I don’t know if this is confirmation bias or small sample bias, but I notice at most funerals I go to that I am less likely to see old people cry. Sometimes I see old folks joking around or being relaxed while the younger people are visibly grieving.
Do they handle emotions differently? Are they just used to death? Do they view death different than young people? Is it just my imagination?
I would expect an inverse relationship between the age of the deceased and the amount of crying.
I was discussing something like this with my family over Christmas. I heard once on the radio that some figure with medical technology, humans might actually live to 200, 250, even 300 years. The consensus was, “Who would want to do that?”
Likewise for freezing people after death with the hope of later re-animation.
I don’t go to a lot of funerals, but I would say it’s true that, the older you get, the more likely you are to have experienced the death of a friend or family member. The longer you have known someone, the more likely you are to have stories to tell others who knew the deceased.
I know that when I encountered death when I was a younger person, I was dealing with a strong and unfamiliar emotion.
Now that I am older, I understand how healing it is to joke around and share stories. That doesn’t mean that I don’t shed tears and feel the pain of loss. Nor does it mean that tears are a more valid form of grieving than laughter, or vice versa.
Twenty years ago, I asked my father, who was dying, what he thought about death. He said once you reach a certain age, you accept the inevitable more easily and you don’t think about it. I am now at an age where I realize that to be true, at least for me. That said, my wife was a Hospice nurse for many years, and she has told me that everyone deals with grief in different ways, and with the deaths of both of my parents, I’ve realized that this is also true. At least for me.
You’ve got it all wrong.
The old people are suffering from dimentia and don’t know where they are, thus the precieved good humor. The young people are crying 'cause the bar afterward ain’t free and they are missing something important to be there, and chances are they ain’t getting laid.
Although I got laid at a funeral once. Good times…
Open casket?
Actually, the older people are simply happy that it is “not me” there in the casket; they know that the next funeral may well be for them.
Raises hand
Assuming, of course, that whatever medical technology you’re talking about keeps you in reasonably good condition, i.e. being able to walk around and do things. I wouldn’t want to spend 300 years in an ICU.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
My father’s almost 86 and sharp as a tack. When his sole surviving sister died a few years ago (he had five brothers and sisters) he came over to the house all misty eyed and said, “I’m an orphan now…” He hs a wife, kids and grandkids, so I don’t understand the thinking…maybe because when he was a kid there were a lot of orphanages.
He’s also said, “The only trouble about getting to be my age is seeing all your friends die off…”
Actually that sounds good to me. 200-300 years? Just about right. Forever? Nah…
I saw a documentary about the “deep freeze and reanimate” scenario about ten years ago. It said that usually younger people like the idea…older people not so much. Once you’ve been married, had kids, seen a few hundred movies etc. the bloom is off.
Part of it is that young people are shielded from death. In the old days kids grew up with death. Granny died you went to the funeral. It wasn’t till the 70s, I’d say that parents stopped this.
I remember my father died in 1976 and I was 11 and my aunt said “Now should Mark go to the wake and funeral.” I walked in and said “You don’t have to discuss this 'cause I’m going. I’m related to him, you aren’t.” (Aunt by marriage) And that shut them up fast.
But I know people who are 40 years old and never have been to a funeral. I know parents that think it’d be too traumatic for a kid to go to his grandma’s funeral.
I didn’t know anyone by the time I was 12 that hadn’t been to a funeral.
Most parents seem to think taking a kid to a funeral will for some reason 'cause him damage.
My aunt said the same thing and I understand the comment. Being the last of your childhood family, nobody else shares your memories of the past.
An exes grandfather lived to be 96. He outlived all his friends, 2 wives and all his kids. It was a special kind of lonely.
As Markxxx almost said, it gets easier with practice. I attended my first funeral at age 16 for my brother’s best pal who’d been run over while crossing the street. That had a lot of impact for me. 35 years and about a dozen funerals later they’re not so bad. The impact is still strongly correllated to how important the person was to me, but the overall scale of grief is not nearly what it was when I was younger.
My uncle passed away recently, and I called my aunt (his sister) to find out how my grandparents were taking it. They’re in their 80s and while they’re in good health for that age, it’s still a shock to lose a kid. My aunt said they were fine: she said at their age they’ve seen a lot of death, and this isn’t even the first child they’ve lost, so they’ve taken it kind of in stride.
The one who’s not handling it well is my baby brother. He just doesn’t really know how to process it all, and maybe it’s because he just hasn’t seen enough death yet.
I have to watch my mouth when people tell me about ones who’ve had quick painless deaths. My first thought is ‘oh how lucky’ which is probably not what the griever wants to hear. My mom had a series of episodes with cancer, as did my older brother. My dad had loooong slow emphysema death. I was happy for them when they finally passed. Death is a natural part of life. The people who suffer most from death are the lonely survivors.
At some point I just got really tired. Dying and just being done doesn’t sound awful at all, as long as it’s not some big fiery car crash or something bloody and painful, or god forbid alzheimer’s or other dignity thief. I want to see what’s next - if anything. If there’s nothing after death then I won’t be there to be disappointed so - win/win.
Also, funerals are a chance to see our far flung relatives which we don’t get to see often enough, so there’s lots of chatting and usually some food.
I think it depends on the death to some extent. When my paternal grandfather was in his mid-70s or so (I’m estimating), his wife/my paternal grandmother died. He was sad but handled it pretty soberly, as they were both getting on in years and he’d probably expected that sooner or later, something like that would happen.
Nearly 20 years later, he was still alive and my dad (who was only in his early 50s), died unexpectedly. Grandpa just about collapsed with grief at the funeral. I’m sure he never expected that he would outlive his youngest child.
He did pass away in his early 100s, fairly healthy and active until 99 or so, and declining slowly in body and memory over the last few years. Everyone at the funeral regardless of age pretty much had an attitude of “well, he had a good long life.”
Do old people deal with death better?
No – they keep putting it off!
As others have mentioned, it depends on your “experience” with death. Older people, on average, have already lost parents, relatives and peers, so death comes not as a shock but as a natural part of life.
Thanks to AIDS, I have been to more funerals/memorials than I can count . . . certainly in the hundreds . . . so when an old relative dies, I consider him blessed to have had so many more years than other people I’ve known.