When an obituary notice in the paper identifies the place and time of a memorial service, is “anyone” invited to attend?
Would one expect the family of the deceased be (more) uncomfortable with strangers in attendance? Is it an invasion of privacy to attend if you’re not connected to the deceased in some way?
I saw an obit for a man who was important to me 30 years ago. I invited a very close friend to go to the memorial service with me, but she declined, citing the issues above. In fact, I suspect that her real reasons for not wanting to go are more subtle than that, but she’s generally a very honest person and she stuck to an assertion that it is innappropriate for strangers to show up at funerals.
One of my good friends and some of my in-laws came to my uncle’s memorial in support of my family. None of them had ever met my uncle. I see nothing wrong with it. The dead guy is dead. The whole shebang is for the living.
Go–if the gentleman was important to you in the past, go.
You are not becoming a permanent part of the grieving family’s life. You don’t have to do anything more than go through any receiving line and sign the book. Standing up is important, filling the place of assembly is a mark of respect. Opera and funerals are times when supernumeraries are good.
You go to pay your respects to the deceased, she goes to support you. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s not like you were bringing along a rowdy mob!
Now, if she showed up alone, and the family were like, “Who are you?” and she was like “Oh, I just saw the obit in the paper and decided to swing by. Lovely flowers!” that would be weird.
One rule of etiquette is that if you hold a funeral/memorial service in a church, you may not exclude members of that church congregation from attending (same with weddings and any other formal ceremony) - so that would exclude many situations from your friend’s “strangers are inappropriate” rule.
I have no idea if the service is being held in a church, however - they often aren’t.
At my dad’s funeral, a couple of old Army buddies (two tours in Vietnam) showed up. Their friendship with my father predated my birth by several years. Even my mom had never met them or heard of them. None of us thought it odd or uncomfortable; in fact, I was grateful that they (a) found him in the obits in the first place, and (b) felt comfortable coming forward.
One of them wept openly for a man (my father) he hadn’t seen or heard from in 30 years. It was probably the most poignant moment of my life up to that point.
If the ceremony has been announced in public, then anyone can come as long as they behave themselves. I can understand a person not going because they won’t know anyone there, and therefore might be uncomfortable. But if the family wants to limit it, they should just send out invitations to those that they want to come, and not make any public announcement. And even then, the ex-daughter-in-law’s current lover that no one wants to speak to, or those embarrassing ex-Army buddies, might hear about it, and still turn up. Tough: as long as they behave themselves, let them come.
I have heard of elderly people showing up randomly at wakes and funerals of people they never knew. I suppose for some it might be something to do, although it does seem to be an unusual way to pass the time.
My grandmother died yesterday morning; the wake is scheduled for Monday, and the funeral for Tuesday. Her obituary will be placed in the local newspaper by the funeral home, as part of her arrangements. As we have a pretty small family and she outlived most of her contemporaries (wish I could be guaranteed to live to the age of 96!), it will be easy to see if we get any “spectators.” I’d find it odd, but as long as they behaved themselves I wouldn’t really care… And in a way, I’d find it a bit amusing, since my grandma used to live directly across from the church and was forever peering through the curtains at weddings, funerals, etc.
It’s absolutely appropriate to show up. Two guys came to my grandfather’s funeral who he’d known in the union more than fifty years ago; my grandmother had known their names but never met them. She was thrilled. You should absolutely go if you were close to the person, to pay your respects. You certainly don’t have to even speak to anybody else, if you don’t want to.
I didn’t think so either, so I was surprised when she declined. At first I thought she was really just saying, “no, I’d be bored” or “I’ve got other things to do” but in fact I really wanted her there for support, and explained that to her. She understood, and appreciated it, and wants to support me, but no, not going.
Now, there are some perfectly good (at least understandable) reasons for her to put her own comfort ahead of my request. And I don’t really need to have a reason - she certainly doesn’t owe me one. But she offered one that seemed pretty, um, unlikely, and I needed a sanity check.
(The real reason, I suspect, is that the dead guy was the father of my high school girlfriend. My own father died when I was three, and this guy filled a pretty big void for me.)
