How does your family handle death?

In the last year and a half, my wife and I have experienced four family deaths - three of which were very major ... very. major.

She is originally from eastern North Carolina. When someone dies, they are all hands on deck calling people in for a four-day vigil in the parlor like it's a "very special episode" or something.
I am originally from East Tennessee. When someone dies, it's like one of those New Orleans 2nd line funeral parades except with hillbillies.

I guess I'm ashamed to say that in three of the four instances, our different philosophies have led to arguments, shouting matches, and might have gotten physical. All is well, though.

Her family wants to do Arms of the Angels tear-jerker boo-hoo nonsense.
My family is more like "Daddy's took the checkered flag and headed to victory lane!"

 

Brother. Father. Mother. Sister. All in the past decade or so.
And, yes we too come from East Tenn stock so we approach each one as a reason to have some memorable laughs at their expense. Just like they would have wanted it.

 

I honestly don't know how to put it into words other than a death and funeral shouldn't be some somber event; make a glorious celebration of the life that person lived.

 

Funeral customs may be the last thing that still varies from town to town instead of coming from some homogenized corporate playbook.

My dad’s side of the family is from the Tri Cities, so our funerals tended to be in either Johnson City or Elizabethton. The way they commonly do it up there is to have evening visitation, and then immediately go into a funeral service. Lately we’ve had a run of the same jackleg independent Baptist preacher doing all of them. Guy sounds like he hiked down from the very back of the holler just to preach his brimstone sermon.

The next day, immediate family only gathers back at the funeral home, hears a quick prayer from the preacher and then everyone caravans to the cemetery. In the old days, we’d all go to someone’s house for “funeral food” and a de facto family reunion, which is more in the spirit of what y’all describe. As our tribe has dwindled in size and begun aging out of elaborate cooking, the custom has shifted to getting as many tables together as a sit-down restaurant will allow and dining together while fellowshipping.

Back on the Plateau on the other side of Knoxville, visitation for mom’s people is a solo affair the first night, then funeral service and burial the next day. Anybody who wants to go to graveside is welcome, but most non-family dips out unless they were especially close. We might go to someone’s house to eat afterwards, but for the most recent one a local church provided a meal and use of their fellowship hall, which was appreciated. Not quite as much socializing, and indeed we’ve had some vicious fights break out when someone dies on mom’s side.

 

100% this is me.

As for Carter County, you've got 4-5 distinct regions there, so what you get depends on where you're from.

 

Funerals in town, cemetery in Happy Valley, which is where most of them grew up. Think there’s only a couple who live up on the mountain in Hampton.

 

A little over a decade ago, I went to a funeral of a friend from college, in a tiny Assemblies of God church in Winston County, Ala., that was packed to the gills with family and locals on one side and what felt like the entire lesbian community of greater Memphis on the other.

Anyway, Lee Ann being who she was, they performed this ditty at her request.

 

I keep saying and hearing this of late. There is no right way to do it.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I was at the viewing Tuesday for a 17-year-old who died the previous week. Two things about him seemed to guide us. One is that he hated dressing up, so they insisted everything be casual. The other is that he wore a Deadpool hoodie almost every day. (I later found out he had three of them so he always had one clean.) His parents asked that anyone who had something with Deadpool on it should wear it. A group of adults got together and bought Deadpool shirts. His friends did the same thing. I want to think he would have gotten a chuckle out of it. I was unable to attend the funeral the next day, which was followed by a gathering at his family's house. That turned into more of a celebration.

Things will be a little more traditional when my mother-in-law dies, which is going to happen very soon. The hospice nurse said today that it will be about a week. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens overnight. She's almost entirely non-responsive. I know there will be a formal service and we will be sitting Shiva afterward. Knowing the personalities, it won't be some quiet, somber affair the entire time, but it won't resemble a celebration.

 

I was there when my mom died. It was unsettling to see her breathing her last, that last little hitch of breath. But she'd been diagnosed 5 1/2 years before with dementia so we knew there was one way and one way only it would go.

If and when I get the same diagnosis, I'll step in front of a bus before I piss away my life assets on memory care.

I'm not joking.

 

Can't help but hear the first half-dozen or so posts in the voices of the people where my dad grew up.

Dad died in Nashville in 1995. He and my mother had plots in her hometown in another part of Middle Tennessee. The last years of his life, he wanted to reconnect to his Jewish roots.

His mother was just evil. In spite of decades of emotional abuse and neglect, she insisted on having him buried in Crossville. I have nothing against Crossville. It's a pretty little town with good people. Even though Dad grew up there, it wasn't home and there were few, if any people at the funeral who knew him. It was all about Abuela.

Dad's stepfather almost didn't attend.

"He won't be there," he said.

Even though Step-Pa was not Hispanic, what he said reflected something that Abuela did that stripped away so much of who he was. The funeral was a Baptist service with mournful music and a negative message warning everyone of perdition if they didn't repent. Dad was nowhere there.

We decamped for the cemetery where everyone took their places around the grave. I don't even remember what was said. Just as they began to lower his coffin, a crew arrived to dig a grave in another part of the grounds. They roared by on ATVs at what they probably thought was a respectable enough distance while blasting "Free Ride" on a boom box.

Hi Dad!

 

That's awful. I know what it is to see a loved one's desires and beliefs disrespected in how they are buried. That's one story I've never been able to bring myself to tell here. I doubt I will today, either.

 

I remember writing obits and services fell into a couple of categories: funeral with church service followed by graveside service, church service with full Catholic ceremonies (rosary, viewing, mass, graveside) and celebration of life usually at a place where everyone could drink.

When I’ve gone to Mexican funerals, it’s usually in a church or chapel. People carry pictures of the deceased. Usually someone’s tia is wailing a little too loudly. When I went to my student’s funeral, people had shirts made with her picture and some message about her resting in peace. White funerals were more traditional and composed (not that expressing loud emotions are wrong, just how I’ve seen them).

It also depends how well families are getting along when someone dies. My wife’s grandpa died not that long ago (two years ago, maybe). We never did anything for him with my wife’s side of the family. After her grandma passed, MIL and her siblings could not be in the same room. They did the funeral niceties, but nothing after that. So when grandpa died, MIL had him cremated and brought the ashes to Tahoe. She told the family where a commemorative bench is and said they could visit when they wanted, but she did her own service. I feel bad it happened that way. My wife and I love that side of the family, but her mom has real and perceived slights that will not be mended.

That was one weird funeral, I have another.

My student’s funeral I feel like the parents were in such shock, they didn’t know what to do so they did everything. Viewing, people eulogizing, even a native blessing. Of course the dad and his friends were about to start a full rumble with some others outside the chapel until the girl’s mom and aunts came out to tell dad they were about to close the casket.