on funerals

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#1
Do you go to them...
to comfort others
to comfort yourself
to speak
to preach
to sing
to eat
to pay respects

work colleagues
friends
family

people you dont even know?

ever been...a pallbearer?
do you go to cemeteries and remmeber your loved ones
or forget them, burn them
plant a tree
carry their ashes round with you always?
do you wear black or some other colour?

most memorable funeral?
most awful?

please share. Am in a morbid frame of mind. Or maybe its because I just read The Casketeers.
 

tourist

Senior Member
Mar 13, 2014
41,243
16,252
113
69
Tennessee
#2
I have been a pallbearer 3 times, once for Grandma, once for Mom, once for Dad.

I don't go to funerals to pay respects to the dead but perhaps pay respect to the surviving family members.

My most memorable funeral was the service that I attended for my late second wife. I gave an eulogy. She was cremated. I gave the ashes that were in a little wood box to her daughter.

The last funeral service I attended was for my younger brother. I read a letter that my daughter wrote about her favorite uncle and adding a few details myself.

Most awful was the funeral of the first grandma that died. During the graveside portion it rained and then a bulldozer plowed dirt on top of her casket that was in a hole six feet deep. At the very least the cemetery people could have waited until the guests had left the parking lot.
 
Feb 1, 2020
725
225
43
35
#3
Went to my great grandpa's funeral when I was a little kid. I'll never go to a funeral again, let the dead bury the dead.
 

bojack

Well-known member
Dec 16, 2019
2,309
1,006
113
#4
Do you go to them...
to comfort others
to comfort yourself
to speak
to preach
to sing
to eat
to pay respects

work colleagues
friends
family

people you dont even know?

ever been...a pallbearer?
do you go to cemeteries and remmeber your loved ones
or forget them, burn them
plant a tree
carry their ashes round with you always?
do you wear black or some other colour?

most memorable funeral?
most awful?

please share. Am in a morbid frame of mind. Or maybe its because I just read The Casketeers.
I've missed a few funerals I was out of town , I've been to a few .. I do visit graveyards once or twice a year with my wife ..
There's an old 20 acre graveyard in our home town with most of our dead relatives and friends .. We use to date and go and
make-out there when we were dating on summer nights out on the ground maybe over graves maybe not .. There was always some light there and it was on the main road in town but still secluded .. Still love that place as a main landmark back home ..
 

Billyd

Senior Member
May 8, 2014
5,036
1,473
113
#5
For many years, I took my grandmother to the cemetery on my grandfather's birthday. She had a ritual. She brought new flowers. We cleaned the grave site and she placed the new flowers on his grave. She move his flowers to her parent's grave and their flowers to her twin sister's grave. She followed the routine until the flowers had been replaced on all her family member's graves. We also cleaned around their graves. My aunt took over after my grandmother passed away, and today my younger sister now takes her.
 
Feb 1, 2020
725
225
43
35
#6
I would highly advise to never visit a graveyard. They are unclean places where unclean spirits dwell.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#7
I dont really like going to funerals. The cremation thing disturbs me. Burials I cam handle but not really cremation.

I have spoken at a work colleagues once.
mostly go to comfort others, but it depends on person and whether I can actually get there or if others expect me to go.
I might write something in remembrance of them if I knew them.

I dont like going to graveyards but in chinese culture its a thing to honor your ancestors, So what they do is burn incense and paper goods and have a meal at the grave once a year. Although this doesnt seem to happen for my dads side.

I have been on a cemetery walk which was interesting..wildflowers grow there.
I can say I dont like going but I think if/when my parents go I would have to arrange something with my family but thing is they dont even like talking about it so I really have no idea what to do for them.

there is a funeral home just up the road from me and most times I have gone there for funerals. It has its own florist and next to the garden centre so I do know where to go for flowers at least. But when people get cremated they dont need flowers. Nowhere to put them and you dont want to burn them, and you dont know if the family even want them.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#8
Pets are a lot simpler have buried a few in the garden. Garden is on top so I can always grow something.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
30,097
6,480
113
#9
Uh, er, so, does that mean you are eating Fluffy fertilized veggies?
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#10
no you grow flowers and trees not veges on graves.
some people put ashes in the sea so you could be eating seafood thats been immersed in dead people.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#11
I just finished reading a. book on the 1979 Mt erebus disaster in which 257 people all on one flight died when the plane crashed straight into the mountain...it was found to be an auto pilot error, which the pilots hadnt picked up on as the airline management somehow had changed the coordinates for some unknown reason.

It was one of the worst disasters nz had and the army etc had to go there to identify recover the bodies and remains and bring them back. People were traumatised as they didnt know what was happening since the airline tried to cover up their systemic failings. Anyway only just this year is there going to be an official memorial where people can go to remember and read all the names of the people who died.

They said everyone know someone who knew someone...but in many peoples grief they didnt seem to reach out to one another thinking they were going through it alone. I know widows can be the hardest hit and think their grief and pain is the worst but everyone to an extent shares those feelings since ethere were many many widows. and orphans.

To this day few people want to talk about it but if people just dont talk about it and cry and comfort each other they dont heal. I dont know why death seems to be so taboo in some cultures or why it seems emotions are not released. if emotions and feelings have no outlet then you still think about things 10, 30, 40 years later and keep reliving the trauma. the author of this book was a grandaughter of one of the casualties, three years old at the time. her parents and uncles and aunts dont really remember the funeral, they were catholics so just did the ritual thing.

Maybe the ritual things arent enough and you need to do something more to process death and loss. People wrote letters to their loved ones and it got collected into a book only families could view.

I just wonder how do you personally deal with losing a loved one. aside from the funeral/burial. Do you visit a gravesite every year, or go away everytime the death day approaches, write poetry, plant a tree...how do you deal with unfinished business esp when its a tragedy? and when do you start living life again?
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#12
there is a mass grave here for 44 unindentified victims but the rest whos bodies were identified were taken to be buried in their own families graves (or cremated, not sure) but there was never a national memorial for all those who died. There is a cross at the wreckage site in Antarctica. But since no planes ever fly there now, nobody ever goes.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/erebus-disaster-memorial-waikumete-cemetery
 

jb

Senior Member
Feb 27, 2010
4,940
586
113
#13
on funerals
The Lord Jesus went to a few, but He simply raised them! John 11v43,44.

And it's what He told His Church to do (and they did)! Matt 10v8, Acts 9v40.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,173
113
#14
yes Lazarus. I have yet to attend one where the deceased woke up.
Would love to witness that actually.
 

Prycejosh1987

Active member
Jul 19, 2020
953
166
43
#15
It all depends on how close the person was to me. Naturally i do everything.