Why Have a Funeral or Memorial Service?

“Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead.
I will measure exactly the sympathies of its people,
their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.”

—William E. Gladstone

Just because Keep It Simple Cremation does not offer our professional services to conduct a funeral or memorial service does not mean we believe one should not take place. Funerals or memorial services are held for many essential reasons. They help us to express our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about the life and death of someone we love. Humans have had funerals for thousands of years, offering a way to respectfully dispose of the body. Researchers have found burial grounds of Neanderthal man dating to 60,000 BC with animal antlers on the body and flower fragments next to the corpse, indicating some type of ritual and gifts to the deceased. And every culture and civilization has done it ever since.

Why? Because the funeral ceremony:

• Helps us acknowledge that someone has died.

It’s hard to truly accept the finality of death, but the funeral or memorial service helps us begin to acknowledge that reality. We must first accept the reality of death with our heads, and only over time can we come to accept it with our hearts.

• Helps us remember and share memories with others.

Funerals help us begin to convert our relationship with the person who died from one of presence to one of memory. When we come together to share our memories, we learn things we didn’t know and we see how the person’s life touched others.

• Helps us honor the instinct to go backward before we go forward.
• Helps us say hello on the path to goodbye.

When we grieve but don’t mourn, our sadness can feel unbearable, and our many other emotions can fester inside of us. Mourning helps us heal, and the funeral is an essential rite of initiation for mourning. It helps us get off to a good start and sets our mourning in motion.

• Offers a time and place for us to talk about the life and death.
• Provides a social support system for friends and family members.

Funerals and memorial services are social gatherings that bring together people who cared about the person who died. Funerals are in remembrance of the person who died, but they are for the living. The funeral is a special time and place to support one another in grief.

• Allows us to reflect on the meaning of life and death.

Did the person I love have a good life? What is life, anyway? Why do we die? There are no simple explanations, but the funeral gives us a time and a place to hold the questions in our hearts and begin to find our way to answers that give us peace.

• Offers continuity and hope for the living.

Funerals have a way of getting us to wake up to think about what we truly care about and how we want to spend our precious remaining days. Ultimately, funerals help us embrace the wonder of life and death and remind us of the preciousness of life.

So, these are the crucial reasons why we have funeral or memorial services. A meaningful funeral or memorial service, however, is made up of various elements that when combined and coordinated create a transformative experience. While each family’s ceremony will and should be unique, it is only through combining the elements of a funeral or memorial service, such as the music, readings, eulogy, symbols, actions, and the gathering, that the experience comes together. While each element may seem random or unnecessary when considered separately, they are essential to the experience.

We at Keep It Simple Cremation are honored to be your selected cremation provider and we hope that this information is found to be helpful.