How old were you when you first went to a funeral?

[meaty]

i was 14 my uncle's

[ImMomma]

9 or 10.  My nephew was killed in a car accident.  He was 4.   It was closed casket.  The next one I was 15. My dad died.  He was cremated and we just had a memorial service in the VA chapel at the big VA hospital in Allen Park MI.  That was my second home - I grew up in that place.  The following year my grandmother died.  She had an open casket. The mortuary embalmed her & put makeup on her face, but I did her hair.  I used to give her & my mom haircuts &  home perms.  Gram preferred Toni & mom liked Lilt.  Anyone remember those?

In between those we went to the funerals of two neighbors and a teacher.   

I just started studying to become a funeral director and mortician when life happened and I went in a different direction.  But I grew up around death. 

 

The first time I saw a dead person (actually watched him die) I was 3.  Maybe 3 1/2. 

The last time was July 2023 when we came home and found our roommates body.   I gave the eulogy at his funeral, whuch I also arranged.  

Death, with all its anguish, desperation, ceremony, and grief, is just another part of life. 

The cruelest part sometimes & the most destructive to the living who are caught in aftermath of the blast & pierced by the emotional shrapnel.  But one we each must navigate in our own way.  That usually begins with some sort of focused  funeral or memorial, a wake or maybe just a small gathering, or even a private time to acknowledge the person and embrace their memory.

 

[KayC]

14, my older sisters had a horrid accident that made Donna quadriplegic for life and they butchered her voice chords when they did the ER tracgeotomy. My other sister got lifelong balance issues, both were in comas, Donna for 4 1/2 months, Peggy two weeks.

It killed Donna's 3 year old, my nephew, Jimmy.  Everything in my family's life was before and after this time.

[KayC]

On 8/1/2024 at 6:19 PM, ImMomma said:

9 or 10.  My nephew was killed in a car accident.  He was 4.   It was closed casket.  The next one I was 15. My dad died.

How hard, I am so sorry.   I also lost my nearly two year old niece when I was in my 20s, my little sister's child, Courtney.  She was born without a brain.  The doctor said Julie would have miscarried but she'd taken such good care of her...she was born in her 5th month.  

Sounds like you and I went through some similar experiences.  I lost my dad in my 20s too.

[sadmama]

I was an infant with a fever at my grandfather's funeral.

[Traz]

I was 14 or thereabouts. It was my sister's mother-in-law. Her husband at the time was forceful about me looking at her in the casket. I didn't want to. My first impression was that the essence of Mary, everything about her was not that body laying there. It struck me, even at that age that the body seemed just like a suit to carry our soul around. 

[foreverhis]

One grandfather died when I was 2. We went to the funeral in Oregon. The only thing I remember is being on the puddle jumper plane to North Bend’s tiny airport. It was loud, but not scary (at least in my memory).

The first funeral I went to as a young adult was for my uncle and cousin-in-law who were killed in a boating accident. At that point in life, I wasn’t particularly close to either, so it wasn’t traumatic or stressful for me.

My grandma died a year or so later. Same side of the family as my grandpa. That was the first one that hit home for me. I was 22.

[KayC]

My first loss I was 14, I lost my three year old nephew...I don't recall a funeral, my sister was in a coma for 4 1/2 months and left quadriplegic with damaged vocal chords for life, my other sister's brain was damaged so she had no sense of balance, she was in a coma 2 1/2 weeks.  It was a horrible stressful time for years afterwards.

[Traz]

Oh my goodness, what a terrible tragedy, I'm so sorry. Those are circumstances no family should ever have to endure. Xo

[Kevin8988]

I was 6 years old when I went to my grandpa's funeral.  All I can remember now is, it was a raining day and the burial site was muddy. 

[KayC]

I remember going to my grandmother's funeral, I was a very young adult, maybe a teenager.  I didn't get to know her until then!  There weren't many there, it was a graveside service.