meet n greet funeral

in the last month i have been to 3 funerals for a person i had never meet b4.

i just went to one last night for and old man who had passed away, i didnt know him, i had met his wife who was a friend of my grandmothers, but i barely even knew his wife and had never known anyone else in the family. They have a very large family and it felt like a big meet and greet over some guys body. I thought it was very akward. i went with my mom, brother, grandparents and a friend of my grandparents. And the whole thing was us introducing ourselves to everyone.

I dont much like going to funerals for ppl i knew, let alone some one i have never met b4.

Has anyone else had to go to a funeral for some one they never met, and did it feel really akward?

i went to a funeral for my moms childhood friend and i didn't know anyone, but they all had met me when i was a baby... the funny thing was i didn't even know the girl who died but her husband's speech was so amazing i couldn't stop crying...
i also had to go the funeral of my great aunt who i had never met, and who had commited suicide the day before my family arrived in kentucky for thanksgiving...it was REALLY akward...what do u say to your distant cousins you've never met when their mom just died? needless to say my family spent thanksgiving alone in a hotel room eating peanut butter sandwiches and then went to see the viewing of the body. i met my great aunt for the first time while she was laying in a casket...

i cried at one funeral for a kid i had never met, but he was only 11 and had fallen off an old, unused train bridge that the town wouldnt pay to take down. He was a navy league cadet and i was a sea cadet, navy league is for kids who are too young to join sea cadets, he would have been coming up to sea cadets the next year, so it was really weird.

I have NEVER been to a funeral. Not even family members ( my choice) Is that wierd??
I find funerals to be a bit disrespectful.
Id rather visit with the deceased at a more personal quiet time. So every family member or friend that has ever died...I skipped out on the big " meet and greet" funeral, and did my own kind of grieving.

Alone.

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Originally Posted by Raina

I find funerals to be a bit disrespectful.

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I'm not a fan of funerals either but I don't really see how they are disrespectful. and how do you know if you've never been to one?

I'll be visiting a few of my friends for the first time since they passed away when I'm on the west coast. I don't find funerals disrespectful, but I need this to be personal. A lot was left unsaid.

OEC

I only went to one funeral, and it was the one I had for my mom and dad... I tried to make it sort of personal. I had it at this cabin in the country where they met, and put their photos and photo albums all around and had flowers. I wanted to say this poem that I wrote about my mom, but I was too upset to do it. My horrible brothers were there, after my mom died they tried to take everything. Horrible things happen after people die....

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Originally Posted by MistressJennifer

I only went to one funeral, and it was the one I had for my mom and dad... I tried to make it sort of personal. I had it at this cabin in the country where they met, and put their photos and photo albums all around and had flowers. I wanted to say this poem that I wrote about my mom, but I was too upset to do it. My horrible brothers were there, after my mom died they tried to take everything. Horrible things happen after people die....

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yeah, people can be so petty.

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Originally Posted by 23*

I'm not a fan of funerals either but I don't really see how they are disrespectful. and how do you know if you've never been to one?

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I guess I should explain a bit more. Its not really the funeral itself that I find to be disrespectful, its the way people act when someone they care about has passed away.

I avoid funerals as much as I can. More often than not, they seem to turn out to be a long sermon with occasional references to the dead person. The last funeral I ever went to was for a friend of mine who killed himself, and it went something like: "Yeah, it sucks that Chad died. But God is good. Heaven is good. Yay for God and heaven. Chad's there now, I guess. Huzzah for God!" I was pretty pissed off about the whole thing, though I decided to let it slide... there's probably some pretty hefty bad karma involved with decking a priest. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by TheWalkingGlitch

I avoid funerals as much as I can. More often than not, they seem to turn out to be a long sermon with occasional references to the dead person. The last funeral I ever went to was for a friend of mine who killed himself, and it went something like: "Yeah, it sucks that Chad died. But God is good. Heaven is good. Yay for God and heaven. Chad's there now, I guess. Huzzah for God!" I was pretty pissed off about the whole thing, though I decided to let it slide... there's probably some pretty hefty bad karma involved with decking a priest. :rolleyes:

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thats kinda what I was referring to as being disrespectful. You put it better than I could.

The last funeral I went to was for the mother of my ex-wife, and that was very awkward too. Being an ex member of the family I sat to one side and, following the actual lowering of the coffin into the earth, found myself pretty much alone there. Everyone else went straight on to a cafe for the wake, which was about five kilometres away. I walked. I needn't have bothered; coffee and a few sandwiches were all that was on offer to smother the appetite I'd built up.

Most of the funerals I went to were when I was quite young. My first funeral I was 5, it was for my uncle who was 6. He and I were really close as playmates so I remember it vividly. He had leukemia, there wasn't much of a success rate back then. In those days you could actually take pictures of the casket and body. I dunno if that is allowed now.

I actually dont mind going to funerals, well after a while they do get kind of boring , a few years back I had four , each a month apart and all in the same circle of people and at the same funeral parlour, that was wierd by the third never mind the fourth