Funeral baked meats & etc.

Went to a funeral yesterday - she was an elderly lady I had known for a few years; sadly she had become demented in the last year or so.

It was a crematorium service - rather perfunctory because the family are not a churchgoing crowd.  The vicar did his best and he had found out a few things about her so that he was able to give a very small homily.  I loved the old lady concerned and the service seemed to bear no relation to her whatsoever so I did my best to just try to remember her and ignore the funereal paraphernalia.  She was a lovely person with humour and personality before dementia robbed her of her reason.  I think she would have liked the sunshine and pulled a rueful smile at the meaningless platitudes mouthed by well-meaning friends and/or family.

When she had been dispatched the small crowd of mourners stood forlornly around the flowers and I was reminded that I want no flowers at my funeral - I dislike this outward manifestation of public grief and find flowers made into names such as Mum or Nan particularly offensive.  They look so naff and sad - all the money spent on flowers could be put to much better use  - given to Amnesty International, Save the Children or Oxfam to name but a few charities. Worst of all is when somebody famous dies or someone murdered and people who don't even know that person appear on TV with suitably sad expressions clutching flowers or worse still push their children forward to strew flowers at the place where someone was killed.  Cynically, I feel that they are using someone's death to promote themselves and publicise a grief that is false - I would be very upset if I was a member of a family suffering such a loss.

I have tried (and failed) to understand why flowers at funerals are considered a gesture of 'respect' and wonder where that has come from.  Surely respect is shown by attendance at a funeral service?  I find it pretty difficult, too, when people speak well of the dead, even when someone was a complete horror; also the way people mouth platitudes like 'it was a lovely funeral', 'the vicar spoke well' etc. etc.  In many cases the service was not lovely, the vicar an idiot, the funeral over-priced and the flowers naff, the mourners don't behave especially well and the fighting over someone's treasures can begin almost before the funeral baked meats have been eaten.

Hope nobody takes offence at the above, and must just say that the opinions expressed are mine alone and I reserve the right to say what I want in my blog.