THINKBOX
I don't usually go to a wedding unless it's for a member of my family or a close friend. But I rarely turn down an invitation to a funeral even though I might not have known the deceased directly.
I had never really thought about the reason for this until recently when I happened to watch an episode of a local TV series which involves a funeral business. In it a character remarked that one needs to attend funerals in order to show one's respect for the bereaved family. I couldn't agree more.
People can fall in love and get married once, twice or more often, even. But nobody I've known personally has died more than once. (Although quite a few people have made tabloid headlines over the years for "rising from the dead", sitting up in the coffin during their own funerals.)
I once felt very bad for not having had the chance to attend a friend's wedding, especially since she was tying the knot with her long-time boyfriend. But I eventually got the opportunity to congratulate the same woman a few years later, when she married for the second time (after getting an official divorce from the first guy). Then there was another friend of mine whom I got to congratulate on two separate occasions: he was the groom at two different nuptials, but thankfully they weren't at the same time.
You may call me a wet blanket for not simply enjoying the beauty of that moment when a man and woman, surrounded by the people who love them, are joined together in matrimony. In my own defence I'll say that I don't begrudge brides and grooms their special day; it's just that I used to get depressed when I started to lose my friends, one after the other, to marriage. My thinking was that I would have to wait a very long time to see the status quo restored: only after the children of these married friends had all grown up and left their parents' care would I be able to get my friends back again.
Attending a wedding, for me, therefore, is a social obligation, an occasion where I have to show how happy I am for my friends but can't express how insecure I feel about the prospect of being without their friendship for several years to come.
But attending a funeral is different _ and not just because of the much less complicated dress code. The ritual not only reminds me how short life is, but also offers me a final opportunity to show my respect for the deceased and his or her family.
Over the years I've lost many people that I loved and respected and I've gone to all their funerals. Many of them were people I'd known for ages: members of my immediate family, more distant relatives, dear friends, beloved teachers.
Some of the funeral rites I've been to were for parents or grandparents of friends of mine. I would never hesitate to attend the funeral of a friend's grandmother, say, even though I might never have met anyone else in that friend's family, except her husband, perhaps. Not knowing the deceased is never a problem. I don't mind paying my last respects to a person I've never met, since this gives me the chance to meet my friend's family, to talk to these great people who raised this child into the fine person I've got to know and become friendly with.
I must confess to have been a little offended when one of my best friends revealed that her mother had passed away, but chose not to inform me until after the funeral.
My friend explained that it had all been very sudden and she had been too busy to tell me and that anyway she hadn't wanted to put me to the trouble of travelling all the way to Chiang Mai for the ceremony. In fact I wouldn't have minded the journey at all.
If you happen to miss a friend's wedding, you might get another chance to congratulate him or her at a subsequent nuptials or, at the very least, to meet up with the happy couple at some time afterwards.
But with funerals there are no second chances.
Sirinya Wattanasukchai is a features writer for the Life section.
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About the author
Writer: Sirinya WattanasukchaiPosition: Reporter
Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/28/why-funerals-always-get-priority/
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