My brother took his life over twenty years ago, and I didn’t question attending his funeral, and I remember seeing many of his friends there.
It never occurred to me to choose not to attend based on the cause of death. I figured that either folks attend funerals or they don’t.
And please remember that the outcome (death of a loved one) trumps all, and is far beyond the comprehension of most. Most folks who consider taking their lives don’t grasp the vastness of the gap in significance between their immediate life issues and the termination of their life.
In other words, the means of death is a small side issue; all that matters is that the person is no longer with us.
Anecdote time…
When I was in the Navy, a couple of my friends were assigned to perform military funerals while on temporary duty. They would go all over the state, dressed to the nines in their best uniform, complete with ascot, and carry deceased service members to the grave.
These were the white-gloved guys who fold the flag with an audible snap and present it to the weeping widow.
My friend told me of the one funeral he performed for a sailor who had taken his life. He said it was the most depressing thing. If I recall correctly, he said “There we were, carrying this dead guy, and nobody cared about him. You could tell that people were there only because they had to be there, not because they wanted to”
People should not be remembered for how they died, but how they lived. So states Judy Collins’s in her book “Sanity & Grace,” about her coming to terms with the suicide of her only child, Clark Taylor.
Since this wasn’t a close friend or family member, there’s no reason for you to attend. Unless you’re so close to the family that your absence would be widely noticed and commented on, it’s fine that you chose to stay away.
But if you WERE a close friend or family member, I think it would be a lousy thing to shun the funeral.
Unlike most SDMB regulars, I’m a Christian who believes suicide is almost always a horrible thing, and that it CAN be an act of cowardice or cruelty. But I can’t possibly look into people’s hearts and know what they were thinking or feeling. If someone was experiencing so much pain or grief that death seemed like the only solution… well, that person has already suffered plenty. There’s absolutely no reason for me to punish that person or his/her family any further.
If a former friend or a family member died in the process of doing something evil, or if I learned that he/she was a horrible person, things would be different. To use an extreme hypothetical, if I learned that an uncle I’d once loved was a child molestor, or that an old schoolmate was in the Mafia, I wouldn’t attened his funeral, no matter how close we might have been at one time. There’s no way I could go to a funeral, put on a happy face and pretend that the deceased was a wonderul man who is now happy in Heaven.
But a suicide isn’t in that category. Not even close. I’ve only known two people who killed themselves. Both of them SEEMED like very good and very happy people (which shows what I know). I was not able to attend either funeral, but if I had been able to attend, I would have… and I would not have felt hypocritical for praising the deceased in either case.
As a Christian, I worship a man who once cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Hence, it seems to me that Jesus understands better than any of us what it’s like to feel alone, in pain, and abandoned. Which means he’ll forgive more quickly than any of us.
I think people are getting the impression that I actually expressed or would have expressed my feelings about his suicide to his family/friends, when in fact I would NEVER say such things to anyone close to him. That would be extremely callous and pointless.
That being said, I perfectly understand now that funerals are more for the living than the one who died; it does make more sense. But what about, for example, people who visit graves and bring flowers, etc? It’s just them and their thoughts, but are they not there out of respect for the one who died? Or is it just time for them to reminisce? I’m just confused as to what respect for the dead would mean, if not just having good memories of them.
People visit gravesites, to remember those who’ve passed, to reflect on loss, to commune with the gone, to honor relationships, to bring themselves comfort. Lots of reasons, and none that have to do with respect.
Respect isn’t a currency to be traded and dealt in. If you want to respect your friend, try being less judgmental of his choice, especially since you have not been close to him, in some time, and may not know the agony or motivation for what he did. That would be showing respect for your friend, much more than attending a service or comforting his family.
That’s… awful. Beyond awful. That’s even worse than the suicide funeral I attended back in my early 20s. One of our circle of friends suffered from serious depression (we took her home from the hospital once, probably from a failed suicide attempt). She didn’t turn to any of us, we didn’t know what to do, and before we knew it, she was gone.
Her funeral was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, for the sheer volume and intensity of grief. Just a silent crushing weight on her stoic Midwestern family.
I think it’s easier to throw around words like selfish and cruel when you aren’t all that close to the person. The closer you are the more helpless you feel, and the more you’re rudely reminded by the universe of your inability to fix things.
This is the moment where I realize how wrong I was. I absolutely agree with this.
I try apply objectivity and rationality to everything, and in the process I tend to forget that there are, in fact, other people in the world, whom I am in no position to judge.
I’m sorry a lot of you had to relive some sad times for my edification. Thank you for all the replies.
Blut Aus Nord, this is the Straight Dope. You’re not supposed to be open-minded and willing to change your views based on evidence and other people’s thoughts and opinions!
I feel a need to point out that suicide can be an impulsive act by someone with no overt history of depression or mental illness. My brother was 17 when he took his life after a morning of serious setbacks, including being told he was failing his classes and wouldn’t be able to return to his private high school.
It sounds like you were/are not in a place in your life where you could have provided anything positive due to your opinion on respect and opinion on suicide, so better that you didn’t go.
