How Private Should a Death Be?

Dear readers, one of the hardest things in life is grieving the death of a loved one. Not all of us grieve in the same way, assuredly, and some of us are never allowed to grieve properly when a loved one suddenly disappears without a trace, gone for years on end, never to be heard from again.

But when a loved one dies with detailed instructions to survivors NOT to recognize that death in ANY way whatsoever, there can be a strange emptiness, a vacuum, that persists for years and years, perhaps until that deceased person dies again with the memories of those who knew him or her, as the survivors themselves die away.

The recent death of the head of a prominent San Antonio nonprofit organization was a case in point. Despite the person’s decades-long leadership of the organization, there was no funeral, only a short visitation and a brief graveside service (obviously intended for family.) The obituary revealed very little of the individual’s life, but what WAS revealed told me how little I knew this person I had worked with for almost 30 years. Her advanced age, her family connections, her marital history were all a mystery to me until reading the short obituary and doing some additional research in public records.

So now as I mourn the person I thought I knew, I also mourn that I did not know her better, but I also mourn that we, her friends and colleagues, did not really have a public opportunity to gather and actually celebrate her contributions by sharing our stories of working with her over the years of her contributions both to the organization and also to our greater society that the nonprofit serves.

Almost every minister I know would tell us that funerals are conducted for the bereaved, so that the community can support the surviving family and one another in a time of grief. If a death is not to be followed by such a service, I want to suggest that the proper way then to commemorate a death is in some other PUBLIC way, perhaps in having a friend write a tribute that is published in a newspaper like this one. I have lost two other personal friends recently, both of whom asked for no commemoration of their deaths. For one of them, an obituary appeared in this paper some weeks later, for which I am most grateful, but no public services were held. For the other, no obituary has ever been published and no services ever held, though the individual was a highly recognized professional, exceptionally respected for his work, philanthropy, and service in his community.

Assuredly, the process of dying can be a private, deeply intimate one, involving only close family members. However, the vast majority of us have far more extensive groups of people who know, respect, and care about us, whether we acknowledge that or not. For those of us who retire elsewhere, our workingyears networks are left behind with no word when nothing is released publicly. Surviving family members never hear or read priceless memories of their deceased loved ones from people who knew them well, perhaps intimately, at another time when they may have been happier than during their final years.

Likewise, it’s not good to go overboard in the other direction: if you leave instructions for how you DO want your funeral service to go, leave room for your surviving loved ones to do something THEY also believe is important. It’s a service for them, most of all. When someone specifies every last jot and bit of their funeral and burial arrangements, survivors may feel bound to do these things, no matter how hard it is to make them happen.

Dear Readers, please leave the options open for your survivors to recognize and commemorate your life in ways appropriate for THEIR needs, rather than only yours. You, after all, no matter how much you suffered before your departure, are (after death) beyond further harm. For the sake of EVERYONE who knew you, your death deserves to be recognized in some way publicly, so that there is opportunity for EVERYONE to grieve in their own way. And may God’s blessings of peace and grace be on all who grieve a loved one, even forever.