The F Word - Funeral

The F Word ......... Funeral

The Funeral symbolises the end for many people but when it’s your loved one who has passed then 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 ones belongings, surviving on adrenaline, floating through the days.

There’s many messages, offers of help, kind words, flowers – in such abnormal quantities that they can be overwhelming in fact, 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. Maybe if you don’t go in then it’s not really real?

A pressure of not wanting it to start but knowing it has to.

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

However this bizarre day usually rounds it all up for everyone else, a celebration of life.

And then they go back to normal, because they’re normal hasn’t changed. Life goes on, as they say.

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

The period of time following the funeral seems quiet and is when the realisation of what has happened starts to set in. The awareness of what is now different. The reality of your loss.

The quiet is nice but such a stark contrast to the past few days/weeks.

During this time, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to sit in the pain. If you need to be busy then be busy. Reach out to those who offered support if you need. 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.

It’s ok to not know how to navigate this time.

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.