Helps confirm the reality and finality of death.
Provides a climate for mourning and the expression of grief.
Allows the sorrows of one to become the sorrows of many.
Is one of the few times love is given and not expected in return.
Is a vehicle for the community to pay its respects.
Encourages the affirmation of religious faith.
Is a declaration that a life that has been lived as well as a sociological statement that a death has occurred.
~The Funeral from Ancient Egypt to Present Day America
The funeral provides family members and friends an environment to offer comfort, support to one another and share their thoughts and feelings about the life of the deceased. It can be a formal, structured event based on religious ritual, a less formal gathering in a special place, or perhaps something else in between. A primary importance of the funeral lies in honoring the life lived and allowing the surviving family and friends to share in their loss and gain support from one another.
The ritual of attending a funeral service deliver many benefits including:
- Providing a social support system for the grieving family and friends.
- Helping those grieving to understand death is final and that death is part of life.
- Integrating the grieving family back into the community.
- Easing the transition to a new life after the death of a loved one.
- Providing a safe haven for embracing and expressing emotions.
- Reaffirming one’s relationship with the person who died.
- Providing a time to honor the person's life and to say good-bye.
Author, educator and psychologist Dr. John Canine shares the following regarding the value of the funeral:
“If we are planning or have a chance to plan a funeral for someone else, we have the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ to show the community, and ourselves, the respect we have for the person who has died.
Rituals will help us express what we feel, and define what has happened. They can give us the strength and the means to gently and slowly disconnect from the deceased. They give us permission to go on with life, without the person we loved, while still staying connected, in a healthy way, to our memories. That is what a funeral does. Think about it. The body is present with flowers, minister or eulogist, a gathering of friends and relatives, music, poems, scripture reading, all showing respect for our loved one. We should feel good about that.
There is a death waiting to occur in each of us. Those who loved us will, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, retire that day from ordinary days, to be remembered with ‘soft distinction.’ We will want our last impression to be a positive statement about our life. Funeral rituals give us a systematic method to do this, in a meaningful way.”
To learn more about Dr. Canine’s work, go to: www.maximumlivingconsult.com.