Nice people thread part 8 - worth the wait

michaels

NP help required, haven't really done many funerals, should we bring flowers? If so what sort? We will only be at the church not the crematorium or wake. We have already made a generous donation to a collection for the family?

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

NP help required, haven't really done many funerals, should we bring flowers? If so what sort? We will only be at the church not the crematorium or wake. We have already made a generous donation to a collection for the family?

Flowers unnecessary for church IMO, more inconvieniant to family to carry on with them.

Fwiw, for the future, white lilies are always appropriate for funerals where no flower ban exists. People don't really look for you to be imaginative about it.

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

NP help required, haven't really done many funerals, should we bring flowers? If so what sort? We will only be at the church not the crematorium or wake. We have already made a generous donation to a collection for the family?

Usually no need for flowers. I've been to far too many of my contemporaries and you usaully don't bring any.
Your presence and kind words will be fine.
Don't worry about what to say "I'm so sorry for your loss" will do fine. They'll be looking for sympathy and respect.
Being there and saying something is what's needed and don't worry about being judged. That's the last thing on their mind. Just be there for them. You won't realise this, but your presence will be noted and never be forgotten.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

Usually no need for flowers. I've been to far too many of my contemporaries and you usaully don't bring any.
Your presence and kind words will be fine.
Don't worry about what to say "I'm so sorry for your loss" will do fine. They'll be looking for sympathy and respect.
Being there and saying something is what's needed and don't worry about being judged. That's the last thing on their mind. Just be there for them. You won't realise this, but your presence will be noted and never be forgotten.

What zag said.

Contributing to the collection is usually instead of flowers.

If you want to do or say something more than that, then write a card telling a few happy memories you have of the person who died. Those are the ones that get read over and over again later, when the "I'm so sorry... you must be finding it so hard..." cards all seem much of a muchness.

But zag is totally right that you don't want to say those things in person at the church; they're for later. A brief comment along the lines zag suggests is perfect for the bit where everyone files past the close family on their way out of the church, if they do that. They will be finding it all rather a blur, and won't remember exactly what you say anyway, so a generally sympathetic supportiveness is the thing to aim for. If you're not going to the crem or the wake, you won't get much chance to talk to them anyway.

[Hope that comes across as agreeing with zag rather than officiously repeating what he said in slightly different words.]

Generali

michaels wrote: »

NP help required, haven't really done many funerals, should we bring flowers? If so what sort? We will only be at the church not the crematorium or wake. We have already made a generous donation to a collection for the family?

Normally it's flowers or collection but not both however it's normal to say something like, "No flowers please. Instead donations to St Olaf's Hospital for the Criminally Stupid" or whatever.

Another vote for a few anodyne words said with sympathy. I certainly didn't remember much about who said what at my Dad's funeral. Actually my strongest memory was of a school friend of his driving his old jag out of the crematorium with a big plume of cigar smoke coming out of the sunroof!

GDB2222

I'd second the above. Just being there is enough. I tend not to say anything at all, unless spoken to first by the bereaved.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Normally it's flowers or collection but not both however it's normal to say something like, "No flowers please. Instead donations to St Olaf's Hospital for the Criminally Stupid" or whatever.

Another vote for a few anodyne words said with sympathy. I certainly didn't remember much about who said what at my Dad's funeral. Actually my strongest memory was of a school friend of his driving his old jag out of the crematorium with a big plume of cigar smoke coming out of the sunroof!

Dh has some odd memories of his mother's memorial ( there was no funeral, b it a memorial close the the event) more than one man intomated they had been having an extra marital relationship with his mother (seriously, even if its true, why tell her kid at that time, if at all?). Another said he had some 'nudey pictures' of her from her youth that th family might be interested in. His father, who was not coping being newly single, was flirting with ...everyone from waitresses to hos mother's oldest friends. Dh says in retrospect it was all quite fantastical, but at the time he just wanted to hit things(and people) , hard.

Generali

lostinrates wrote: »

Dh has some odd memories of his mother's memorial ( there was no funeral, b it a memorial close the the event) more than one man intomated they had been having an extra marital relationship with his mother (seriously, even if its true, why tell her kid at that time, if at all?). Another said he had some 'nudey pictures' of her from her youth that th family might be interested in. His father, who was not coping being newly single, was flirting with ...everyone from waitresses to hos mother's oldest friends. Dh says in retrospect it was all quite fantastical, but at the time he just wanted to hit things(and people) , hard.

Yeah, the extreme emotions are hard to cope with. I mostly wanted to climb into a Whisky bottle and sit there forever. Apart from that I wanted to argue with people as that's about as violent as I get.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Yeah, the extreme emotions are hard to cope with. I mostly wanted to climb into a Whisky bottle and sit there forever. Apart from that I wanted to argue with people as that's about as violent as I get.

Just to be clear...dh wanted to go around hitting things, but he didn't.

SingleSue

James got a package this morning, a surprise one as he wasn't expecting any packages...he opens it up to find a hoodie from the uni he has accepted a place from!

Now, who knew they did things like that!