NationStates Jolt Archive

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.

Normally when someone dies I'm all like "Whatever". And I briefly wonder what it feels like to be dead. Then I go back to whatever I was doing before they were discourteous enough to die and interrupt me in the middle of my work.

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?


yes, but maybe that is because i haven't lost anyone close to me or because i'm not that emotional.

I'd hazard a guess that the reason you don't see it necessary to have a funeral or wake is that you don't have a normal, human response to death.

I, myself, tend to be somewhat upset, even if the person was someone I didn't even know. I consider the loss of all the knowledge and experience that the person had, and how it's simply gone, as if it had never existed. It disturbs me on a fundamental level.

It depends. If someone, say an acquaintance, dies, I'm not really sad or emotionally charged. But if it's a member of my own family--good riddance! Hah!

Yeah, I can relate...I tend not to react much emotionally when I hear someone has died... I just kind of say... "Oh." ANd then return to whatever I was doing.


And on the subject of wakes and funerals, I don't consider them necessary, but I think they are a good excuse for a party to celebrate a person. I'm talking about an actual party, by the way, not just some sober group sitting around and drinking.


And my funeral...I would want it to just be a huge party with a big bonfire to throw my body on, a helluva lot of booze, some live metal bands, and various other drugs and partying.

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.

I was the same way, even when my grandmother died. I just thought "Damn. That's too bad. Huh." Then that changed when my mother died, and I still haven't gotten over it...

As for wakes/funerals/memorials, they are important. It gives friends/family members a chance to get together and, at least, offer help and support to others. We had a wake for my mother, not because we wanted it, or we felt we should have one, but because my mother wanted us to have one for her. And dammit, you don't argue with mother...

Can anyone relate?

I certainly can. I found myself relating to Meursault, the protagonist in Camus' book "The Outsider" (also translatable as "The Stranger" or "The Foreigner"). You might enjoy reading it, and it's fairly short, so I'd go for that.

I dunno. Funerals and wakes are for the living. Some people need it some people don't. What I don't understand is why some people pressure other people to attend a funeral. I think it's a personal thing.

My plans for my funeral are unorthodox, but I want to give those close to me something to remember me by. I swear, if there is an afterlife I will come back and haunt and torment anyone who decides that my funeral plans would better be shelved. F- them.

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.

I never get emotional when someone I know dies, even my grandma. But we weren't very close. It's important to have a funeral, but mines's gonna be a party with pizza, rock music, and a dance.

I might miss the person. But I don't get sad for them. After all I wasn't worried about death before I was born, and I doubt they are worried about it now.

Sometimes though, you do want them to still be around, and they can't be. That is natural I think.

.

I don't get the point of funerals. Why bother standing around and acting all sad and mournful for hours? I have no idea whether most people would want you to do that after they're dead or not, but I certainly wouldn't -- it would be disrespectful, sort of. Then again, I'm not the type of person who'd receive mourning anyway, except from maybe family and family friends (I have no friends myself).

Also, after I die I want to come back as a ghost too, and haunt the living forevermore. It just sounds so fun. Passing through walls, rapping on floorboards, turning the lights off and on without being seen, scaring the shit out of people.... :p

"Oh well, s/he's dead. I'll see him/her in heaven. And if I won't, well, I know what happened and it doesn't bare to much thinking about, there's nothing I can do now," is pretty much my attitude to it all.

I think funerals are necessary just as a way to say "It's finished in this world for her/him." Whatever form that statement comes in, I don't care (so long as it's not sinful), but I think it's necessary.

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.
Hmm. I seem to remember you being very sad for quite a while around the time you started posting here because a teacher you had been close to had died.


Personally, when I hear about someone who died I'm mainly just in shock, disbelieving, kind of "wow, that really sucks".

Luckily, I haven't had too much experience with people close to me dying in my adult years. My grandmothers died a few years ago, but we weren't that close and it's kind of a different thing if someone who was reallyold and sick dies - it was sad, but not in a way that had me crying my eyes out.

The only "really bad" death was when an old friend / high school sweetheart died in an avalanche a few years ago. That was bad. The burial was awful. And yeah, I was very upset for a pretty long time.

I was just thinking about the subject of death, and how I react. I never get sad when I hear someone I know has died, I just think to myself "How?" and "That sucks..". I never get emotional.

Can anyone relate?

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.

yeh i get the same thing. when my grandparents died i felt nothing. i remember not long after finding out that my granddad died i went up to my room to read a book cuz i was bored but my mum thought i had gone to cry so she came up to my room and sat with me for ages crying on my shoulder, i had to pretend i was crying cuz i really wasn't that upset. the guy was old, dying is what old people do. if my sister died i would probably be upset but i'd probably just feel numb.

i think funerals and wakes should be a party not all depressive and dour.

I don't do funerals.

I mean, I understand the reasoning behind them, and I think the idea of people getting together for support or whatever is good, but I personally avoid them. When someone has died whom I knew, or was close to, I prefer to remember them as I last saw them, not as a made-up waxen corpse.

Personally, I'd rather my family not have a funeral for me. If they need to get together then they ought to have a party. There should be music and plenty of food and the children whould be encouraged to be noisy and playful. (Like me.) If there's a funeral for me, I can assure you I will not be in attendance. I have much better things to do in the afterlife.

I also don't want an expensive burial. I refuse to let the money I've accumulated during my life to be pissed away on an expensive coffin and a nice burial plot. Better to cremate me and dump my ashes out the window on the way home. If my family wants to remember me, there are plenty of photographs. I assure you, I won't waste any of my afterlife time hanging around in a cemetary. Why waste time there? I'd much prefer that money be spent on new cars or a vacation for the family. Something FUN to remember me by.

I LOVE funerals. I not only go to all the ones I'm invited or obligated to, but I go to the ones I'm not too. Funerals are great fun. There's usually drugs and alcohol on the premises, and plenty of women. If I'm lucky, they're grief-stricken and single women, who are not only available and more likely to need my comforting arms (and other appendages), but they're more attractive to me simply because I find miserable people more likeable. And they're fun to hang around with because of the ego boost. I can think, "At least I'm not a grief-stricken slut" even before the sex.

I only cried once and that was when someone very very close to me died, I didn't cry when my friends died, or when my father died, or anything, I was shocked, and then it's almost like I got over it. I don't really need a funeral or a wake, or anything, though I understand why other people do, I guess.

I don't understand the need for a grave to visit, when my grandmother died, I was upset, I cried, my family spent a lot of money on her funeral and I am sure it was nice ( I didn't get to go), and they spent over $5,000 on her grave stone, it seems like a waste of money to me, she isn't there, they go visit her every week, leave flowers, talk to the grave, the whole thing seems silly to me, I always figured there was something wrong with me.

I'm similar because I've been to two funerals and although I felt sad for the deceased and their family, I hardly even affected me. At a funeral for one of my distant relatives, when the deceased man's wife was on her knees next to his coffin crying out about how much she loved him and wanted him back, virtually everyone around me was in tears and crying with her except for me and some of my cousins.

As for funerals, I think that it gives people a chance to say goodbye and give the deceased person's love ones some closure.

Unless the person was very close to me, I don't usually cry.

I get upset when someone dies, not because that person is gone, per se, but because of all the people that person leaves behind.

Funerals aren't sad because we want them to be. The last funeral I went to, I mimed "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow," to try and help my aunt from crying. However, funerals are sad because we remember the greatness of the person that is gone, and know that we will always miss that greatness.

In the end, when someone close to you dies, you never get over it. You just learn to live with it. But that isn't the same as getting over it.

And funerals or memorial services are important, because it is important for people to come together in times of sadness and hardship.

My preference is that my body go to science. The funeral industry is such a racket. My mother, though an atheist, wants to be creamated and stuck in her mothers grave. The cemetary said it'd be fine.

I like Mexican funerals more since they know the person is dead and it is just a fact of life, sure there is a sense of sadness, but they also try to celebrate their memory more then how sad they are about dying.

And on the topic of funerals and wakes, do you think they are important, needed?

I never saw them as necessary to attend, or have.

Funerals and wakes are for those closest to the deceased, family and friends. It's not for the dead person--it's to show up and comfort those people close to you who have lost someone, and in the best possible case, celebrate the life of the deceased.

For the record, I think the best funerals are jazz funerals, and if I have a say in the after-party at mine, that's what I want. Dancing and partying and laughing, because that's what I'd want to do.

When someone has died whom I knew, or was close to, I prefer to remember them as I last saw them, not as a made-up waxen corpse.
Eeewwww. I've never been to an open casket funeral, and probably wouldn't go to one if asked. That would seriously creep me out.

As for how I react to death, it depends how close I am to the person. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I go into shock.

The funerals I've been to have been nice as celebrations of the lives of the people who died, and the receptions afterwards have been nice as gatherings of family and friends. I've never once been to a funeral or wake that was depressing or sad, and I've never cried at a funeral.

I know someone who wants bagpipes, harmonicas and kazoos to be played at his funeral. :p

I like Mexican funerals more since they know the person is dead and it is just a fact of life, sure there is a sense of sadness, but they also try to celebrate their memory more then how sad they are about dying.

That always sounded really good to me, too - in concept. Then I found myself standing in a church sobbing at every memory that came up.

Now, I kind of think happy memories are all nice and fine for when you've already come to terms with the death, then they probably really help and make you smile through the tears. In the beginning, however, they just made everything worse. Much, much worse.

But yeah, that's just me. *shrug*

I don't understand the need for a grave to visit, when my grandmother died, I was upset, I cried, my family spent a lot of money on her funeral and I am sure it was nice ( I didn't get to go), and they spent over $5,000 on her grave stone, it seems like a waste of money to me, she isn't there, they go visit her every week, leave flowers, talk to the grave, the whole thing seems silly to me, I always figured there was something wrong with me.

I do. I don't visit important burial sites as frequently, but at least once a year I go to visit. I had a dear friend who was German, and his body was flown to Germany and he is buried there, and I wish sometimes that he had been buried in Philly, so I could go visit him. I can't explain the need for it. I certainly can't explain the need for it every week. But I do understand it, if that makes sense.

But just cuz you don't work like that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you. People greive in many different ways, especially when they've had different relationships with the same person. Just cuz you can cope without visiting her doesn't make anything wrong with you, just like there's nothing wrong with the rest of your family that they need to do it.

I want my organs to be donated, my head to be studied and my remains to become food for a lion.

Then you burn the lion.

I want my organs to be donated, my head to be studied and my remains to become food for a lion.

Then you burn the lion.
that's cruel. :(

I am hopefully going to rot on the body farm.

I want to be cremated then put in a golden (I'm serious) urn and placed on a marble platform in a huge mausoleum with more gold and marble. :D

that's cruel. :(

I am hopefully going to rot on the body farm.

"Body farm" made me think of harvesting organs, which made me wonder why people can't choose to donate their fat.

Sure, there may not be many people who want a fat implant in this nation, but I was thinking how there's lots of starvation throughout the world. Some fat could help them sustain themselves during the no-food times. Why aren't we doing this?

i think its an age thing. and experience.

once you have lost someone really close to you whose loss is a blow, you feel other peoples' deaths more. even though its not much to you, you know better the loss and how their loved ones feel.

i get teary reading about our soldiers who die in iraq. i dont know any of them but their loss grieves me.

I don't understand the need for a grave to visit, when my grandmother died, I was upset, I cried, my family spent a lot of money on her funeral and I am sure it was nice ( I didn't get to go), and they spent over $5,000 on her grave stone, it seems like a waste of money to me, she isn't there, they go visit her every week, leave flowers, talk to the grave, the whole thing seems silly to me, I always figured there was something wrong with me.

It's an individual thing. When my nephew died last year, my in-laws and his parents went into hefty debt to buy a big family plot and put in a marble marker--somewhere in range of 60K when all was said and done (but his dad can afford it). We go there every couple of weeks after Sunday breakfast and look at the grave, make sure the flowers are nice and the toys friends and family put out there are neat and tidy. It's comforting in a way even though I don't believe in a consciousness that survives death--it helps me remember and celebrate his life.

I don't want that for myself, but honestly, I won't be there and won't care, so whatever my girlfriend and daughter decide between them will be cool.