Alan D Wolfelt, an amazing psychologist from the States, has a host of care centres across the States for mental health, and a lot of them are focused specifically on grief. And he actually says you have to say goodbye at least three times in three different ways. And a good funeral does that, and it could be a combination of you sit with the deceased while they die, there’s one, but it’s not three.
So if that’s all you do, then your grief journey is still hampered. It’s still possible, but you’re making it really hard for yourself. But if you can’t sit with the person when they die, what could you do instead? You come and see them, sit with them in the casket, spend some time.
So there is always another way of doing it. If you can’t do it because you’re in America and you can’t get back and the funeral’s going to happen, if you’re a visual person, why can’t family take some photos or video or have a FaceTime while you’re all together? So you can actually achieve some of those things. Second one, obviously the funeral itself, which is about gathering together with people who are supportive.
Sometimes funerals backfire when you have the wrong sort of funeral, and you have the people you don’t want there. And it’s not supportive, so it’s not always do it a certain way, I’m not saying there’s a formula for it, but definitely you need to say goodbye in some way. And that’s why we have a third tradition of doing things like unveiling memorials or scattering of ashes further down the track, so this is a chance to get back together and renew the grief so that you can move another step on.
Now an inflated saying is, you have to pause so you can step backwards and reflect. By pausing and stepping backwards you can launch forward.
