My grandfather passed away last Sunday, and there’s been some difficulty planning the memorial service.
My uncle has taken charge of the planning, for the most part, and is trying to schedule a service that almost everyone can attend. At the moment, the service won’t happen until mid-September. However, this is causing some stress in and of itself, as that places the service over a month after his death.
Now my grandmother wants to assert more control over the plans by setting a date and making it clear to everyone that they are welcome to attend, but that it is not a slight to her or the memory of my grandfather if circumstances mean they can’t make it.
My question, though, relates to planning in general. It would seem to me that it makes more sense to set the date and then, more or less, tell people to show up at a certain time. I’m not terribly old, but most funerals that I remember went that way. Is that the standard protocol for this sort of thing, as much as there can be a standard?
In my experience, the time/place for a funeral is usually set by the next of kin or whoever is handling arrangements, and announced to friends and family. Usually happens within a week of death, often sooner.
It may be possible to have a burial service soon, for whoever can attend, and then schedule a memorial service/get-together thing later when more can attend. In lieu of a body, the later memorial might use a picture of the deceased.
Usually a date is set and people either make it or they don’t. A lot of religions require the dead to be buried as soon as possible after death, so that’s one of the reasons funerals tend to be so quick out of the starting blocks.
I’ve seen this too. Particularly for people who live abroad (eg/ someone originally from New Zealand who died in Canada). It was a small funeral in one location, then a larger memorial service about a month later.
It’s not super common, but also not unheard of to delay a memorial service. Some religions have specific guidelines which would of course be honored, but I look at memorial services as a different category.
My grandparents died a few days before Christmas. We held the service in January. No one remembered them any less a month later than they would have if we’d held it between Christmas and New Year’s.
Your grandmother, if she is assertive enough to stand up to your uncle, should be the one who gets to decide.
I’m not 100% sure just what you’re asking here. If you’re asking aren’t most funerals planned and then people show up or don’t, yes, I think that’s the standard. Not just for funerals, for any sort of event. Is the underlying question “why is so much effort being put into accomodating other people?” I don’t have an answer, but know that it’s my own inclination. If Aunt June has already said she can’t come on the 18th and we schedule it for the 18th will June feel like she was deliberately left out? Not saying it’s rational, but it’s how some people think.
That’s certainly how it works in my family. The only time any other method was considered was when my maternal grandmother died and the best time to schedule her funeral was on my birthday. My mother asked if I would prefer that it be postponed, but there was no point in it.
I guess if you wanted to, you could say we postponed my father’s funeral, as he died on the 23rd of December and we did not bury him until the 26th, but that may have been because Christmas Day was not available for funerals.
My late MIL posponed her mother’s burial for a day, to avoid having in on our wedding anniversary. I thought that was very thoughtful of her.
A few weeks before MaMaw’s death, Mr. SCL had asked me where I wanted to eat on our anniversary. I answered “Krystal” because there aren’t any in Hawai’i and I was really craving one. Due to MaMaw’s death, we were in Georgia on our anniversary and I got my Krystals.
In my experience, the date is set by the next of kin without asking Aunt June or anyone else when they can make it. In my family, there are no religious requirements regarding burial, but generally speaking the wake will start about three days after the death, and the funeral will be on the second or third day after the wake begins. The interval may be adjusted a bit if a lot of people or a very close relative will need time to travel , and a particular date may be avoided due to another significant event ( we wouldn't schedule the funeral on the same day as a family wedding). Those situations require a day or two, not a month.
Even with a later memorial service, I think it would be impossible to find a date that everyone could attend (unless it was a very small group)
For example, Jewish ones. My father died on the Thursday before Easter Sunday this year. Friday was too soon to do anything, Saturday was the Sabbath, and the next Monday was one of the days of Pesach when you can’t do funerals. We wound up paying some of the funeral home people extra to come in early on Easter Sunday to do the burial.
At least the rabbi was not otherwise occupied that day.
Thanks for the replies. I think part of the situation in this case is that my uncle was in charge of gathering all of the relatives from his side of the country (Oregon) and determining when they could get to Florida for a ceremony, along with the fact that because he had his wife’s family in town until the end of the month, he couldn’t get away before September.
Then it snowballed from there into an attempt to accommodate everyone’s work schedules. My grandfather has already been cremated, and my grandmother doesn’t want a large, somber funeral. But she’s also the stepmother to my mom and uncles, so there was a lot of tiptoeing with regard to who had the moral authority to make decisions, if that makes sense. This probably could have been a sad rant in MPSIMS instead of a question, but thanks for the input all the same.
I realize that your question was asked some time ago, however I thought I would respond since it may be helpful to others who are going through something similar.
With regard to scheduling a service, I can understand the desire to arrange to accommodate everyone’s schedules and convenience, however ultimately it is usually the case that you cannot strive to please everyone and attempting to do so can become and exercise in frustration and futility.
Your grandmother as the legal next of kin has the right to put her foot down and make her wishes known. The nephew seems to mean well and is trying to accommodate everyone- which is the disconnect here since doing so is nothing short of impossible.
The original thread CoffinMan started was OK. But what’s going on today is very strange. I think he should step away from the computer a while. Something seems to be going on with him, some obsession, and it doesn’t feel healthy.