A Teenager's Perspective on Mourning the Dead

I begin this week’s post with a question, a question in which I have come to ask myself multiple times this past weekend. My question is simply: What is the purpose of funerals?

I have been to only a few of these funerals during my thirteen years of living, although they have all varied in a few ways. Some funerals have been sad, meant to mourn over the death of loved ones. Others, as I am glad to say, haven’t been sad, but solemn. These funerals were designed to celebrate the life of our much loved one lying in that casket.

A large majority of people at those memorial services have accepted the simple philosophy I live by today. No one is alone. I believe in years come all loved ones are united, all memories forged. I believe funerals, memorials, even the fresh flowers placed on every grave, are all for the benefit of the living. We hold these memorials mainly for our own closure. We take this time to reminisce in these memories for ourselves, because we can’t let go of the past. It seems to me that many people tell themselves funerals are held for the benefit of the dead, to help them pass from this world to the next.

I disagree. The dead are gone. They leave our presence the moment their hearts beat for the last time. Funerals, it seems, are made for the ones left to dwell on this earth, so they may hold on to whatever pieces of the departed remaining. So, I ask again, what is the purpose of funerals? Question what you haven't quesioned before, stretch your mind to analyze every widely excepted explanation, and, as always, live life to the fullest.   

Keighan Speer is a student at South County Secondary School.