Just wondering. How long was it between the death and the funeral or cremation.

tenzin_2

My father died earlier this year. He was in the funeral home for 6 weeks. Six whole weeks, we took the earliest date the crematorium in our town had an appointment for the service and cremation. Six weeks seems a long time to be in a fridge, and he was claustrophobic in life. 

When I lived in Ireland if you died one week, you were buried the next. My Muslim friends have 24 hour later funerals. 

What has your experience been like? 

MattMattMattUK

tenzin_2 said:

My father died earlier this year. He was in the funeral home for 6 weeks. Six whole weeks, we took the earliest date the crematorium in our town had an appointment for the service and cremation. Six weeks seems a long time to be in a fridge, and he was claustrophobic in life. 

When I lived in Ireland if you died one week, you were buried the next. My Muslim friends have 24 hour later funerals. 

What has your experience been like? 

I know from friends and family it varies wildly, sometimes people get one in a couple of weeks, other times it can be longer than you have experienced, it is just pot luck.

tenzin_2 said:

My Muslim friends have 24 hour later funerals. 

There is a exception for Islamic burials (and some Jewish ones) that allows them to jump the queue for burial (although not cremation). 

Hoenir

Some year ago. My late father passed away on Christmas Day. Was then deemed that a post mortem was required. By the time he was finally cremated 5 and a bit weeks had passed. There's a higher mortality rate during the winter months. Which compounds the issue of making the neccessary arrangements and giving everyone notice. . 

Seasalt3

It was the same for my dear old dad.  He died in hospital on christmas day and we couldn't get a funeral date  till end of January.
The hospital sent his body to a holding Mortuary which was basically a cold storage warehouse as the hospital mortuary became full after a week.
The funeral directors don't  collect the bodies from these places  until nearer the funeral date as they don't have the space at their premises owing to the long delays in getting a date for the Cremation.    It's horrible 😢

poppystar

My father died during lockdown so it did take a month almost. They moved him from the hospital to the airport where they were using the cold storage. I think he would have liked that as he enjoyed flying🙂. My mother had died previously and it was three weeks in her case. My friend is Irish and it all seems to happen very quickly, just a few days. In the case of my grandmother it was only five days, including a weekend but in that case my parents were given the choice of that or waiting six weeks. It all seems very haphazard. Personally I like the time to get my head round it all, I’d find the Irish way too quick. 

p00hsticks

Just under four weeks - but then it was a sudden death which involved the police and coroner, required a post mortem and we then had Easter which led to a further delay....

I'm not sure I would have wanted it much quicker, as we needed some time for it to sink in, to let people know, think and talk about what we wanted in the funeral service, make arrangements for the wake etc....

BreakfastTea18

My dad was 6 weeks in 2020, my mum 5 weeks , she died in February this year. 

Torry_Quine

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

p00hsticks

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

Skiddaw1

Mum, dad, mother-in-law and my sister all took place around two weeks after the respective deaths. Sister lived in Northern Ireland and everyone there thought two weeks was an unusually long time (as has been noted, in Ireland the funeral is traditionally within a week of the death). 

People I know who have arranged funerals recently have all commented that there's a general backlog currently.

DullGreyGuy

Last 3 been to have all been about a month after the death but a colleague is at their fathers funeral today and he passed on the 10th so thats 2 weeks. 

When a friends partner died they delayed the funeral as a lot of family were coming from overseas and would need to get visas etc