The F Word: Funeral

The funeral signifies the end for most people. But when it’s your loved one who has passed, the funeral can represent the beginning.

A new beginning that we didn’t want.

The time between losing our loved one and the funeral is generally filled with jobs. Admin around getting the death certificate, telling people, arranging the funeral, attending to your loved one’s belongings, surviving on adrenaline, floating through the days.

There are many messages, offers of help, kind words, flowers – in such abnormal quantities that they can be overwhelming, although it’s nice to know that people care.

Then the day arrives. It’s such a scary concept, getting ready for an unwanted event. Arriving for the service, seeing sympathetic faces waiting for you can even make getting out of the car paralysing.

The day flows full of weirdly enjoyable moments – hearing wonderful stories, spending time with those you haven’t seen for a while, laughing and crying together. It’s all very surreal.

But this bizarre day usually rounds things up for everyone else. A celebration of life. And then they go back to normal, because their normal hasn’t changed.

But you can’t go back to normal, because YOUR normal HAS changed.

The quiet after the funeral is welcome, but it’s a stark contrast to the past few days or weeks. That’s when the reality of what has happened starts to set in.

Understand that you can’t prepare for everything. There will be many firsts that are so personal to you, that will sneak up on you without any warning.

You are adjusting – emotionally, physically and spiritually – to your new normal. The magnitude of this shift is life-changing and it’s going to take time.