Grief & healing: Rituals change but have funerals lost a personal touch?

Recently a friend mentioned that she went to a funeral, but there was no lunch and not even a reception afterward. So she just went home.

Even though the person who died was very active in the community and knew lots of people, and had lots of friends, hardly anyone attended the service.

She said it was very scripted, nothing personal, no testimonials.

People always used to attend a wake or visitation, stay for the funeral, followed by a luncheon.

So I started wondering. What’s going on?

As I started looking into this, I found a whole new industry has grown up, often replacing the actual funeral.

This industry consists of “sympathy baskets” filled with snacks or sweets. And printed sympathy messages instead of handwritten words of condolence. Just a signature, the only personal touch.

And a lot of the memorial “services” are online, not in person with a congregation or a group of friends present.

The point is: Perhaps I’m out of date but funerals used to provide a sense of closure. And we went to the grave site to say last goodbyes. I thought that helped.

Well, rituals have changed. So I guess this is another opportunity to accept change. Personally, I preferred the old ways.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@aol.com.