So I attended this today for my my paternal grandmother, the last of my grandparents. She died about two weeks ago, and I was pretty upset at the time (tempered by the fact that she was 94 and it was by no means unexpected), but I found the funeral strangely unengaging. Partly this was because it was quite heavily Christian with lots of promises that we'd all see my gran in the next life (which I don't believe), and partly because the whole thing was executed with an almost impersonal precision - we were in and out of the chapel in twenty minutes and the priest seemed to be reading an all-purpose 'insert deceased's name here' sermon. Sure, it was emotional, but the sadness I felt was more based on witnessing other people's sadness than on my own. And all the time I couldn't fully grasp the concept that her body was in the wooden box we were all looking at.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar when saying goodbye to someone they cared about?
― chap who would dare to work for the man (chap), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:52 (twenty years ago)