with his family a week later. It involved some expensive travel, so I made a judgement call on that. The family understood and appreciated the time.
For most of the people I know a funeral is about celebration, comfort and closure, rarely religion.

As @JilltheTooth said, funerals are for the living.

It does not matter how close you were to the deceased, nor does your personal comfort level with the whole funeral thing. You attend funerals to show your support for the friends and family that you still share the world of the living with. While I don’t think it matters one way or another to the deceased, to choose not to attend is somewhat of a snub to the surviving friends and family.

Not important at all.

Funerals are for the living. Sometimes I feel like funerals do more damage than good, as far as the grieving process goes. I’ve avoided plenty of funerals in my lifetime, and I don’t regret missing a single one.
Both of my paternal grandparents chose not to have any sort of service, ceremony, wake or funeral upon their passing… and I found it really refreshing. I was extremely close with my grandparents, so grieving that loss was difficult. Not having to worry about going to a funeral felt like a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.
I’ve been to tons of funerals in my lifetime, and in my opinion it is often quite obvious if you’re only there because you feel obligated to attend. There are always people who are sitting, silently, trying to look respectful… but it is clear that they just want to get the hell out of there. I understand why those people attend (I mean, I’ve BEEN that person more than once), but it can’t really benefit anyone involved if you really think about it.

I go to funerals and memorials if I can. I didn’t quite get it until my mother died and it meant a lot to me that certain people came to her service. There was one person who could have and should have stayed home but that’s a separate issue. It means something to the family, it shows support, that you cared enough about the family to take time out of your day to be there to remember the dead and support the family. I didn’t have a service for my dad after he died. The loss was to painful and to personal and I didn’t feel like sharing it with anyone.

It is important to me. It does help the grieving family to know that you care. If you are one of the aggrieved, then being with your own loved ones can help tremendously.
I have never regretted going to a visitation or funeral.
I have regretted, not going.

They’re very important to me. I was in a situation once where a teacher at a small private school of mine was lying to my parents to me. Saying I was basically a verbally abusive jerk in his class. He was awful and I was being punished for things I didnt do. Another teacher of mine called my parents into her class and told them she knew the other teacher’s accusations were false and I was a joy and if it weren’t for me, she would have dreaded coming to teach every day. Not long after when another teacher talked to my parents and said I wasn’t a pill, the original teacher who did the lying left. A few years later I heard the teacher who stuck up for me had gone to the hospital because she didn’t feel well and two weeks later died from leukemia. The day of her funeral my mom told me she was too tired to drive me. I was very upset and am still sad I didn’t get to say good bye and thank her.

In my own defense, I have a bit of compassion burnout. Or more than a bit. I am so sick of constantly being surrounded by death and funerals and all of the social constructs and empty feelings that come along with it. Granted, I’ve had a consistent pattern of excessive loss over an extended period of time… but that is obviously a big part of why I feel the way that I do. I don’t have it in me anymore to be the shoulder to cry on when a loved one dies. Maybe I never will again, I can’t say for sure, but not showing up to a funeral doesn’t mean that I don’t care. It means that I care a lot, but that I have to show my support in other ways.

Not saying that anyone’s response was targeting mine, I just thought I should add to it since mine is such stark contrast to the other replies.

@ANef_is_Enuf a few years ago, my mom and I went to 9 funerals. I know what you mean about the burn out. It’s awful.

I’ve only been to one funeral. It was this very old man that lived down the road from my family when I was young. Our priest told us that only one person was going to his funeral, and asked our family to go. I was around 11. Turned out we were the only ones that showed and it was odd since we all barely knew the guy. I remember being really excited about wearing all black and I brought my black umbrella even though it was sunny. I insisted on throughing flowers as he was lowered into the earth, just to mimic movies. I cried, and I remember thinking how sad it was that this man lived so long and had so many kids, grandkids and great grandkids and we as strangers were the only people that showed up to say good bye. I reflected on that alot, as I recall.

@redfeather I average about 4–5 funerals per year for the last 10 years or so. The majority of which have been close friends or family, and many of them for children or under tragic circumstances. I know the world isn’t going to stop turning, and people aren’t going to stop dying, but I simply don’t have it in me to do it anymore. It’s emotionally exhausting. 9 in one year is a ton, that would wear anyone out!

I get the compassion burnout thing. A few years ago I did a funeral in the AM and one in the PM on the same day. An aunt and an uncle. That sucked.

@ANef_is_Enuf a lot were grandparents of friends. I’d been on vacations with some. A few were family members. One was the suicide of a girl who babysat me. One was a freak accident. It was crazy. I can’t imagine 4–5 every year though. ((hugs))

@Adirondackwannabe wow, that is rough.
@redfeather I’m not so delusional as to think that I’m the only one that has ever been through something like this, and many times worse, I just don’t have the strength or the selflessness to be the shoulder for the bereaved anymore. I just felt like I should clarify that I’m not without reason for feeling the way that I do about funerals, because I was afraid that I came off a little brazen in my original reply. Thank you for the hugs. :) That year really must have been difficult for your family – and suicide is always exceptionally hard, imho.

@ANef_is_Enuf not too brazen to me, everyone has their reasons that other people can never fully understand. :) I remember asking a question when I first joined about my great aunt and uncle passing away and their son not telling the family. I didn’t know how to deal with it, and my whole family struggled because we’re really close and it was such a bizarre situation and all of you helped me see different perspectives and deal with it.

Good question. Also, can I add this question? One day, do you believe funerals will become obsolete? Running out of burial plots is certainly a possibility. Cremation may be the thing of the future, instead of funerals.

My answer to your question is both. I attend because of both the deceased and their friends and family.

Its called respect. In Tennessee, we are really big on a persons funeral, by attending and support to the family members.

@redfeather oh, I remember that discussion!

I personally don’t think attendance at a funeral is a measure of how much you care. Death affects everyone differently. As for myself, I of course don’t care for funerals, like everyone I’m sure. I have come to the point where I will avoid an open casket funeral. I would rather remember people the way they were.

@Russell_D_SpacePoet – I totally agree about the whole open casket thing. I personally believe it is a bit barbaric. I went to the funeral of a friend’s mother not too long ago and they took the tradition to an extreme. Rather than just the morbid walk by at the end of the service, prior to the funeral they had a “visitation” in which the deceased was in an open box in the corner of the room while an extended hour long party to console the family took place.

Of course, knowing the deceased, she would probably have appreciated being included in the party, but it was kind of weird making small talk with folks with a dead lady laying in the corner of the room.

However, as I said previously, my feelings about the topic really weren’t important. What was important was to be there for those she left behind.

Come to think of it, when I go I think I want to be stuffed and placed in the corner with a beer in my hand for a last evening of partying before they plant me. Perhaps I should specify a lap dance or two in my will just to make sure I’m completely dead… ;)

@YoBob not always an accurate gauge ;)

@ANef_is_Enuf LOL!

@ANef_is_Enuf Makes dead wood a whole new idea.

Funerals ARE for the living.
It is the last show of respect, love, or affection you will ever be able to show this person. In that way, the funeral is both for you and for the community of friends and family of the deceased. People gathering to pay last respects brings some pleasure and even pride to the family who has lost someone.

To be honest it doesn’t bother me if I attend a loved one’s funeral or not.
They’re dead and there’s nothing I can do to change that. The funeral isn’t a way/place in which I can say goodbye to them either, so… what’s the point of going?
I don’t feel very comfortable around crying people, nor do I ever openly cry in front of others. If I am expected to go, I will go. If however, I have a choice I won’t attend.

To me showing up at a funeral will either indicate I either cared for the deceased or for some or all of their family members. I never go to a funeral of someone I didn’t know or even cared about. I use to have a boss who would go to everyones funeral that ever worked for the company whenever the company would send out notices. I would ask her if they were close and she would say, no, but I know some of the workers who will be there.
If I don’t know the person, personally, than I would never attend. If I knew them and didn’t like them, I don’t attend.
Only way I would attend is if a dear friend was devastated and needed my support.

I feel like I need to attend just to honor that persons life and be there for the family.

My fathers funeral was traditional open casket I feel like it gave me closure to be able to see the entire goings on with him.

My husbands funeral for circumstances beyond us had to be closed casket but then more circumstances got in the way and his casket was a day longer so we decided since the newspaper notice had already been run I chose to only have a memorial service with pictures flowers candles and music. At any rate, this has been much harder to get over not just because of the incredible bond but because of the unusual circumstances I did not get the comfort like I did with my father and I was just left with a feeling of emptiness.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel many responses here are from ppl who haven’t lost someone that was extremely close to them. I have watched 2 close relationships to me die in front of me and I helped my father for 1½yrs through his process of life to death…I feel like when it’s someone you love dearly honoring their death is not gross or weird or to be forgotten the only difference is their heart no longer beats and it is the shell of the person you have grown to love

I attend the funerals not for the deceased but to support the ones left behind.

I help them as much as I can.

To me funerals help in the grieving process.
That being said, to me it is for just the immediate family. For me I would not extend it to people who didn’t care enough to know and visit while alive anyway.
If you were close enough to that person then the choice is an easy one. If you hardly knew them and it was about an extended family member or friend it is a tougher personal choice.
Whether you attend or not is no measure of how much you care. I however go for the sake of the respect of the person first.
Eitherway, it is all a personal choice that is based on the bond with that person.

No, I don’t think attending a funeral is showing how much you care. Funerals are for show, I’d never go to any if I didn’t have to, so to speak.

For me attending a funeral is more for the people whom are living and I care about that are dealing with a death of a loved one. The person whom passed away isn’t there anymore they have gone to a better place (at least thats what I believe). I go to try to help my friends or family get through a very very tough time of loosing the person they cared so very deeply for and need support in dealing with the death of their loved one.

I don’t think it’s important at all. No matter what you believe… If you believe in the afterlife, well then the person’s soul is no longer there. If you are an athiest and you believe that when you die that’s it, then it doesn’t matter, b/c the “loved one” is no longer a loved one, just rotting flesh.

I will still go however, b/c other people think it is important and I don’t want them to judge me. Or perhaps it will be useful to be there to be supportive to others. So maybe it is important, not for the dead but for the group of people to get together and get through the grief and loss together.

Well this answer came full circle huh?! Yes it is important, not for the dead but for the living.

I don’t feel my attendance at a funeral is indicative of how I felt about a person. It’s a ritual. I’ll go to show my support and grieve with those close to me.
I wish funerals could be more about celebrating the life of the person who has passed.

@stardust but they usually are celebratory. And even more so at the wake or shiva after.
Just because you cry because you miss someone and will for a long time doesn’t make them any less a celebration.

Funerals are for the ones left behind and I go to show support for them. I try to be available before people die, doesn’t seem as if it does much good for the dead person to go to their funeral. I don’t like them though and don’t go unless I really feel as if my presence will be missed by those grieving.

@anartist That’s true. I wasn’t thinking about the post funeral shindig when I replied. Granted, they’re often the best parties

Yes and No. Funerals are for the living, a way for them to share their link to the deceased while strengthening their bonds to each other, in my opinion at least. That said, I attend funerals for loved ones if I’m able but I don’t feel I’m showing any disrespect or neglect if I don’t make a funeral.