I'm all for cremation. That's my personal choice. However, I think funeral homes can do services without a preacher/priest/whatever. When I was a kid and my great-gran died, we weren't allowed to go to the actual funeral, coz it was in a church. But there was a service in the funeral home that we did go to.
Your funeral -- if not in a church, then what?
by Gopher 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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TresHappy
It's amazing to me that more people don't choose cremation. It's so much cheaper than a regular funeral. Funerals cost thousands of dollars, although I can understand why loved ones want a viewing of their loved one. It helps with closure, seeing the loved one at rest. I say cremation and then have some sort of service for me, although for once, I won't be around to dictate to make sure everything goes my way - lol.
TresHappy of the hope it's a long way off class
Edited by - TresHappy on 26 December 2002 9:14:11
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garybuss
There is a slight possibility, by definition, I might not be a theist. I do like a Catholic High Mass. My personal favorite building to attend a funeral as a rite of passage is at the Cathedral Catholic Church here in Sioux Falls. I had considered becoming a Catholic so I could have a funeral Mass at the Cathedral.
A funeral is a rite of passage and I attended a wonderful secular funeral for the brother of a friend at the funeral home chapel. It was a eulogy given by his friends and relatives. They all brought their favorite pictures and had those on a board in the chapel. One brother was a minister and he used his time to share to read the scripture that comforted him. There were no lectures or religious laws read. Just sharing from the heart and honest grieving.
I have told my wife to do as she wishes if she has to deal with a funeral for me. I do hope to die before her and before all my children and their children.
A couple years ago my wife's mother's memorial service was conducted by a Witness in a funeral home chapel with a community pot luck lunch at a local restaurant. I attended both and that lunch was the last time I got to sit and talk with my oldest son. I still grieve his loss and I cherish that memory. It was a good, bad day.
There are no more big deals. Funerals fit with that for me.The Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
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mouthy
In some places it is a law to have a veiwing at least for one or more to see the deceased.( encase they are burying some one who shouldnt be buried) I have my will written out for a cremation. Funeral homes here in Canada have ceremonies where the family says something about the deceased-no sermon- by a minister,priest, Pastor... I have told & left instructions that I want them to have a party the day after I am buried,,, All to be there. Laughing feasting together( some of the insurance money can pay for the catering)I am going to have a tape played at the funeral. Of me saying..".O.K. if anyone in here is crying Shame on you!!!! I was tired & I wanted a rest...I now believe I am off to a better exsistance--no pain.If there is anyone here who is glad I am gone...Shame on you!!!! You were supposed to love your enemies....." My daughter has a picture of me eating a big peice of cream birthday cake from my last 75th birthday ..They all told me I mustnt eat it( I am a diabetic) Of course I wouldnt listen So she is having it framed & says it will go on the top of my coffin with the inscription "This is what killed her -No self control""
I love it!!!!!!Cheers!
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Gopher
Gary and Grace,
That's a good idea... a simple service where the friends just speak about their fond memories of the individual who just passed away. No sermonizing or theorizing about where the person might or might not be, because each individual has the right to their own beliefs about such matters. But one thing everyone shares is the memory of how well this individual loved and lived life, and they can talk about what can be drawn from that person's example.
Love that idea about playing a tape with your wishes at the day-after celebration of your life!! ("If anyone is glad I'm dead, shame on you!" LOLOL)
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Kingpawn
Assuming nothing goes wrong, I'll have many of my organs, and I hope my corneas, donated to others. Maybe they won't be the ideal replacement, but it could buy someone time until a better organ is found. Otherwise it'd make me feel good to think someone else has a chance for an enhanced life from receiving something that would be wasted if it wasn't donated.
After that, I'd want to go to a medical school (if they'd take the body, which I doubt after so many organs had been removed) or a cremation and maybe a simple service. And no mournful music. Just people sharing memories.
I had thought about being stuffed, if a taxidermist would actually do it. Just think! I could be standing up, arms out the the sides and fingers outstretched, and be an umbrella stand/hat/coat rack! Even if I was cremated, I could still be a paperweight, doorstop, mantle ornament, or who knows what else? I could still be a part of my family's life even after I checked out.
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breeze
How about an Irish wake.....stand me in the corner and have a party...
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lauralisa
Hey Gopher:
Did you see page 1 of the Minneapolis paper? You can now have your, um, 'final moments' online.
This weirded me out. Wow, a "DeadCam"! "FuneralCam" ('FunCam for short) ! "FinalCam" !
Then we could look forward to future episodes of "America's Funniest FuneralCam Videos" - like when the deceased moves, for example?
Ick! Love, laura
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LB
My children also know my wishes. I wish to be cremated and to have my ashes scattered in an elders face.
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Gopher
LB, do you have a specific elder in mind? (I would!!)
Laura, thanks for the reference to this article about funeral webcasts: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3555357.html Can't make it to the funeral? Watch it online
Rosalind Bentley Star Tribune Published Dec. 26, 2002 As a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jim Dezart had always been a big-city guy. Over the years, when he wasn't doing business in Europe, Asia or Australia, Dezart and his family had called Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City home.
But when Dezart died in September, his wife, Jane Bartelme, decided to have his funeral and burial in Marty, a few miles southwest of St. Cloud. Many of Bartelme's ancestors are interred in Marty, and she intends to be buried there, as well. Many of Dezart's relatives and friends couldn't get to Marty. But they did get to attend the funeral -- in a fashion.
Bartelme arranged for the funeral to be broadcast online. After the service, the company that filmed it gave her a video of it.
"The fact that I get to have something to hold onto, to keep, means so much," Bartelme said recently from her home in Scottsdale, Ariz. "I have something to share with future generations."
Bartelme is one of a small but growing number of people who are putting their loved ones' funeral services online for relatives who can't attend but who wish to witness the rite.
While a Webcast of Grandma's burial may strike some as odd, it is emblematic of the changes the funeral industry is undergoing as it tries to meet the needs of families seeking personalized services.
Memorial Web pages and Internet sympathy cards have become more common, and now a few funeral homes nationwide -- including Bradshaw Funeral and Cremation Services, based in St. Paul -- are equipped to offer the Webcast option.
The technology is not without problems. But as our society becomes more transient and the nation's immigrant population grows, observers say Webcasts could become an important part of the grief process for faraway mourners.
Why not?
Up until now, it has mostly been life's joyous rituals that have found their way to the Web.
In the past few years, weddings and graduations have been broadcast online. A resort in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, offers a wedding ceremony Webcast package to couples so that friends back home can take part. A live Webcast of a baby's birth four years ago drew an estimated 2 million viewers.
But a funeral can be one of the most emotionally vulnerable events in a family's history, and to some it might seem too private to put into cyberspace.
Still, Leo Burnaccioni sees a future for the service. He is cofounder of Funeral-Cast.com, a Toronto Web firm that has pioneered this technology. For years, the company had designed business software for the funeral industry, but about six years ago it began an online memorial site.
It has been doing the Webcasts mostly in Canada for three years, but in the past year has worked with a Dallas firm to distribute the service in the United States. Burnaccioni now estimates the company has done more than 10,000 funerals worldwide, particularly because more people have access to high-speed Internet connections.
Although the company can show a funeral as it happens, most people opt for broadcast later. That is what Bartelme did. She heard out about the Webcasts from one of her husband's co-workers. At first she was a little startled by the suggestion, but then she thought, "Why not?" It would give her husband's elderly and frail relatives on the East Coast a way to say goodbye.
Williams Funeral Home in St. Cloud, which was handling the service, contacted Funeral-Cast. Funeral-Cast used videographers from Minneapolis to record the service. Four days later the footage was put on the Funeral-Cast Web site, and Bartelme was given a tape of the ceremony. The service remained on the Web for 30 days. The total cost for the Web package was $250.
"When people would call for condolences, I could say, 'By the way, it's on this Web site,' " Bartelme said.
Dezart's funeral was viewed 480 times, Burnaccioni said.
Changing times
In recent years, funeral directors nationwide have been finding ways to accommodate clients seeking tailor-made services. Those in the Twin Cities have done everything from putting a Harley-Davidson next to a motorcycle enthusiast's casket to releasing hundreds of monarch butterflies at a service.
Jim Bradshaw, owner of Bradshaw Funeral and Cremation Services, has become the first to offer the online service regularly in Minnesota. His company has done four since October, one for a native of Latvia.
Bradshaw is so certain that the technology will become popular that he has hard-wired video cameras into his new $2 million White Bear Lake chapel; he can create CDs, DVDs or VHS tapes of a service by the time mourners have finished their postburial luncheon.
"To some people, to Webcast, to do a DVD, would just not fit who they are," Bradshaw said. "But we want to have a large enough number of options to fit what people want."
Bradshaw would like to take this all one step further. He and his son Jason are investigating ways to make funerals interactive, so that someone in a faraway place can actually participate in a funeral -- perhaps do a reading or offer a reflection.
"What we're aiming for is to make sure people who can't be there can be there," Bradshaw said.
Memento mori
These innovations have their roots in the late-19th-century practice of photographing the dead, said Ron Troyer, a St. Paul mortician and spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association. Photographs of the deceased -- propped up in a chair, lying in a coffin or being held by a family member -- were common until the start of World War II.
"Those pictures would be sent to family members in other cities so they could actually see that their loved one's death was real and they could begin to get some closure," Troyer said.
With the advent of Webcasts, "We're just updating an old practice," he said.
For many people, the physical act of participating in a funeral is a key step in the grief process. It's a chance to confront the reality of death and could be considered a brief form of group therapy.
A recent University of Minnesota study indicated that people who do not confront their grief through some form of a funerary ritual take longer to heal, said Michael Matthews, an assistant professor in the Mortuary Science Program. So if a Webcast of a funeral can help in the healing process, "It's probably a good thing," Matthews said.
Matthews and others say, however, that because this form of service is so new, it should be approached with some caution.
If a person knew he had the option of watching a service online, would he choose that, rather than go through the inconvenience of attending in person? Will the quality of the video or the speed of a modem provide a faithful image of the proceedings?
"Could images be downloaded and manipulated in a way that would be disrespectful of the dead?" said Michael LuBrant, director of the Mortuary Science Program. "This is in its infancy, so we just don't know yet."
Burnaccioni, of Funeral-Cast, said Web funerals can be private or public, just as traditional ones are. Those who want a private funeral are given a user name and password to issue to mourners. The Web site is protected so that no funerals can be downloaded unless a family requests it.
Said Burnaccioni: "It isn't like being there at the actual funeral, but it's a whole lot better than not being there at all."
-- Rosalind Bentley is at [email protected].