A member of the church or your family has died. Should you bring the kids to the
funeral? Or will it be too much for
them? Too much to explain? Too much emotion? Too much worry? Too much burden on their young hearts? This is hard enough for an adult, perhaps we
shouldn’t burden our kids with all that during their childhood. Perhaps we should just leave them at home.
As a parent, so many factors go in to deciding what is
the right way to raise your children to be healthy adults. And it can be complicated, and very messy at
times. And so any parent who weighs all
the options and chooses what they think is best for their kids is doing the
right thing.
But if you’re on the fence about bringing your children
to funerals, or if you’ve never thought reflectively about it before, let me
make a plug: I believe it is very
beneficial to bring your kids to funerals.
Of course, that’s only if they are open to it. Forcing them to go might, of course, be
harmful (though I would argue differently when it comes to Sunday morning
worship – but that’s for a different post!)
Why is it helpful to bring children to funerals?
Especially if the deceased is not a family member,
attending funerals as children is way to engage in practice grief. It’s a way to wade into the grieving process
by observing others grieve. The Burial of the Dead liturgy the church
uses is very powerful, and in itself can be very emotional, whether you were
close to the deceased or not. If the
first time you ever attend a funeral is as an adult for someone you were very
close to, the beauty and power of the liturgy could be almost overwhelming. But if you’ve had some “practice” – if you’ve
gone to enough funerals to at least be familiar with the liturgy before it’s someone you’re close to –
then the funeral liturgy is like an old familiar friend to help guide you
through your darkest moments of grief.
When my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age
of 50, the liturgy of her funeral service was of great comfort to me, because I
knew it by memory. But, don’t get me
wrong. It was still very emotional. I didn’t “hold it together” in her
service. I cried openly – even leaning
on my dad’s shoulder and sobbing like a child.
The high emotions at a funeral are not something to be
avoided. In fact, that is part of the
purpose of a funeral. It provides the
safe space for the release of true and heartfelt grief that must be felt as
part of the grieving process. And I knew
it was OK for me to cry like my heart had been wrenched out of my chest –
because I had seen it before. Years
earlier, my mom’s cousin had died, and I had seen her daughter put her head
between her knees and cry in agony at the loss of her mother. That image came back to me in my own grief,
and I knew I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t feel like I had to keep all that
emotion locked inside. That funeral, and
all the funerals I had been to prior to the age of 20 (the age I was when my
mom died), helped prepare me for the hardest funeral of my young life.
The funeral service is the church’s farewell to the
deceased, our final worship with them on earth until we join them in the Church
Triumphant in glory. The funeral service
is also a chance to show our support to the immediate family of the
bereaved. It means so much to the family
to see a church full of people who loved their family member, and who love and
support them in their time of grief. But
the funeral service is also for us. It
is a time of closure, a safe time for the release of the sadness we feel at the
loss, a time to praise God for the hope we have in the Resurrection, so that we
can go forward from that day, not repressing our grief or trying to “hold it
together,” but living into that hope until we, too, join the Church Triumphant.
All of this is not to say that your child should be at
the funeral. As I said above, given
various circumstances, it might not be right for you or your child at this
particular moment. But, if you hadn’t
considered it before, I hope this gives you some food for thought at the
importance of attending funerals in childhood – both to give them the
opportunity to grieve properly at this age for this person, and to help them be
able to face the grief that will inevitably come when they get to be adults –
freeing them up to live into the hope of the Resurrection we confess.
