Should I have a "traditional" funeral for mom when she passes?
My sister and my husband think I should have "Traditional" services for our mother when she passes so that family, friends and acquaintances can pay their last respects. I don't agree, but could be wrong in my thoughts and feelings.
My mother is 88 yrs old and has been in a nursing facility for 2 years. In the past 2 years she hasn't had many visitors. In the beginning she did but now hardly anyone comes to visit her or call. My sister lives in San Diego, works and comes when she can. Family members come rarely which makes my mother angry and sad. She cries frequently about it.
She has told me on more than one occasion and I am starting to agree with her that everyone will come to see her when she's dead but won't come to see her while she's alive.
For selfish reasons, I often wish she had more company to fill the gaps when I'm not there.
I want to have a private funeral with our immediate family and after announce in the Obituary that she passed and a private service was held. My sister and husband don't agree. They want me to put the Obituary in the paper and whoever wants to come can come. Then afterwards they want to have a gathering either at a restaurant or at our home. I agreed to it but the more I think about it the more I don't want to do it.
Her sister will be 100 this winter. Winter parties are hard to arrange up here in the frozen tundra, so her daughters held a large 99.5 party this summer. Relatives came from some distance. I don't know what my cousins are planning, but as far as I'm concerned it would be OK if they keep the funeral private.
When my gramma died, my dad honored her request for "no muss, no fuss" and simply had her cremated, with no service of any kind. I wish now that I had organized a simple memorial service. My dad had simply never heard of that way of giving family comfort. I was just too young and inexperienced to take it on myself. But I missed some acknowledgement that her life was over and we were sad.
Spoonfulasugar, are there religious conventions to consider in your family?
Could you hold some kind of celebration honoring her now, and encourage family to attend? Would your mother enjoy that?
I am glad that you aren't considering a total "no muss, no fuss" approach. You are trying to decide between something for the immediate family, or something more public. Those are both reasonable choices. I hope you and your sister can come to a mutually satisfying resolution.
My vote would be "public celebration while she is alive" and "private burial ceremony." But that isn't always to arrange.
I agree with others that a celebration while she's alive is the best way to honor her. Don't wait for a birthday, make up an occasion if need be. Work the date around whenever the people she'd like to see are able to be there.
It's a lose/lose situation when we 'test' our friends' and family's devotion by whether or not they appear when we desire them to. It only leads to bitterness on your part and guilt on theirs.
My parents remaining siblings are too old to fly out, and my cousins all have their own age related decline which makes travel difficult. Either my parents friends are deceased or too elderly to travel. I doubt my parents neighbors would come to a wake or Mass, as my parents don't socialize with them [they have nothing in common with families who have toddlers or teenage children].
Lately in my area, what seems to be the trend now is to have the love one cremated, then the next day have *visitors* at the funeral home for a couple of hours, have some friends and relatives get up to talk for a couple of minutes, then have a private family only burial. Later a reception.
For my parents, no obit in the newspaper. My parents said it's no body's business.
Despite what your mother had said, funeral services are for the living, and the ritual of a traditional service may be comforting to your sister and husband and provide them with the type of closure they need.
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