No poll, just wanting thoughts.
Thank you cards tell the sender that their gift has been recieved. I gets that. I send cards and flowers or whatever, but I think that a thank-you email is all that is needed.
The funeral is when I start to move on, when I get the card in the mail, it just rips the scab off my heart again.
What do you folks think?
I would never expect any sort of thank you card or even email for a memorial or funerary token. I’ve always assumed the bereaved have their hands full already with final arrangements and sadness and stuff, and I wouldn’t want to add to that burden.
I think for a birthday present or wedding present the receiver should promptly send a thank you note by U.S. mail (not by email, as mailing a thank you note is more appropriate), but I think if one is sending a card or flowers for a funeral, I don’t think really any reply is necessary from the receiver.
This, exactly.
However, 10 years ago when my grandmother died Thank You cards were included in the “package” of services from the funeral home. (This was in a relatively large city in Central Ontario). My mom was in charge of writing thank you notes. Her aunt, my grandmother’s sister-in-law, asked my mom why she hadn’t received one yet about a week after the service… So, it was expected (and soon!) in that area. I’m not sure how much the tide has turned in 10 years.
No reply is needed for anything related to a funeral.
A person who would write a bereavement note with the expectation of a response from the greiving, is, in my opinion, a monster.
My father died when I was in college, just over 20 years ago. My sister and I wrote the thank you notes to spare our mother the pain and effort, in the week following the funeral.
That being said, I would never judge the bereaved for not sending/not thinking of/being unable to send thank you cards. I don’t personally see the sending of flowers/donations/whatever as much of a “gift” in context of everything that happened. (And flowers end up being a burden to the family, frankly.)
good OP/username combo!
there should be no social obligation for the recipients of funeral offerings to send hand-written thank yous, or any thank yous at all
but this…
sounds odd to me. It seems to me you are saying it is thoughtless of the chief mourner to thank you because that will remind you of the death in question and make you sad.
They are allowed to send you a thank you card if they goddamn want to and you will open it and you will think well of that person, you got it?
SIR!!! Yes Sir!!!
I don’t think poorly of the bereaved if they send thank-you cards or if they don’t. They are in grief. If sending cards helps them feel better, then that is what they should do.
After my best friend buried her father, she spent hours ironing. Once she ran out of things to iron, she had me address the thank-you cards (supplied by the funeral home), and she wrote notes and signed them. It was what she wanted to do, so I helped.
I would never dream of telling anyone irl how I feel about this. I was mostly wondering how others felt.
I think you are confused here. flatlined sadly, is the chief mourner. She is saying that receiving the cards is painful, so revisiting them in order to write thank you notes would be an unwelcome source of grief.
I do not believe she is saying that she herself is pained by receiving thank you notes after having send a bereavement card or token.
If I sent something and it was acknowledged in any way I’m surprised b/c nothing is expected. I’ve gotten handwritten notes, mass-produced notes, emails and no response to bereavement gifts I’ve sent. Whatever the recipient does that feels ok to them is more than alright by me, it’s not about my action in any way. This is not a gift given at a planned, happy occasion but typically a sudden (and suddenly expensive) event after which the recipients have pain and healing in front of them; the etiquette for other occasions doesn’t apply.
Hello Again is absolutely right.
Formal etiquette requires that the bereaved write thank you notes for every condolence note they receive. But personally, I would only send thank you’s for flowers or donations or special actions. I would not expect to receive a thank you for sending a sympathy card. I have, however, occasionally gotten a thank you for attending a funeral. For many people, the act of writing those thank you notes is a healing thing, a chance to thank someone more personally after the cloud of grief has lifted a bit.
When I go out of my way to perform nice gestures and they are unacknowledged, I figure the recipient really didn’t care for the courtesy and try not to repeat the mistake in the future.
I know you’re sad, sweetie, but we’ve all had deaths in our families. It doesn’t license any of us to be ungrateful.
I guess I try not to feel like I’m going out of my way to do something when someone I care about has a tragedy in their life. I like to be able to do something in hope it will bring them some measure of comfort. I don’t feel like they OWE me anything. That’s just what you do.
Oh. Nevermind.
I was confused. I’m sorry flatlined 
Anyone who expects a thank you note when there’s a death involved is a dick. The only thing that should be “expected” of the bereaved is to take care of themselves.
Yeah, no thank yous necessary in this situation, much less hand-written ones.
I agree with this. What kind of narcissistic asshole do you have to be to take someone else’s tragedy and turn it into a “But what about ME?!” moment? How selfish and self-centered do you have to be to think that your desire to be recognized for doing something “nice” is more important than consideration for someone who just experienced a significant personal loss?
Doing something “nice” based on the expectation of getting recognition for it is not truly nice - it’s being manipulative. I would feel absolutely no guilt if I “offended” someone like that.
I love how completely predictable rude people are in formulating pretexts for their unwillingness to reciprocate nice gestures.
Nobody is saying that it is more important to acknowledge a condolence than it is to comfort the grieving; but it is nonetheless important to do so. That is to say, it cannot be neglected.
Moreover, death is not some sort of seldom-encountered tragedy. All of us, alas, will be unfortunate enough to experience the death of someone we love. These rituals that have evolved around grieving—sending cards, attending funerals, thanking those who have supported you during your time of need—are the product of hundreds of generations dealing with this very fundamental aspect of the human condition. Indeed, one of the hallmarks in the divergence of human being from the other primates is the appearance of death rituals (Behavioral modernity - Wikipedia).
So, against this fine pedigree, we have modern complainers who are just so utterly overwhelmed by something that just about every human being will experience. It is not my expecting an acknowledgement of a gracious gesture that is the height of self-indulgence, but this very silly and self-serving notion of what it means to be grieving.
I suppose I shall admit to being “rude” in the sense that I do not enjoy writing or receiving thank you notes of any formality. I like being thanked in-person or via email or other online messages if a person feels like thanking me, but I don’t set up an expectation of it, and therefore don’t feel any resentment or lack of goodwill when I don’t receive a thanks for something I went out of my way to do for that person. I also very much dislike opening and reading paper mail of any sort, even the best intentioned.
So that is what it means to be rude: to do things for people with the reward for me being that I did something to make someone else happy or feel better. Sheer awfulness of it eludes me entirely, thus proving how rude I am, I am sure.
I don’t usually write thank you notes when I receive gifts. If my relatives and friends then give me fewer gifts, that’s fine, it’s their choice and I hope they are still happy with what I give them. I never feel slighted when someone fails to give me a gift or send me a card or a thank you, so I am not impacted negatively other than feeling a bit of angst that people are considering me rude. But, as you can probably tell, I’d rather deal with that than the stress of writing more thank yous that just evoke people to give me more things that they then expect thank yous for which I then would have to write. It’d never end, I tell you. So I rather it doesn’t start!
For my preference, instead of ever writing me a thank you note, I hope that everyone to whom I send birthday cards, gifts, condolences, wedding presents, congratulations and so on, will use that energy to do something for someone else that will make their day brighter. Pass on the goodwill, don’t worry about me, I wouldn’t appreciate your courtesy anyway - I’m far too rude.
Yup.
I don’t think anyone “enjoys” writing these notes. And yes, it’s rude not to. I’m puzzled that you seem defiantly proud of that. <shrug>
I didn’t enjoy writing notes to everyone who sent me notes, flowers, etc., after my husband died, and I know most of them probably didn’t expect anything from me.
But I wanted them to know how much I appreciated their expressions of caring. It was a two-way communication. They reached out to me with love and I reached back with gratitude. Social rituals give us a framework for doing that at a time when we’re feeling lost.