Apart from the demands put upon us by some of religious faiths, and apart from the fact that we are more or less expected to do so by society, why do we have funerals? Are there some valuable and logical reasons for a family arranging such an event when a loved one dies?

The more I study and understand the grieving process, the more value I see in the funeral. I realize that not all of them are well done. Not all of them are healthy or healing. Matter of fact, many of them are actually quite boring. In spite of all of that I think the funeral is a vitally important tool in the grief process. Done right, the funeral is the beginning of healing for the family and the forming of memories that keep the loved one alive in our lives. 

Their father died at 89 years of age. Alzheimer's had taken him from them fifteen years earlier, most of his friends were gone, and the family wondered if having a funeral was necessary or worthwhile. I urged them to do so and then asked them to meet me at the funeral home the evening before. We sat beside his body and began to tell stories. I tell folks we had a resurrection that night. He came back to life among us. They began to tell about his life before the Alzheimer's. The fishing trip from Hell. The time he fell off of the windmill. The family trips they can never forget, the stories he loved to tell, and the impact he had on each of their lives. 

The next day, we gathered in the chapel to tell those same stories to those gathered to show support and comfort. It was a time of healing, and a time of honoring a life. We laughed and cried with no fear of showing either emotion, and came away feeling strangely moved.

Several things happened in that experience. First, the family broke through the natural barriers that cause us to hide our feelings from one another, especially family members. It takes a family to grieve a loss. Something has to break the ice before a family can share their feelings in front of one another. If a family can come together, open the conversation and begin sharing the pain with one another, healing is a real possibility. Matter of fact, I have seen these experiences heal old wounds that had plagued a family for years. When the barriers came down and they began to share the life of a loved one, they also began to work through other feelings as well.

Second. They honored a life. When a loved one dies, we feel the need to establish the significance of that life. This need extends beyond the funeral. We feel the need to tell others how much the person meant to us. How deeply we feel the loss, and how important the life really was. If we do not do so, we have a sense of not only slighting that life, but somehow diminishing us. That is why I cringe when a family decides there is no reason to have a funeral. 

Third, they invited others into their grief. When I am called upon to companion someone through the grief journey, the first thing I do is ask them about the funeral. If they tell me they did not have a funeral then I know my job is going to be much more difficult. Not having a funeral means the family chooses to go through their grief closed off from others. When someone enters the grieving experience closed off from the help and concern of others, it is difficult to get them to open to any help I might give as well. 

And they began the process of memories. No one is dead until they are forgotten. The funeral is a promise never to forget. When my grandmother died, our family had a story telling time beside her body. I do not remember anything that was said at the funeral itself, but I can tell almost all of the stories we told that night. I can do so, because we never stopped telling them. Every time the family got together we told them again. I not only knew the stories, I knew the order in which they would be told. My grandmother is still alive among us. My children know her well. She lived on because we stopped to honor her life and her meaning. 

A man approached me a few weeks ago and said, "You do not know us, but when my grandmother died, you got all of the family in a room and let us tell stories about her, then at the funeral you told the story of her life. I never forgot either of those experiences and cannot tell you how much they have meant to me. I remembered his grandmother and the family. She was old, most of her friends were gone, she did not live in our town over a year before she died. It would be easy to think a funeral was not important. She died in 1975 and he still remembers. We have funerals because every life is worth remembering.