A friend and I went to a funeral home to express our sorrow to another friend who is more of an acquaintance, really. (I run into her very occasionally and we chat a minute or two.)
Her son died tragically a week ago. He was only 22 and known in the community, as are his two brothers and parents. We waited in the 90-degree heat @ 10 minutes outside. Then we were allowed inside. We waited for an hour, snaking through the building. It was plenty cool in there at first, but by the end I was dripping with sweat. When we realized it would be another hour of waiting in line, we decided to leave.
There were three visiting times; this was the second one. I heard that the first one was the same with that many people.
I feel bad about it. And yet, that is what happened. We should have stayed and we did not. If we had been closer I would have stayed to the bitter end.
I sent her a card last week. I can’t go to the funeral because of work.
Don’t stress about it. I’m sure she is so overwhelmed right now that even if you had stayed in line, she wouldn’t remember you being there. Did you at least get to sign the guest book?
You did too much by staying so long. I see the problem as being poor management on part of the funeral home. If there are that many people in line, someone needs to take charge and establish a protocol to keep the line moving swiftly. The problem was not the number of people. The problem was that the line was not moving. If people want to stand around after a quick viewing and signing, they can do so outside or in a way not to impede the flow.
Honestly there is very little a funeral home can do when there are are large number of people who wish to pay their respects and give condolences. For example, if there are 60 people who show up and the family spends one minute hugging and speaking with each person that is going to take an hour of time-likely there were substantially more people than that. I am not trying to make excuses for the funeral staff but short of preventing people from acknoledging the bereaved with anything more than a nod- something that we cannot do - I don’t really see how waiting time can be reduced. It sounds like they arranged more than one time to accommodate the crowds too.
I think most people would find it unacceptable at a viewing if they were treated by the Funeral Home staff as if they were waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. It would be inappropriate for a minder to stand next to the family barking orders at the congregants.
As far as feeling bad that you could not wait in line, I am sure the family will understand. Many funeral homes have an online guestbook that you can sign and sending a card directly to the family is acceptable in lieu of attending the funeral or viewing.
This is the family’s responsibility to keep the line moving, not the funeral home. To blame the funeral home would be the same as blaming the dance hall staff for a wedding reception line for moving too slowly. The family is the one that decided to have a viewing and welcome people to come see them and the deceased. It’s their responsibility to keep the line moving.
At our funeral home we routinely advise our families to limit the amount of time they spend with each congregant, and we even suggest that if they remain seated that folks will take that as an implicit sign that they are not open to extended fellowshipping, which will lengthen the amount of time everyone will have to wait. Needless to say, this is all we really can do and it is up to them to choose what they are going to do. (I have even had families complain that these instructions were insensitive)
I once had a service with over 1000 attendees. The service itself lasted approximately 1 hour. The final tribute - where people come forward to pay their respects - lasted four hours. The family chose to stand the whole time, in spite of my suggestion that they refrain from doing so. In the end, they were so ovewhelmed by grief and exhaustion that they were near collapse once the last congregant came forward.
I don’t think you have anything at all to feel bad about. You were there, you tried. They probably didn’t notice you weren’t there, and if they did, so what life goes on.
Maybe you could make it up to her (although I don’t think you have a lot to make up for) at a different time - maybe send her a “thinking about you” card on her son’s birthday or something.
This pretty much sums up why funerals strike me as incredibly sadistic rituals. ‘‘Hey, we’re hosting this public event and accommodating everyone is our responsibility! Oh, and someone we love is dead.’’ I’ve heard that having all that planning can help people through those first few days, give them something to do… but I don’t know if I could ever inflict it on my family.
I would suggest that you preplan your funeral so that there are written instructions left for your relatives that state you do not wish for a service. Often, people who would choose not to have a funeral service are given a guilt trip by others and end up caving.
A funeral, if executed properly, should not come off as sadistic in any way.
You did **nothing **wrong and you did your best. The bereaved would be a bit overwhelmed anyway and will appreciate your card and your thoughts. I *can *understand how you feel, but think how bad you’d feel had you pushed yourself to the point of falling down in a faint. Eh? Then you’d feel bad for being a sort of public show at the funeral home and making the bereaved friend feel bad and worried about you. Really, I am not being cynical - my own mother died just two months ago and I can assure you we appreciated people’s kind thoughts but would utterly not want anyone to suffer as you did. You should stop worrying.
Holy shit! I have just checked what 90 degrees Fahrenheit is in real money. 32 Celsius? :eek: You deserve a medal. A good icy cold one.
This being Spain, lines that behave properly are a rare sight; funeral home visits tend to see the family strewn about, with visitors going to the family member they know best or simply the one that’s closest and leaving. There are proper lines after the funeral/before the interment and after the interment; several times I’ve seen the Most Important Bereaved split up so that people would form several lines (for example, the widow and younger children to one side, the mother and firstborn to the other); going to more than one line when there are several is perceived as rude (the multiple lines have been created to speed things up, not so people can make a big show of how pained they are when they weren’t close enough to the deceased to be receiving condolences themselves). Maybe this “several lines” arrangement can be exported?
Lillith, there will be other times to give the family your condolences. It’s fine. As someone who’s been part of the bereaved, I can assure you none of us was ticking marks on who came to the visits, who to the funeral and who to each of the three “reminder Masses” (I don’t know how local that custom is: to have the deceased added to the list of deceased who are named in Mass, for one Mass on each of the three days after the funeral, and a delegation of the bereaved attend those Masses so people who weren’t able to offer their condolences before can do it then).
I ducked out on the condolence line after the funeral for the mother of a very good friend of mine. I knew his mother over many years, as he and I grew up together, and there was nothing appropriate to say (She had a difficult death from lung cancer).
As I was walking home, I ran into my friend coming up the hill, at an intersection with the cross street I was taking. He made a point of thanking me for coming to the funeral and we talked a bit about family gossip and such affairs in general, perfectly comfortably as old friends of so many years standing.
Later, I learned that there was quite a bit of commentary at the funeral and in his family about the fact that I showed up at all. It was taken–correctly–as a sign of the broad esteem in which his mother was held.
Don’t worry about it. Very few people handle such moments well; those who do are often good at insincerity. Evading is better than struggling to say the right thing. I’ve been on the receiving end of that, too, and its part of your duty as family in the receiving line to make it easy for people. I doubt anyone will hold this against you and you shouldn’t hold it against yourself.
Now, let’s talk about your apparent tendency to confess online.
Though I suspect that having separate receiving lines will simply cause folks to get into multiple lines - in the USA we have no cultural experience that would give folks automatic knowledge that to do so would be a faux pas- I really dig this idea and am now attempting to figure out a way I might try to implement this at an upcoming service which I expect will have a large turnout. Thanks for sharing that, Nava.
Really, I am not being cynical - my own mother died just two months ago and I can assure you we appreciated people’s kind thoughts but would utterly not want anyone to suffer as you did. You should stop worrying.