My finances are constrained, and have been for a long enough time that when I read an obituary and see that the family request donations be made to [Any number of perfectly worthy charitable organizations] I say to myself that I would if I could afford it. For some reason as I was having this experience today my brain followed up with “would you really? Why?”
What are the roots of the custom that says someone has died therefor I must spend money. I would certainly rather give money to the Kidney Foundation than FTD so I am glad the custom has evolved, but how did it start in the first place?
Since I don’t know what I’d do with any organized data I won’t go to the trouble of learning to include an actual poll. I’ll just ask:
Do you give to listed charities? Do you have a way to decide for whom and how much you’ll donate?
I do it if it’s somebody I would have sent flowers for. Which hasn’t been for a while - I sent a donation to the hospice organization that helped care for him when my uncle died a few years ago.
If it’s someone I knew personally and would have sent flowers, then I do.
If it’s a family member, then I usually make the donation AND send flowers because, well, that’s just how it goes in my family/cultural group. Yes, I feel somewhat foolish doing it.
At work it gets a bit tricky. Our office generally sends flowers if an employee’s spouse or parent or other very close relative dies. The office pays for this. However, the way our accounting is set up, it’s a lot easier to send flowers. When we have to cut a check to a charitable organization, however worthy, I have to provide a lot of documentation about the charity and it ends up being exponentially more work. I confess that during busy times, I will just send the flowers regardless of the “in lieu of” request.
On a side note, is there anything wrong with a donation to a different charity than the one requested? On one hand it is still a donation to honor the deceased but it has an undercurrent of “my charity is better than the one your dead mother liked”.
For me, it satisfies the basic human desire to do something to help when someone has died.
When my husband died, a lot of people kept saying “is there anything I can do to help?”. For some of them, I had specific tasks in mind. For most, I would say “Go and give blood, or make a donation to the <charity relevant to what happened to my husband>”.
I never followed up or asked whether anyone did. I just gave them the option if they wanted to do something.
My mom died a year and a half ago and always thought it was a HUGE waste for people to spend hundreds of dollars on flowers for a funeral, and I agree. We instead requested donations to hospice and our local animal shelter.
When my grandmother died, I think something suggested that a donation to the Humane Society (a cause she supported) would be a nice gesture. I’m not involved enough in the estate to know how many people did this. However, we got a few notes that a few people had made some sort of contribution to a Catholic organization in order to have a mass said in her honor. No one in my family is Catholic, so that was a bit odd. Reactions ranged from “WTF?” to “It’s the thought that counts.” Anyway, my take away is that it’s probably best to make the donation to the specified charity. If there’s another organization that you would like to make a donation to in memory of the deceased, maybe don’t tell the family unless you’re really sure they’d be appreciative.
I seldom buy flowers. My time is coming, see my salt water thread. I would much rather see my church, the guide dog school, cancer research, and other projects I am involved benefit rather than some florist.
My family may win the donate my body to the med school argument, it may not be in good enough shape.
I definitely do, and I agree with BetsQ’s philosophy.
I suppose if the person supported a cause that I was really personally against (“In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the People Advocating Gruesome Deaths for Toddlers and Cute Puppies Organization, which the deceased fervently believed in”), I’d just skip flowers AND a donation.
And then I’d question why I wanted to pay my respects to that person to begin with.
I saw an obituary last week that said “in lieu of flowers, please make donations to <deceased’s family>.” I didn’t quite understand that. Sounds like the family is panhandling.
I’d much rather make a donation to a charity, in most cases. If the family requested donations to a charity that I disagree with, or that I know that the deceased didn’t agree with, I’d either send flowers or make a donation to Heifer International or to a charity that the deceased did agree with.
This is helping me get to the real crux of my question, which I did not articulate well. How do either flowers or a donation translate into paying respects?
Of the two I see donations as far more sensible. But why do either?
It doesn’t seem likely to me that the deceased would care one way or the other.
If the cause of death is something that has a research foundation associated with it I can see that as a motivation. Mildred died of early onset Alzheimers. It was terrible for her family. Perhaps my $20 will help fund some breakthrough.
There’s more to the question still steeping in my brain. Not sure how to express it. I think maybe what I’m after is who is the donation really for; the deceased, his family, or you?