How are funerals handled when there is no body of the deceased? Iask because it looks like a family friend has lost his daughter and her body may not be recovered. Generally, would they still take a plot at a cemetary and get a headstone? Would another form of memorial be used, since cemetary plots are becoming rather valuable?
I don’t think that there is any one single answer to this question, if it is to IMHO, please do move it.
All combinations are possible. Where I was born, many sailors were lost at sea, and presumed drowned. Some families were split several ways. One realtive would keep an enless vigil candle glowing, waiting for a return. Another would ask for a memorial mass, another would add a plaque at the family plot.
For the funeral service, there doesn’t have to be a body present. My cousin was hit by a car and killed and his cremains buried with a plaque marker before the service. We still had the service at the funeral home, just without the body that usually would have been viewed there.
As far as the cemetery, Here’s one British reference, which says
<<When there’s no body
Failure to recover a body or lay a loved one to rest properly can be very stressful to the nearest and dearest, and sometimes grieving remains incomplete. Visits to war-graves cemeteries by relatives of people who died in World Wars I and II, and by bereaved partners to memorials of more recent conflicts, show that people need a focus for grief. Cenotaphs, the Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society memorials to lost babies and monuments to those killed in disasters such as the aircraft explosion over Lockerbie also point to the importance of dealing properly with our dead - if not with their bodies, then with their memories.
Memorials
To put up a memorial in a cemetery or churchyard, it’s not essential to have a body or cremated remains buried there. Seaside burial grounds feature memorials to sailors lost at sea. Soldiers buried in foreign lands have headstones in Britain. Sometimes people who didn’t create a memorial when a loved one was cremated later bury a token artefact, such as a pipe or spectacles, in a significant place.
If what you want is a place to go - to grieve, to place flowers, to remember or to erect a memorial - the fact that there’s no body needn’t be a problem.>>
Well, logically there’s no interment. In places where people have family plots, the name will be added to the marker. I’ve seen cementeries in seashore villages with a “lost sailors’ stele” to which the names of sailors lost at sea are added.
The funeral itself would normally be the usual ceremony but without a casket. You don’t need a casket to have a funeral.
Dad died on a Thursday. We had the wake on Friday; funeral with casket Saturday afternoon; interment in the family plot (in another town) on Sunday morning. The following Saturday there was a funeral (of course without casket) in that other town. The reason to have a week between both funerals was so word could get around. Also it is local custom for the families who’ve had a funeral to attend Mass in the same church for the following three days, to receive the condolences of those who couldn’t go to the funeral or preferred to say them at a more private time; again this does not require a body (Mom, myself and my brothers did this in our home town; my aunt did it in the other town).
When I was an altar boy, we often had funeral masses without the body (sometimes it had already been buried). we had a sort of table, the top of which was shaped in that characteristic casket-shape. When you covered it with a black cloth, it looked as if you had a covered casket there. We used to put it in the central aisle, up near the altar. Everyone axcted as if there was a real coffin under there.
Afterwards, we’d wheel it into the back, take the cloth off, and fold up the table. It was like a magic Trick : The Disappearing Coffin. (Actually, a lot of disappearance tricks really do work much like that.)
gigi and A2P covered this beautifully. Let me add two points:
Draw a distinction between the funeral/memorial Mass/memorial service, on the one hand, and the committal on the other. The first is held in a church, funeral home, the family residence when large enough, etc.; the second is at the graveside (or at the mausoleum, columbarium, or whatever). When there is no body, the second is dispensed with, unless it is used to dedicate a memorial to the deceased instead of interring his/her body or ashes.
Funeral are not for the dead; they are for the living. The deceased is either no longer existent as a person or gone on to his/her just reward or punishment, depending on your belief. The people who have suffered a loss through his/her death and are now dealing with grief, and the more distant friends and family who feel it needful to pay their last respects to him/her, are the people for whom the funeral is intended to be relevant.
Hmm has anyone been to a “living” funeral? I remember Futurama had that once-
Bender was the guest of honor but got miffed at how lame his memorial service was. Or
perhaps such a thing is just too egotistical? A friend of my dad’s (still living) I think had in
his will a statement that his body would be present at the post-funeral get-together
(propped up in a seat in the corner or something).
I just heard of a friend of a friend who has regular parties because she is waiting for a transplant and presumably won’t have long to live. So far she’s had a few of them though!
This may not be the case for the OP, but what about if it’s not clear if the person is dead? Could you have a service? Or would it wait until after an official declaration of their death?
Here is the story in the paper. The search went on for 80+ hours and the initial figures were she had about 36 hours before hypothermia would have set in.
I’m sorry for your friends’ loss. I apologize if my question was callous.
No, not callous as far I am concerned. It just seems that the margin for hope has been exceeded.
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks I went to the “funeral” of a colleauge who had been in the World Trade towers but whose body had not been recovered. Although it was technically a memorial service, it was held in his Temple and proceeded like a typical Jewish funeral service.
You can have a wake, with a picture of the deceased in the coffin, I suppose.
Up to the family.
Commemorative Service, not a funeral? 
I’ve sung at one funeral where there hasn’t been a body (the person died overseas), as well as at plenty of other Requiem masses on people’s anniversaries. An ironing board draped in black cloth makes a pretty good substitute for the catafalque.
When my aunt died, her body was immediately sent for cremation. We had a “visitation hours” at the funeral home with a closed, empty casket which had a photo of her perched atop it. (The funeral home loaned us the casket for the evening.) She has a grave site with a tombstone but none of her remains are interred there.
Tell your friends to do whatever they want to do. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to deal with this sort of situation.
Some families purchase a casket and fill it with momentoes of their loved one, encouraging others to place tokens and letters inside the casket which is then buried. (If her remains are ever discovered, the casket could be exhumed and her body placed inside.) Some people have a memorial service, and some people choose to do nothing until the remains are found.
Your friends should do whatever they feel is most fitting and whatever will give them the most comfort.
Catholics would disagree. The funeral mass can be offered both for the repose of the deceased’s soul and for the comfort/mourning of relatives and friends.
I believe the grave-less gravestone is called a cenotaph.
True. But you can pray for someone’s soul any time. The service is primarily for the deceased person’s family and friends. As mentioned, it serves to offer a sense of closure for them.
(I’m Catholic, incidentally.)
I’ve always thought:
Body present = funeral
Body not present = memorial serivice (comemorative or otherwise)
Most Protestant services are memorials, held after the actual burial service, which would only involve immediate family and friends. I know the UCC church up the street doesn’t do very many funerals; back when I belonged to it I asked the pastor because, in my Catholic-raised mind, I couldn’t conceive of NOT having a funeral with all the trappings. Her reply was, “Well, most people opt for a graveside service because it’s much less expensive. The memorial service is where everyone’s pays their respects to the family.”