By Andrew Hoffman
The benefits of having a funeral service, memorial service, Life Celebration are numerous and varied. An important one is the opportunity to express feelings of grief. A funeral service provides a “safe haven” for embracing and expressing emotions as the result of the death. In our society negative emotions are looked down upon and we are either told directly to suppress them or by nature of social pressure we are uncomfortable expressing grief. I had a widow tell me a story of when she had gone to the local farmers market and when she was looking at the fresh produce she started to burst into tears. The market was full of people and everyone stared at her and one of the staff came up to her to ask if she was ok. She replied that she was fine and hastily left the market feeling embarrassed which made her cry more. The reason she broke into tears at the market is that she would always go Saturday mornings with her husband and they would pick up fresh fruit that her husband would then prepare as they made breakfast together. Her husband had died very recently and it was his wish to be directly cremated with no service. I see this a lot, unfortunately, the widow did not have an opportunity to start her grief journey let alone mourn her husband properly. So when she was in a familiar place that meant something to her emotionally, her unexpressed grief and unresolved sorrow came bubbling to the surface. I said this to her because she had no idea why she broke down in public. When you have a funeral service it gives you a “safe” place to express your sorrow. It is a socially accepted time and place to cry, sob even scream if you feel like it. It is incredibly healthy to cry and let our emotions out. If you don’t you are just setting yourself up for greater heartache as time moves on.
Andrew B. Hoffman is a funeral director at Jeffries and Keates and Keates-Plum Funeral Homes. He is a twenty-two year veteran of the funeral industry.
