First I want to thank all who have answered my questions over the year. You have been so helpful and kind and I will be forever grateful.
Father passed away this week at 96 years old. We are having the funeral out of state. Few family and friends will attend the small graveside service we will be holding. It will just be me and my daughter there. My mother is too ill to attend and other family members are too frail. The younger members in the family I think didn't know him well so they don't have the inclination to come.
I would like to make the brief service memorable and am looking for some thoughts on what my daughter and I can do. Father was a hardworking and quiet man who would want something low key and dignified.
Mother seems to want a big funeral like those she remembers for other family members who died years ago. Hundreds of people came to those funerals. But most of father's friends have passed on or are too ill to come. The younger members of the family won't come if it is inconvenient for them. My husband is not coming either. He and my father did not get along well. My husband doesn't understand that his attendance is really a support for me during this time. My friends have been very comforting and have said that I should not hesitate to ask for help if I need it. I got no such offer from my husband. But I don't expect much from him because he is very narcissistic.
I, with the help of my daughter, have been doing all the planning and working with a very helpful funeral home.
We are going to dispense with the viewing because it is not necessary if it is just going to be us there. So we settled for a graveside service but we would like to make it more memorable and not simply a priest reading a prayer and that's it. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Perhaps you and your daughter could both prepare some reminiscences about your dad and read them to him. Was he a vet or did he have special interests? If so perhaps the funeral home could have a flag draped over his coffin, or you & your daughter could bring a few items that were meaningful to him and briefly talk about them and their significance. I do hope your husband or some friends would come to support you, but if not this could be a completely intimate ceremony where you & your daughter can share your thoughts, memories & feelings about your father.
My heart goes out to you & your family right now.
I’m sending you comfort and peace and a few cyber hugs as well.
The most powerful grave-side service had the fewest people. My mom, my two sisters, and I re-buried my brother (he drowned when he was 6 about 58 years ago in Texas.) He had been buried in Texas where we lived, then we all soon moved to another state right after. It tormented Mom all those years that he was all alone. I arranged to have him exhumed.
We buried him the day after Christmas in an old country cemetery at the foot of where Mom would eventually rest. (We waited until after our Christmas celebration so he could be with us.) The sexton had already dug a small but deep hole.
My sister and I lowered his tiny casket down with ropes. We stood there and just kept our thoughts to ourselves. We puttered putting up flowers and gently moving bits and leaves around his grave. The family togetherness was powerful. I felt this was the purest of a human ritual I'd ever experienced.
This can be a most powerful service for your father and for you and your daughter. A simple service from you to your father can be quite moving. Perhaps write a few words--from you to your father--and a few words from your daughter--can be so meaningful for you both. Perhaps each of you leave behind a flower or a favorite item of your father's with your thoughts and feelings for your father embodied in that item.
I have no doubt your father will be watching.
When his wife died (she was cremated) my son gathered small keepsakes, photos, and such that were special to her, or to him in his memories of her, put them in a small box, and buried the box along with the urn holding her ashes.
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