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And you said he was deaf. I wonder in his sheltered life, if this was how his parents felt and he doesn’t have the ability to understand the social cues.
Maybe. his dad was 20 years older than his mom and has other children from a previous Marriage and those half siblings are in their later fifties and 60's now. He is not very close to them at all. His Ideas of what social protocol is are very different from others and he makes no bones about it. He thinks his way of thinking is the only way. Don't get me wrong I love him as a friend but somethings I just don't get.
A wake is usually in lieu of a church service and is followed by the burial (or cremation), then that is usually followed by a reception/gathering.
Not where I'm from. Where I'm from, you have a viewing or wake and then the next day you have the funeral services usually, which are often religious in nature and often held at a church, though the viewing/wake may be held at a funeral home and then moved on to another location.
When my husband died, we had the viewing/wake one day from about 4 till 6 at the funeral home. Just about every song he loved we played, including funny ones. We had goofy photos of him - and good ones, more "serious ones" scattered around and playing on monitors and TV screens around the funeral home. Then the group of immediate family and close friends moved to my house, which was large, and we sat up for hours, remembering my adorable, funny husband, singing terrible karaoke (which he loved to do - but he was actually good while the rest of us aren't), laughing, and yes, drinking. The next day around 1 pm we had his funeral services at our church, and everyone was very respectful and somber, though some of the music wasn't particularly sad.
It was a great sendoff, and it warmed me to no end to see a lifetime of friends and family gathered together in my house. It's one of my fondest memories actually.
Well over a year later, just the other day in fact, I realized that after his funeral, I didn't take anyone out to eat or gather together. I was so beat and so tired and so sad, all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. (He was being cremated so his body was already in the hearse when I snuck out.) It took me over a year to realize that maybe some people like the pall bearers wanted to go out to eat or get together. And maybe they did, but it was on their nickel, not mine - I was so frazzled and tired and teary eyed that all I wanted to do was go home. So home I went.
I never heard of anyone getting together after the funeral, but maybe they did. It was going to have to be without me. But I'd done the wake/viewing thing at my house already and it was very good so there's all that.
He has been to a couple of wakes before. His thinking is very rigid and if you don't agree with him he gets upset. He's gotten to know my mom so they text a lot because he is deaf and even she has said his thinking on certain things is very rigid and asks her opinion and if she does not agree he stops texting her for a few days. he looks to my mom as a mother figure since his mom is gone, he's 44 years old but sometimes acts like a child.
So, his behavior doesn't really have that much to do with mourning does it? He is who he is for better or worse. Kind of holds true for everyone. The wake was just one more demonstration of a more pervasive issue.
Last edited by Parnassia; 03-16-2022 at 03:38 PM..
He wanted to know why no one was crying and why the family was not sitting in the first row of seats quietly.
Sounds like this man has never grown up.
When my grandfather died (long after my grandmother), his children gathered at his house after the funeral to eat lunch and start figuring how who got what, since he only left a very basic will. There was nothing terribly valuable and he'd already given certain things to the people he wanted to have them.
My grandfather was quite a penny pincher. One of his things was to save his pocket change in canning jars, which he squirreled away under the house in a root cellar.
My uncles went into the cellar and pulled out all the jars they could find and bought them into the house. The brothers and sisters had a wonderful time telling stories about how tight their father was with his money, laughing and amiably dividing up the $150 or so in change.
Yes, they were sad that he died, but they remembered him well and celebrated his life.
Here in WA, I’ve been to no funerals or wakes, but have been to several celebrations of life. That’s what I want for myself. That’s what we gave our mom. Several of us in the family spoke about our memories. It was meaningful.
I have never heard the term wake used in actual usage. I always heard it called visitation . This is when you go to view the open casket, if there is one, and comfort the bereaved. Sometimes there was a celebration of life the next say, or an old fashioned funeral.
DH and I want to be cremated. So there will be no viewing.
Here in WA, I’ve been to no funerals or wakes, but have been to several celebrations of life. That’s what I want for myself. That’s what we gave our mom. Several of us in the family spoke about our memories. It was meaningful.
I have never heard the term wake used in actual usage. I always heard it called visitation . This is when you go to view the open casket, if there is one, and comfort the bereaved. Sometimes there was a celebration of life the next say, or an old fashioned funeral.
DH and I want to be cremated. So there will be no viewing.
Just wanted to point out that here there can be a visitation with an open casket, a funeral, and then a cremation.
Here I went to a visitation where the ashes of the deceased were already on display, the urn surrounded by pictures and other memorials and tributes. The memorial service itself was held after two or three days of visitation.
I guess the funerals/wakes/memorial services mean different things around the country. Where I am from there is always a viewing at the funeral parlor (wake as we call it) regardless of whether or not you are being buried or cremated. The wake is usually for the living relatives and a chance to say goodbye and grieve. then it's followed by a church service the next day then onto the cemetery or cremation site. Our family chose not to go the crematorium after the church when my dad died. Went had a luncheon at a local restaurant afterwards and we had about 20 people attend( mostly family and a few friends) In our family we always go out to eat between the day and night wake and always have a luncheon after the funeral the next day. My dad's ashes are with my mom because they don't have a plot so when my passes way which I hope is not for another 20 years I will get his ashes.
They would hate my family's visitation and funerals. (Sorry I seem to have written a book, but have faced so many deaths of family in the last 2 years that this topic made me think-especially since I live far from family and came pretty close to losing my husband last March.)
Yes we cry. I have lost parents, inlaws, 2 brothers, 2 sisters, 2 SIL, 5BIL, 6 nieces and nephews,40 aunts and uncles, umpteen cousins and friends etc. since I had my first baby. Usually my main cry is before the wake.
For deaths in the 1980s and 1990s we had a family viewing night so we could cry and laugh, and hug without an audience and then a night for everyone in the community if they wanted to come, and the funeral the next day. It is too expensive for that now.
We usually have the 4-6 hour wake the night before the funeral. We don't all stand around and cry. The closest members of the family may stand up by the casket to talk to people as they come in, but all of us at sometime leave the line and are out in the rest of the funeral home talking to people. Listening to stories. Sometimes laughing. Usually there is a kitchen/lounge that we set up snacks and drinks for immediate family to get away from it all. It can even get rowdy in there. Thinking of the time when my older sister and a college age nephew compared scars and the nephew dropped his pants to show his(he had boxers on) . LOL There is also a room with movies showing for our little ones.
We remember the good times with the deceased, we joke, we usually have a video showing 100s of pictures of the deceased over the years playing somewhere in the big room with the coffin. We have even had dogs come say goodbye. People come and go in the way that suits them.
I know I grieve when not surrounded by people. I am more likely to cry during the funeral and after when I hug the wife or husband or kids of the deceased, knowing how much we will miss our family member. After the wake, the family usually heads out to a local restaurant or pizza place and eats a meal together just being glad to spend time and reminisce with each other. We laugh. We joke. We hug. Some years it is the only time the family is all together in the same state.
The funeral is usually more serious time because it really is when you say your good byes to your loved one. Since we have several pastors in our family usually one of them do the funerals. But we still may have songs played from current songs that remind of us dad or our nephew etc. that are not really religious, but sort of say who our loved one is or how they lived their life. I think we had a truck song, a rail road song, a song by Queen,some Disney songs, some country songs from Alabama and Tim McGraw along with some of the usual songs sung by various artists. Sometimes a video of their lives is played during the funeral.
I think you miss people in different ways but the knowledge that there is life after death makes dying less scary and sad for the person and family. Often if the person has had a hard illness you have time where you prepare yourself and may even feel glad that they are out of pain. It was hardest wen my brother was killed in an accident.
It is when the hoopla goes away and you feel that empty spot in your home that you grieve for what is lost to you and maybe not even for the person who died as much as how life changed with their death. I hope I will be like my mom. The day of dad's funeral she bought a sink for her bathroom. Life does go on. She had a hard time without dad so I hope I will cope better in that respect. We say she died of a broken heart-6 months later after hardly having a sick day in her life.
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He is entitled to his opinion, you don't have to agree with him.
