A friends husband died a few weeks ago she texted today to say when his funeral would be only to say shes not going. How could you not go to your husbands funeral ?i dont get it. Nothing would have stopped me from going to my husbands funeral i would have crawled to it if i had to.I know everyones different but i think she will regret it later. I offered to take her but she just said she would be staying at home and remembering him there.
3 Likes
Thatâs really sad, nothing would have stopped me saying goodbye to my husband. You have done all you can for your friend as you said she might regret it later.
Debbie x
2 Likes
Your friend may feel like this at the moment but she may change her mind back & forth over the next few days/weeks, as we all know her mind wonât be clear at the moment & her emotions will be all over the place, if she doesnât attend the funeral she may wish to say a private goodbye & thatâs get choice & would probably like to feel supported in that choice.
2 Likes
I donât want a wake , because I know I wonât hold myself together , is that ok ? I gave no clue
I agree I couldnât have imagined not going to Richardâs funeral @Misprint although it is quite an old fashioned idea. I know my Dad said they wouldnât let their Mum go to their Dadâs funeral as it would have broken her heart. I commented that him dying is what broke her heart but they were trying to protect her through misguided love.
@Martju its up to you but nobody expects you to hold it together - I certainly didnât at the funeral or the wake. Do whatever feels right to you, xxx
2 Likes
Maybe its too painful fior her snd she is struggling to accept hes gone ? Poor woman i think . Its very sad she cant go 
xx
3 Likes
My mum didnt go to my Dads funeral and we supported her in that .She saw him collapsed in the road outside the house from a massive heart attack and she never got over it.A lot of people now donât want funerals and its personal choice .As much as we as humans can empathise with others we never really know how they are feeling .Part of being bereaved is you no longer have control over anything and any decisions you make are very often the things that anchor you to real life .She is doing grief her way asxwe all do .
2 Likes
She may be afraid of saying goodbye, because once you leave your loved one in the church yard or crematorium, you know they are never coming home again. I think it is the finality of it all.
I am different, I believe in the afterlife and knew that when I returned home from my husbandâs cremation and wake (I told our family to go home leave me on my own) that he would be at home waiting for me, not in body, but in spirit. After eight years I still have my husbandâs ashes. I knew he would want them to be in the home we made for ourselves in the 1960âs as he loved his home so much.
I still talk to him, tell him I wonât be long when I go out, and say I am home love when I get home again, tell him goodnight and good morning. In spring he gets the first tulip and daffodil from our garden and in summer he gets the first rose to bloom, I put them in a cut glass vase next to our wedding photograph.
So many things have happened since he died letting me know that my husband is still around, looking after me.
I keep his memory alive every single day.
5 Likes
Definately I feel Bill and I have been together many lives across time and Space .I do feel however this is our final life .When I die we will be reunited and go on somewhere else .I know he is waiting for me and just occasionally I feel him near . This is of great comfort to me .
7 Likes
Nothing would have stopped me going to my Husband funeral i know it was going to be a hard day but i wanted him to have the best send of i could plus it would be the last time i got to spend with him and to also say bye and how much i loved him
2 Likes
Hi this is an interesting subject and I feel it is up to a person themselves and how they feel.
I didnât want to go to my husbands funeral as I had no intention of saying goodbye to him. I wanted to grieve alone and go to a local beauty spot with my dogs and was convinced that I would meet up with him there rather than sitting through a cremation. I did go in the end but I had no connection with my husband and I felt as if I was watching it all and it had nothing to do with me. If that makes sense. So many people which have hardly bothered to be in touch with me since.
We did have a small gathering a few weeks later when his ashes was scattered in his grandparents grave, which meant much more to me.
I didnât go to my fathers funeral either and I have no regrets. I wanted to remember him as he was and not in a coffin. I walked in woodland at the time and grieved alone.
Like you Sheila (lonely) I know that my husband is near me as he often makes himself known.
xxx
3 Likes
Hello Pat.
I remember the day of Peterâs funeral, it was in September, 2014, a lovely sunny, warm day. I remember walking down the drive with our family and standing beside the hearse, I remember saying that everything was just what I had wanted when I had started making plans for his funeral. The flowers were gorgeous, I chose the coffin myself, which surprised the undertaker as he said I was the first to ask him to see the coffins in the booklet he had. I wanted it to be something I had chosen for my Peter and not a coffin that the undertaker had chosen. I chose everything down to the last detail but our sons chose the music, Peterâs favourite songs of the 60âs. I didnât cry until our sons both gave an eulogy each. I took a few flowers from the ones that had covered his coffin and took them home with me, along with a blue remembrance ribbon. I dried them and when our son brought my Peterâs ashes home I placed the dried flowers along with the ribbon next to his urn. It has stayed there, surrounded by photos of our long gone family. I had bought a chain and pendant, engraved with special words and hung it around the urn.
It was if everything was happening to someone else. Our sons had organised the driver of the hearse to take a route where Peter had been born, past places where he spent his childhood and then where he had taken our sons train spotting and on to the crematorium. The crematorium was full to brimming, I had asked the vicar of the local church to speak about Peter. I didnât have a church service as Peterâs late mum was Church of England and his late dad was Catholic and his dadâs family disowned their son when he married a Christian woman so I decided to just have the local vicar make a speech as Peter was also C of E. I spoke to everyone of the people at the wake, they had known Peter since he was 15 years of age and an apprentice electrician at the local city council and they had known him for 53 years but sadly I have never heard from any of them since Peterâs funeral.
I often think how lucky Peter is being in heaven with all our family from the past, and I honestly sometimes feel jealous of it. I read the other day that a singer from the late 50âs had died, one of Peterâs favourites and the first thing I thought of was that Peter would be over the moon that he was getting to meet one of his idols.
It is funny how our grieving minds works.
2 Likes
My husband & I had previously agreed on private funerals.
When he passed there were only 8 of us at the service. I felt it was our family time, not to be shared.
I prefer to think of him now in a âhappy placeâ rather than at the crem.
No fair weather friends or Xmas card families invited - if they couldnât visit before (or since) why come to the funeral?
A very personal choice.
G. X
3 Likes
Richardâs funeral was huge as they tend to be here as itâs an area of strong traditions; a village which hasnât necessarily moved with the times and we liked that. Someone said they thought around 400 attended. I honestly couldnât think of doing anything else as thatâs just what everyone here does and Richard was quite traditional and liked things done âright.â Also, we had, and still have, such a lot of support from locals and many were so shocked and saddened by his death. As so many of us said, the last person you would think would have a heart attack.
I saved some of the flowers from our tributes (hearts from myself and each of my daughters in our favourite colours) and dried them. I have three of each colour in a little glass pot in the lounge and then have saved a lot which we will use as confetti when my older daughter gets married this summer.
I totally agree there is no right and wrong in any of this and it has to be what feels right to those left behind.
Love to you all.
xxx
5 Likes
Yeh i get that you know âŚ