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Rantfuneral planning stress. Who is a funeral for?
My grandmother passed late last year and because she was cremated there's been a gap in time before her funeral/celebration. The family is pretty spread out around the country so the date kept getting pushed back and changed for various reasons. I'll be flying across the country to attend in a few weeks.
I'm very sad that my grandmother has passed, especially as both grandparents on this side are gone now so it seems like the ties that held us all together/that life are gone. She was incredibly special and I want her to have a service worthy of all that she added to our lives.
I probably shouldn't have put myself in this position, but when the topic of tasks for her funeral came up, I volunteered to do a lot of things for her service--at least part of this was because I was expected to, having done it for other family members in previous years. She had six children but, for whatever reason, none are especially involved, except as gatekeepers/quasi-decision makers. She had written down things she wanted in her service, and I've been volunteering to do one or the other thing, lest they just not be done at all.
The other major aspect is that these grandparents were part of a religious sect that is a little off the beaten path. It is hard to explain but it isn't a normal Sunday service type of religion--it is much more intense (this is not my religion). These people have become very involved in the service since I discussed it with my aunts/uncles/parent. They deferred all the decision making to the sect.
So, I find myself in an awkward position where I'm unable to make any decisions about the work I'm supposed to do for the service--and I'm not even sure what I should continue to work on anymore.
The person who seems to be in charge with the religious sect is not someone I know, but that person is going through the program I carefully made and changing it for their own preferences. To be fair, the service is being held at their church. But they're cutting songs that I know grandma loved (and that my parent wants to sing) and I'm not even sure our family members will be allowed to speak during the service in the final cut of the program. There are a lot of things like this.
Meanwhile, when they answer my emails, they continue to assume I will be doing more or different things. But they often won't reply to my emails for days and time is ticking by. It often feels like I'm building a house and I'm told I need to wait for them to decide what color I'm painting it or if they even want it anymore, if that makes any sense. I can't get a straight answer about anything. I'm so worried that the day will come that I need to fly there and things won't be done.
I'm feeling very stressed and also feeling upset at being resentful because I'd like to just have an uncomplicated service to grieve my loss, to plan this with my family and have it be joyful. I feel like a terrible person for thinking negatively like this, instead of just humbly playing my part, which is how I've tried to conduct myself with everyone. Grandmother did love this religious group she was a part of, but they asked a lot of her in her life, too.
I don't even know who this service I'm working on is for anymore: our family or the religious group? Why am I so involved if it is for the religious group and not our family? I just want to cry from frustration.
Interesting article.
The one next to it about the 8000 year old burial with a dog in it annoyed me. They always talk about “faithful hounds” with this sort of thing as if the dog chose it. Those poor animals were killed.
They always talk about “faithful hounds” with this sort of thing as if the dog chose it. Those poor animals were killed.
It's interesting isnt it? It wades into a man's sense of ownership - They use to call mastery of nature. The perceived belief that they do and in their own divine right "own" living things, such as dogs and animals. With that comes there "god given right" to kill & eat.
Though I cannot really argue when the sacrifice of animals and people appears to have been very prevalent throughout known history. Still, worth a ponder.
Not just men’s graves, either. There was a dig in England on a Time Team episode where a woman - Roman era, iirc - had a little dog buried with her.
Then of course there are all the poor horses in tombs.
That's a gruesome part of burial history; however, there is much evidence that throughout many eras of prehistory graves weren't closed-off units, but frequently reopened to include more burial offerings, rearrange the bones, take out older objects, or include new burials next to the original one. So there's a likelihood that not all animal companions were sacrificed specifically for the owner's deaths.
“Our modern society is like a blip in the timeline of human history,” said Chambers. “The truth is that human-dog relationships have not looked like they do in Western industrialized societies for most of human history, and looking at traditional societies can offer a wider vision.”
The findings showed that women’s involvement with dogs correlated with a rise in pet “personhood,” affording them advantages such as a given name, sleeping on furniture or being ceremoniously mourned at passing." 😢