…if you’re one if the mourners?
My sister died when I was barely a teen, & I vowed I would never stand in that line at the front of the funeral home again. Every time I managed to pull it together, someone else would come blubbering along & I’d lose it all over again. I fucking hated it!
So I ask you, if people are coming to pay their condolences to you, is it rude to hide in the back room? That’s what I really want to do, but big boy pants me thinks it’s kind of dickish.
What say you?
No one but you has any business deciding for you what the “proper” way to mourn is. Funerals / memorials services are not meant to be torture. If there’s some aspect of the service that you don’t feel equipped to handle, you’re under no obligation to force yourself to do so. This includes (again, in my opinion) attending the service at all.
There’s no “right” way to mourn.
I agree with Asmovian.
If you don’t feel able to take on the role of the receiving line, then another family member (or even the person conducting the ceremony) can stand in for you.
Just before my mother died, she asked me to give the euology at her funeral. I wrote it and of course desperately wanted to go through with it. But it was a daunting prospect (I have Asperger’s Syndrome and struggle in social situations.)
On the way to the church my wonderful sister said “Good luck with the eulogy. If you can’t go on, just beckon to me and I’ll come up and finish it for you.”
What a great thing to say.
I did manage to finish (and although I broke down in the receiving line a couple of times, mourners told me afterwards how well things had gone.)
I say do what you are comfortable with. Funerals are so extremely stressful imo. I honestly think they make things worse. I know when my parents died the funerals were just exhausting. My sister passed away and she had told her kids she didn’t want a service, she just wanted to be quietly cremated and just have the kids themselves do a small memorial. My one niece was torn because people were asking her when services were, etc. I told her to honor her mom’s wishes and not to worry about what others thought. She was already stressed enough over the loss of her mom, she didn’t need to have to deal with the needs of others at that time. I loved my sister dearly but I don’t regret never going to a service for her. She knows she was loved.
It may be a little rude but I do it and will continue to do it; especially when it looks like the family members are having a rough time of it and I knew the deceased well but never really met them much. My interests (bikes, hunting, fishing) means I often have very close friends, whose passing has really broken me up, but whose families I never met. Why match my pain against theirs? Why bring the flood of emotions back when they already got more on their plates than I can imagine? Better to lurk around the back or edges somewhere and let them get through it all.
Odd I’ve never been to a funeral with a receiving line. I’ve only seen them at weddings.
I wouldn’t have called it a receiving line before today, but we absolutely have them here in the South, and they ARE a receiving line. It’s the family members lined up by the casket, and the guests waiting in line to share a word of comfort or condolences.
If you are the bereaved, your friends are going to want to speak to you, to give you some comfort and support. But if you can’t stand there, you can’t. You really should try, if you can, to at least find a place your friends can find you so they can speak to you.
very common at wakes in Minnesota also
Your question disturbed me from first reading.
Been thinking about it ever since. I have wondered the same. I was in a situation once, and it was very hard. At the same time I was kinda the person everyone needed to connect with, for various reasons. It was an enormous amount of pressure at a very difficult time for me. I tried, I really did. But I could not make it to the end.
And I’ve always felt terrible about it. I put it behind me. But your question sent me right back there again.
Back when my parents died, it was common to have two days of wake and the third day was the funeral. People knew, and expected, that family members would take a little time out of the line to go in the back room, sit down for a bit, or go to the back room and have lunch, or dinner, or a snack, or obviously, go to the bathroom. It was not uncommon for family to take elderly members out for a bit, but usually the spouse and children of the deceased didn’t leave the building. So you didn’t expect to see every family member in line for the entire time they were receiving friends and relatives.
Either you waited for them to come back, or you just stuck your head in the back room, or you went without seeing them. But this means they were in line for some part of the wake.
Not to be in line at all might be unusual, but it would have been understood. If you’re too distraught to stand in line for a couple of hours, then it’s understood by any reasonable person that you can’t do it. It’s a terrible, stressful time for everyone.
Not rude at all. Everyone grieves differently. I was once in the position where I stood in for family members who could not. When my mom’s S.O. (she’d been with him for several years, but my sister and I were already adults and they’d never married) died, his sister and daughter were much too distraught to stand up, and his father was physically unable to even attend the visitation (he was brought to the funeral by ambulance). To keep my mom from having to stand up alone, my sister and I stood with her. We were worried that we might be stepping on some toes, but his sister and daughter seemed grateful. They ended up sitting in one of the front pews, so they did have contact with people, although they weren’t under as much pressure. There’s a similar situation with being a pallbearer. I’ve known men who served as pallbearers, say, for their own parents. Other times cousins or other less immediate relatives stepped in. (I mention men because I’ve never seen women serve as pallbearers around these parts.) It’s whatever works for the individual. While there can be comfort in rituals–because if you follow the rituals you know what to do–there’s really no right or wrong.
It’s not required to stand there. People will be giving you their condolences for the next while when they encounter you, and anybody who’s got experience being in the grieving party knows that it can be overwhelming. My mother skipped the line for Dad, I stood as chief mourner in her stead; local custom calls for a family member to attend Mass on the three days following the funeral so people have three more chances to present their respects, and again it was me who attended.
Just say "I’m sorry for your loss, and move on."
As Asimovian stated, “There is no ‘right’ way to mourn.” I would go a little further and say, “There is no ‘wrong’ way to mourn, either.” You have to do what you are capable of doing.
Related to not standing in the receiving line is the fact that, sometimes, a person might be seen as grieving too long. I’m talking about those well-meaning [del]busybodies[/del] folks who express their concern that a person isn’t “getting over” the loss of their loved-one after 6 or 12 months.
Grief and mourning are the outward manifestation of an inward wound, and all wounds – external or internal – take time to scab over and heal. And, like all external wounds, internal wounds will also have a scar.
When a person sees someone cut their hand, they don’t go up to that person and say, “Hey, it’s been 5 minutes … stop bleeding already!” It is obvious that would not work.
But, too many of our friends, family, and colleagues think it is OK to say, “Hey, it’s time to move on.”
We all grieve in different ways, and for different lengths of time, so remember, there is no right nor wrong way to grieve
I believe the OP is referring to being one of the family and not wanting to stand there** receiving** the condolences. I agree with others that your loved one wouldn’t want you to suffer like that at their funeral. Accept condolences however you can; those who are close to you will seek you out where you feel comfortable.
Nobody but you can say how you should grieve. If you can’t hack the recieving line, don’t do it.
Myself, I don’t like viewing the body. I’ve made it a point, in my funeral and visitation instructions, that when I die I’m to be placed in the coffin and it’s to be locked shut, never to be opened. If people want to remember me I’d prefer their last memory of me was from when I was alive.
All this being said, in a perverse sort of way I liked the recieving line at my father’s funeral. I was very sad, cried a couple times, but it was gratifiying to see how long the line was, how many folks had cared to come. One of the workers at the funeral home said they’d never seen a line that long. Dad, I miss you so much.
Or you could offer to help the person let it all out.
This is correct.
As a funeral director I wholeheartedly agree. I think the receiving line is something that most families do at services just because they think it’s expected of them. Actually, many families- especially those who have had prior recent experience with a funeral service - choose to omit receiving the congregation during final tribute, choosing instead to greet and acknowledge people at the reception or luncheon following the service so that they can acknowledge entire tables of people.
To be honest, I cannot blame a family in the least for choosing to omit the receiving line or final tribute. It’s ostensibly among the worst days of a person’s life when they hold a funeral service for someone they loved, and after shaking hands with 10 congregants, I have personally seen family members go into automatic mode and robotically shake and acknowledge the congregation. Some choose to walk away and sequester themselves privately elsewhere because it is all too overwhelming.
Do what you need to do during a time of loss, and do not be concerned about what others think or say.
When my father died, we decided on a small memorial service. That was all we wanted. At our church, not a funeral home. But it didn’t turn out to be small, the service was announced in the local paper and something like 200 people showed up. And some of our friends put together a real nice reception in the church rec room with lots of sweets and finger sandwiches and coffee, tea and soda. They decorated the room with his art work. They did a great job and it was a total surprise to us although we knew they were going to do something. We just didn’t know the extent.
And we had made a decision NOT to do the receiving line. But once we got to the reception everyone lined up and my Mom was like “well, so much for that, I guess we ARE doing a receiving line”. And I stood in the line for the most part but I did take breaks to rest my feet and grab food. Then I got back in. No one seemed bothered by it.