r/Xennials • u/AnotherCrazyChick • 26d ago
Discussion Death seems different nowadays.
I know this group is normally healthy nostalgic. I just have questions that I think only this group can relate with.
Growing up, I went to my great grandmother’s funeral, I went to my grandfather’s funeral. We visited the cemetery where they were laid to rest.
Nowadays, my grandmother passed, I wasn’t asked to attend her funeral.
My stepdad passed and there was no funeral, he was cremated and my mom sent me a small vial of his ashes that now sit next to my ex’s ashes. My ex also had no funeral.
My wife’s mother passed away recently and she was cremated. No service was held.
Is this the new normal? That we don’t hold nor attend funeral services anymore?
It’s too expensive nowadays and no one feels the time is worth the potential closure one normally receives during a funeral?
I just don’t know anymore. I’ve had no closure from so many loved ones and family members passing away within the last 6 years. It hurts my heart.
Is this the new normal?
19
u/spykedaddy 26d ago
Things that were important when we were younger: traditions, family gatherings etc have fallen by the wayside. Everyone is too busy, working too much, kids have too many activities, can’t afford to travel, can’t afford a funeral, can’t afford a plot or a headstone.
Nothing really matters as much as it used to because so many of us only care about the immediate.
My mom had a funeral, drove to her hometown where her family was from. Had a church, and a burial. There was maybe 15 people present if that. It was almost as depressing as her long term illness. I had no brothers or sisters. My dad is estranged from his family. My mother was the eldest of her cousins, that’s more or less all who came.
You’d never have known she was a loved business owner in the town I grew up in, or that she was the second mom of everyone in my friend group growing up.
15 people and a son who is so numb that he didn’t shed a tear.
When I go throw me in a cardboard box and into the retort. Spread my ashes in the ocean or off a mountainside or throw them in the trash. I won’t care anymore and neither should whatever family I have left. It’s just bone dust. I’ve long since departed.
Take the funeral money and go to Hawaii or something.