Why?

Why do we need funerals? Essentially, the funeral ritual is a public, traditional and symbolic means of expressing our beliefs, thoughts and feelings about the death of someone loved. Rich in history and rife with symbolism, the funeral ceremony to the life of the person who acknowledge the reality of the death, gives testimony to the life of the person who died, encourages the expression of grief in a way consistent with the culture's values, provides support to mourners, allows for the embracing of faith and beliefs about life and death, and offers continuity and hope for the living.

Healing in grief is not an event but a process that will unfold for weeks, months and even years after the funeral itself. The funeral is a ritual of ending, but it only marks the beginning of the healing process. Even so, a meaningfulfuneral can certainly begin to meet all six reconciliation needs, setting the tone for the grief journey to come.

How the funeral Experience help to meet the six reconcialtion needs of mourning

Mourning Need #1. Acknowledge the reality of the death.
When someone loved dies, we must openly acknowledge the reality and the finality of the death if we are to move foward with our grief. Typically, we embrace this reality in two phases. First we acknowledge the death with our minds; we are told that someone we loved has died and, intellectually at least, we understand the fact of the death. Over the course of the following days and weeks, and with the gentle understanding of those around us, we begin to acknowledge the reality of the death in our hearts.

Meaningful funeral Experiences can serve as wonderful points of departure for "head understanding" of the death. Intellectually, funerals teach us that someone we loved is now dead, even though up until the funeral we may have denied this fact. When we contact the funeral home, set a time for the service, plan the ceremony, view the body, perhaps even choose clothing and jewlery for the body, we cannot avoid acknowledging that the person has died. When we see the casket being lowered into the ground, we are witness to death's finality.

Mourning Need #2. Move toward the pain of loss.
As our acknowledment of the death progresses from what is called "head understanding" to "heart understading," we begin to embrce the pain of the loss - another need the bereaved must have met if they are to heal. Healthy grief means expressing our painful thoughts and feelings, and healthy funeral Experiences allow us to do just that.

People tend to cry, even sob and wai, at funerals because funerals force us to concentrate on the fact of the death and our feelings, often excruciatingly painful, about that death. For at least an hour or two - longer for mourners who plan the ceremony or attend the visitation - those attending the funeral are not able to intellectualize or distance themselves from the pain of their grief. To their credit, funerals also provide us with an accepted venue for our painful feelings. They are perhaps the only time and place, in fact, during which we as a society condone such openly outward expression of our sadness.

Mourning Need #3. Remember the person who died.
To heal in grief, we must shift our relationship with the person who died from one of physical presence to one of memory. The funeral Experience encourages us to begin this shift, for it provides a natural time and place for us to think about the moments we shared - good and bad - with the person who died. Like no other time before or after the death, the funeral invites us to focus on our past relationship with that one, single person and to share those memories with others.

At traditional funerals, the eulogy attempts to highlight the major events in the life of the deceased and the characterisitics that he or she most prominently displayed. This is helpful to mourners, for it tends to prompt more intimate, individualized memories. Later, after the ceremony itself, many mourners will informally share memories of the person who died. This, too, is meaningful. Throughout our grief journeys, the more we are able to "tell the story" - of the death itself, of our memories of the person who died - the more likely we will be to reconcile our grief. Moreover, the sharing of memories at the funeral affirms the worth we have placed on the person who died, legitimizing our pain.

Mourning Need #4. Develop a new self-identity.
Another prmiary reconciliation need of mourning is the development of a new self-identity. We are all social beings whose lives are given meaning in a relation to the lives of those around us. When someone close to us dies, our self-identity as defined in those ways changes.

Van Gennep, in his book The Rites of Passage, emphasized that funerals help mourners with their changed statuses. He pointed out that rites of birth, marriage and death mark separation from an old status, transition into a new status and incorporation into that new status. To use his term, funerals are a individual's life is a potential threat to the whole social group, which knows how to treat someone in a clearly defined state but not someone who hovers between states.

The funeral Experience helps us begin this difficult process of developing a new self-identity because it provides a social venue for public acknowledgement of our new roles. If you are a parent of a child and that child dies, the funeral marks the beginning of your life as a former parent (in the physucal sense; you will always have the relationship through memory). Others attending the funeral are in effect saying, "We acknowledge your changed identity and we want you to know we still care about you." On the other hand, in situations where there is no funeral, the social group does not know how to relate to the person whose identity has changed and often that person is socially abandonded. In addition, having supportive friends and family around us at the time of the funeral helps us realize we literally still exist. This self-identity issue is illustrated by a comment the bereaved often make: "When he died, I felt like a part of me died, too."

Mourning Need #5. Search for meaning.
When someone dies, we naturally question the meaning of life and death. Why did this person die? Why now? Why this way? Why does it have to hurt so much? What happens after death? To heal in grief, we must explore these types of questions if we are to become reconciled to our grief. In fact, we must first ask ourselves how we will go on living. This does not mean we must find definitive answers, only that we need the opportunity to think (and feel) things through.

The funeral Experience provides us with such an opportunity. For those who adhere to a specific religious faith, the meaningful funeral will reinforce that faith and provide comfort. Alternatively, it may prompt us to question our faith, which too can be an enriching process. Whether you agree or disagree with the belief system upheld by a particular funeral service may not matter; what may matter more is that you have held up your heart to that belief system and struggles with the gap.

On a more fundamental level, the funeral reinforces one central fact of our existence; we will die. Like living, dying is a natural and unavoidable process. We North Americans tend not to acknowlege this.) Thus the funeral helps us search for meaning in the life and death of the person who died as well as in our own lives and impending deaths. Each funeral we attend serves as a sort of dress rehersal for our own.

Funerals are a way in which we as individuals and as a community convey our beliefs and values about life and death. The very fact of a funera; demonstrates that death is important to us. For the living to go on living as fully and as healthily as possible, this is as it should be.

Mourning Need #6. Receive ongoing spport from others.
As we have said, funerals are a public means of expressing our beliefs and feelings about the death of someone loved. In fact, fnerals are the public venue for offering support to others and being supported in grief, both at the time of the funeral and into the future. FUnerals make a social statement that says, "Come support me." Whether they realize it or not, those who choose not to have a funeral are saying, "Don't come support me."

People often attens funerals not for their own benefit )although they sometimes examine this rationalization) but for the benefit of the primary mourners. An office worker's daughter is killed in a car accident, and although they didn't know the girl, the office worker's colleagues attend the funeral to demonstrate their support. The mother feels grateful and after her bereavement leave, return to work hoping her grief will be acknowledged. This public affirmation value of funerals cannot be overemphasized.

Funerals let us physically demonstrate our support, too. Sadly, ours is not a demonstrative society, but at funerals we are "allowed" to embrace, to touch, to comfort. Again, words are inadequate so we nonverbally demonstrate our support. This physical show of support is one of the most important healing aspects of meaningful funeral ceremonies.

Another one is the helping realtionship that are established at funerals. Friends often seek out ways in which they can help the primary mourners. May I bring the flowers back to the house? Would you like someone to watch little Susie for a few afternoons this week? I'd like to make a few meals for your family. When might be a good time to bring them over? Friends helping friends and strengthened relationships among the living are invaluable funeral offshoots.

Finally, and most simply, funerals serve as the central gathering place for mourners. When we care about someone who died or his family members, w attend the funeral if at all possible. Our physical presence is our most important show of support for the living. By attending the funeral, we let everyone else there know that they are not alone in their grief.