Well, I think I would be stretching the concept of magnanimity if I allowed you to take credit for that, but I digress…
This is what I’m talking about when I say;
I have contemplated this relationship element quite a bit. I lost a “brother” last year and the loss of that relationship is still with me. I knew him longer than I have my own son who will be forty-two in April. Realizing that the person you were to the one who has died, is also now gone, can be difficult to process. The friend I was to my brother is also gone.
But this highlights the the ostensible value of memories and shared experiences as a possible element to be included in a “celebration of life” alternative. An opportunity to voice one’s appreciation for the unique experiences and memories can not only be cathartic for the speaker, but also opens a window into a different part of the life of the person who has died.
I like your perspective on the burial of a part of oneself. If we participate in an exercise which allows us to separate ourselves from our emotional response(s), that can definitely be cathartic and an excellent practice of introspection.
Agreed.
Sorry for your loss. It sounds as if you have done the best you could possibly do in dealing with it.
In the end, people are different, and the grief process has not been laid out in an exact formula for us to follow. Even Kubler Ross asserts her stages of death and dying are not done in any kind of order and can be revisited many times over.
I participate in funerals to have some sort of closure for my own sake, and to meet the deceased person’s family, who will probably appreciate the attendance. The format and the rituals are unimportant to me, as long as they show some respect towards the deceased (who, for obvious reasons, is not there to talk for him/herself). When my mother died, I had a christian funeral arranged for her, even though the christian rituals were meaningless to me. It was all about showing respect for my late mother, and what she would have expected me to do.
After I’m dead, what is done to my corpse would not matter to me (since I would not be there to observe), but it might matter for my family. So even though I haven’t given this a great deal of thought, I think I’ll let it be up to my family to decide what will happen after I’m dead, and let them do what is best for them.
People that are afraid of funerals, fear death and pretty much everything in life. The funeral is a celebration of life and the passing over to receive God’s ultimate reward for a life well lived in service to Jesus Christ our lord and savior. Praise God on high and open our eyes to eternal everlasting life!
so why do pedophile priests and pastors get them? Not to mention certain Cardinals. whose contribution, ahem facilitation of said monsters so enriched the dioceses of Australia? Were they a “life well lived?” A life in service?
If this is true, it’s due to fear of the unknown, the unknowable, and/or change. Since nobody have returned from the dead yet(*) to talk about it, people have wondered about what happens after death ever since our species had the mental capacities to ponder about such things. Thus, there is also a fear of supernatural shit that fanboys of ghosts and sky daddies imagine to themselves and then promote as truth. Thus, over the course of the history of our species many such imaginative stories about death have been invented, told, retold, modified for dramatical purposes, reimagined, and reinvented, and some of them have been written down as “the truth”, without any sort of objective empirical data to support it. And that’s the sort of eternal bullshit we’re facing.
(*) In any meaningful sense of the word, and excluding certain medical cases where the person is only apparently dead.
The Christian god is only one of every god that humankind has comprehended. They’re all sitting up there - Athena, Enki, Văn Xương, Yahweh the Unmoved Mover. All of them in a big committee.
Jehova 1, god of the Church of the SubGenius, is the deity who receives the freshly dead up in the good place. One is transported there by Xenu’s DC-8 while 72 virgins service the hell out of them…
I’m in the process of writing a holy book that substantiates every word of this. Deny, or claim that your claims are more accurate, at your own peril.
What an absurd sweeping generalisation, who is and why, and what objective evidence can you demonstrate for the claim, and what’s your point?
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity or deities? Until you answer that your vapid platitudes remain meaningless, but then you’re not here to debate, merely to preach and peddle your chosen superstition. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t care to be preached at, take it to a church.
I’m afraid I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that one. If funerals are such a grand celebration of life, then why the hell did the funeral home director have the police escort me out for having strippers and circus clowns performing at the last funeral I attended?
Howdy again, Richey. On a serious note, I would say there is a small amount of accuracy to that statement.
Yes, there are people who are actually afraid of funerals. (Look hard enough and you can find a phobia for just about anything/everything imaginable.)
Yes, SOME of those people may actually fear death. (Many/most people I have ever known fear death, regardless of whether or not they fear funerals.)
Yes, there are people out there who are indeed afraid of taking chances and living their life in full. (I’ve known a few of those here and there.)
However, NOT EVERYBODY who is afraid of funerals necessarily fear death or living life. Things like that vary from person to person. (In case you missed the memo.)
Hahahah yeah sure…hang it there Richmeister, the nice young men in their clean white coats will be there soon…we will pray for you though. (Ok, not really but obviously he is capable of believing anything)
“There are some people who are so afraid of dying that they never take the opportunity to truly live.”
Made that up all by myself. You inspire me. You are my muse. (Not to be confused with “moose”.) Your deep insights into the wonders of The Lord fan my inner creative fires into a raging inferno of unbridled poetic and philosophic prose.
(Edit: Okay, I confess. Maaaaaybe I read that quote off the back of a comic book or cereal box or something. But Richey DID cause me to remember it.)
where life is beautiful all the time 
You inspire me. You are my muse. (Not to be confused with “moose”.) Your deep insights into the wonders of The Lord fan my inner creative fires into a raging inferno of unbridled poetic and philosophic prose.