When Funerals Go Wrong

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I have had the misfortune to have to stand by the gravesides of most of my relatives now, or (more frequently) attend their cremation services. Most of them have had a good send-off service, followed by a pleasant wake, where surviving family and friends have vowed to meet again in happier times, though it’s often been the next funeral that has served as our next family reunion. A few funerals I have been to have gone badly though. I dislike long drawn out ceremonies, and twice I have had to attend full requiem masses, which are difficult to concentrate on. The religion and trappings of the church service detract from the thought of the lost loved one. The worst funeral I went to however was that of my Mum’s mother, my last grandparent. It was a straightforward simple cremation ceremony. It should have gone smoothly. Instead, it was terrible, mostly as the priest consistently forgot her name (Phyllis), and seemed to think he was sending off someone called Samantha. Sensing the family’s rising anger and impatience, he started ranting about people who come to the church just for weddings and funerals without being members of his regular steady congregation. It was hardly an advert likely to encourage any of us to want to be in his company every Sunday. The service led many in the family to take up my own suggestion of having Humanist funerals in future. I am an atheist, and I have assisted in a few Humanist send-offs, though I am not trained in conducting the ceremonies myself. My family funerals have more recently been much more focused on the deceased’s life and times than on the trappings of the church no one in the family attends any more. It was ironically, a priest who brought that about and not my own atheistic agnosticism. Arthur Chappell