Questions About Fumeral Services

Advice on What to Wear to a Funeral Service

Many people can feel anxious about attending a funeral service. Knowing what to say, what to wear and what to do to express sympathy to those who have lost a loved one can be overwhelming during an already difficult time.

When you are determining what to wear, consider where and when the service will be held. Every service is unique and the type of service should help you decide the appropriate attire. For instance, if you are attending a personal service on the beach, you would most likely want to dress more casually and wear brighter colors than if you are attending a more traditional service in a church, temple, synagogue or chapel.

If you are unsure what to wear, here are a few general guidelines to follow:

Men

Men should wear a suit with a collared shirt and tie. Traditional funeral attire generally calls for predominately black, gray or dark blue colors; however, colored shirts and ties are becoming more acceptable.

Women

Women should wear a dress, skirt and blouse, or suit. Adding brighter elements of color are becoming more typical, but the primary color should be either dark or neutral. Avoid patterns or other prints that may be distracting.

Children

Children should be dressed in a similar to their parents’ attire.

Shoes

If you are attending a graveside service or will be standing for long hours, remember to wear comfortable shoes without a heel.

Weather

Don’t forget to check the weather forecast before attending a service so you are prepared if the forecast calls for rain or severe temperatures. Bring an umbrella, raincoat, overcoat, gloves or a hat as appropriate, especially if you will be outside for an extended period of time.

Advice on What to Say When Someone Passes Away

It’s normal to feel uncomfortable or anxious about how to console the bereaved. Knowing the exact words to say or how to comfort someone who has lost a loved one can be extremely difficult because everyone deals with grief and loss differently. To help guide you, here are a few suggestions on how you can offer condolences.

The best way to express your feelings is through sincere, honest words that show compassion and support. Your feelings will be shown on your face and heard in your voice. If you still feel uncertain, consider one of the following expressions as a way to show support:

I’m sorry for your loss

You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers

I’m here for you if you need anything

Please accept my sympathy

My heart goes out to you during this difficult time

In some instances, such as following a lengthy illness, a loss can be a relief for family members who find comfort in knowing their loved one is no longer suffering. It’s best if you refrain from making this suggestion and let the family reach this conclusion, if appropriate, in their own time. Even in these situations, families may still grieve deeply that their loved one is no longer with them.

Take note of how the family is dealing with the loss to guide your words and actions. If they share memories or stories about their loved one, offer a special memory of your own. Regardless of your words, most families will appreciate your recognition of their loved one and their loss and may find that speaking about their loved one helps them heal.

As time passes, you may be hesitant to reference a family’s lost loved one for fear of reminding them of the loss. Remember, though, that the family likely lives with reminders of their loved one daily and may instead appreciate your words of support or care as time goes by, particularly during holidays or other important anniversaries. They might find comfort in knowing you are thinking of them and their loved one, too.

Nowadays, many people also offer condolences by signing online guest books that families can read again for ongoing emotional support. Your entry in an online guest book can mirror what you would say to the family in person. Write a sentiment from the heart, express your sympathy and support, and share a special memory of the family’s loved one if you wish.

Remember, sympathy can be expressed through actions as well as words. Nice gestures, such as offering to deliver food, are a great way to show support. See the Funeral Etiquette: What to Do section to learn more.

Advice on What to Do Before, During and After a Funeral Service

Knowing what to do before, during and after a funeral service can be difficult, especially if you are personally affected by the loss. While every service is unique, we have outlined a few basic tips to help you determine what to do when someone you know loses a loved one.

Prior to the Service

Send a Card or Sign the Online Guestbook with a personal note to offer your condolences. Many families will read the messages again for ongoing emotional support. See Funeral Etiquette: What to Say for tips on what you might want to write.

Check the obituary, contact the funeral home or visit the funeral home’s web site to confirm the service is open to the public. Remember to ask the funeral home if there is a viewing, as well as if it is appropriate to send flowers or make a charitable donation.

Honor flower/donation requests. If the family requests a donation to a charitable organization in lieu of flowers, it is important to honor the family’s wishes. Generally, information on the charity can be found at the funeral home. If the family does not request a charitable contribution, it is customary to send flowers for the service.

Show Your Support. If you are a close friend of the family, a great way to express sympathy is through actions. Volunteer to pick up their dry cleaning, shop for groceries, deliver meals, or even help with household chores. You might offer to help make necessary phone calls or stay at the house to take calls and receive guests while family members make arrangements at the funeral home or cemetery.

During the Service

Wear Proper Funeral Attire. It’s important to dress appropriately for the service. While there is no longer a requirement to wear all black, it is always safe to wear conservative clothing in dark or neutral colors. See Funeral Etiquette: What to Wear for more details.

Arrive Early. Arrive at the funeral home, church, synagogue, temple or chapel at least 15 minutes before the service is expected to begin. Remember to turn off all cell phones and all electronic devices that can make noises, such as a watch alarm.

Sign the Register Book so that the family can have a keepsake of everyone who came to pay their respects. If you attend both the visitation and the funeral, you would most likely sign the register book only once. Sometimes the register book is divided into sections for each specific event, so you may want to ask the funeral home staff if it is appropriate to sign the book for each event you attend.

Hug the Family Members. Offer your condolences by giving family members a hug. Remember to keep your words compassionate and sincere. See Funeral Etiquette: What to Say for suggestions.

Participate in the Ceremony. While every service is different, and it is important to follow the lead of the clergy or main speaker, participate in the service as appropriate. Whether it is singing along with the music or accepting the invitation to say a few words, participating in the ceremony will not only help you grieve, but also will comfort the family. If asked to speak, be mindful of length of the service and respectful of the time of the other guests. Stand up to speak if you are seated, and be specific, clear and concise in your remarks.

Turn on your Headlights if you are part of the funeral procession to a graveside ceremony.

After the Service

Offer Transportation to Out of Town Guests. Many family members and close friends will travel to attend the service. Offering transportation to the airport or around town is a nice way to ease the burden on the family.

Call or Stop By for a Visit. Remember to check in with the family several days after the service and again once out-of-town guests return home. Often times the bereaved needs someone to talk to or temporarily distract them from their loss.

Deliver Food. Delivering meals helps take the burden off the family, especially if they are hosting out of town guests. You may want to consider delivering meals prior to the service as well.

Stay Connected and Proactive. It’s important to come up with creative ways to stay connected because many times the bereaved will not feel like socializing or will not want to ask for help. Instead of asking the family if there is anything they need, do something special for them. Try offering suggestions like “I’m heading to the bakery for fresh bread and will drop off a basket on my way home.” You can also send flowers, cards or other mementos that show you are thinking about them.

Helping a Friend Cope With Grief

To prepare ourselves to help a friend cope with grief, it is useful to consider how our friend may have been affected in distinctive ways by his or her loss.

A Unique Relationship with the Person who has Died

Even when two people love the same person, each of them will have a different relationship with that person. One will be that person’s mother; another will be his or her father. One will be a sibling or grandparent. Still others will be a friend, peer, neighbor or coworker. This seems obvious, but it is often forgotten. The unique qualities of our friend’s attachments to the person who has died ensure that many aspects of his or her losses and the challenges that he or she now faces will be distinctive and individual.

Different Modes of Death and Distinctive Personal Circumstances

The way in which the death occurred can also be significant. For example, people will be affected in different ways if the death is sudden or expected, if it occurs from natural causes or is the result of some human agency, if it is peaceful or traumatic. And the death may take place when an individual is experiencing many other stresses or may recently have experienced other important losses.

Individual Cultural, Religious or Spiritual Values

Another important issue has to do with the values that our friend brings to the encounter with death and the values that guide us in our effort to help. Value frameworks inevitably influence how one reacts to any death-related situation. For some the death may fit into such a framework in appropriate ways, while for others the death may disrupt the values they had previously held.

Grief is an Individual Experience

The immediate lesson to keep in mind when we try to help a friend is this: Although there is much that we may share in common with our friend, we also need to respect the individuality of that person’s experiences of loss and grief. As a result of the issues we have already mentioned, as well as others that include distinctive aspects of personality, life experiences and other factors, our friend is likely to respond in some unique ways to an important death in his or her life.

Another closely-related lesson is: Every individual is likely to mourn, or actually cope with grief, in uniquely personal ways. This coping encompasses all of the efforts one makes to manage one’s losses and one’s grief reactions to those losses. We all learn to cope with life’s challenges from many sources, including our own life experiences, others around us, and social and cultural messages. Sometimes we cope in more or less productive ways. The key to helping a friend is to pay attention to the specific ways in which he or she is coping with death, loss and grief.

Different Styles of Coping

Many have asked: Do women and men cope differently with death and loss? In fact, coping is not simply a matter of gender; rather, it is about different styles. There is a spectrum of coping styles ranging from those that emphasize experiencing and expressing emotion to those that focus on practical matters and problem solving. Because women and men are often socialized differently in our society, more women may be on the expressive end of this spectrum, with more men on the problem-solving end. But any person – male or female – may cope with death-related losses in either one or a combination of these ways.

A Moral for Helping: Meet the Other Person Wherever He or She Is

If we draw together the many issues that enter into an individual’s responses to the death of a loved one, they lead to this basic moral: When we want to help a friend after a death we must try to appreciate how our friend’s responses may differ from our own and seek to meet our friend wherever he or she is. To do that, we need to ask ourselves what issues our friend is facing and how he or she is trying to cope.

What is it that our friend lost because of this death, and how is he or she reacting to that loss? Did our friend lose a father or mother, a brother or sister, a grandparent or friend? Was the relationship a warm and caring one, or was it perhaps not very close, possibly even complex and ambiguous?

When helping others cope with loss, we often focus primarily on their feelings of grief, such as anger, sadness, relief and guilt. In addition to these, we should also observe carefully other grief-associated reactions, whether they are physical, psychological, social or spiritual. For this, we must use our eyes and ears to watch and listen to the bereaved person. We need not say much; primarily, we need to offer our presence to our friend and validate as normal what he or she is experiencing.

Once we have come to appreciate what our friend is experiencing, then we can ask how he or she is coping. In this, our primary role is not to give advice or tell our friend what to do. Instead, our purpose is to help that individual recognize and appreciate the efforts that he or she is making to cope with loss and grief.

We need not be completely passive in our role as helpers. We can gradually suggest some constructive ways of coping and even join in some of them, such as memorial rituals, commemorative activities, and ensuring that our friend gets attention that all bereaved people need. Throughout, we can appreciate the privilege that is ours when we are permitted to offer help to a friend in the shadow of death.

Helping a Friend: What to Say when You don’t Know What to Say

A friend calls to tell you that there’s been a death. Maybe you see it in the newspaper or heard it from a colleague. Someone in your community, a mutual friend or one of the members of your house of worship has passed away.

There’s a service planned and you know you should go. But you’re thinking of passing on it because, frankly, you don’t know what to say and you definitely don’t know what to do. You’re feeling sad and worse, you’re feeling bad.

Do not feel inadequate. After there’s been a death, our hearts want to be with the survivors and share this time of sorrow. But while our hearts want to help, our “heads” lack the words or ways to express our regrets.

Few people are good at expressing and coping with grief. It’s not your fault. You cannot practice the feelings of loss ahead of time. Experience with a previous death doesn’t count as each death affects us in a unique way.

These recommendations will help you to express your feelings in words and deeds. With these ideas come a few cautions, too.

Be a grown up, even if you don’t feel like one, and as soon as you hear about the death, call, write a note or visit the survivors. Forget about being eloquent. Simply say what is in your heart. Your feelings will be written on your face and heard in your voice.

“Time heals all wounds.” “You’ll have other children.” “He’s in a better place.” Before you express anything, put yourself in the survivor’s shoes. While a grandmother’s pain is gone, the survivor may not think kindly that the darling lady is “better off” dead. Likewise, the parents of a child, even an unborn one who has passed on, may react negatively if it’s inferred that a precious little life doesn’t matter. The comment of “he’s in a better place” can wound survivors. The only “better” place might be close by the survivor’s side, sitting in their plaid recliner and watching the evening news.

A simple “Please accept my sympathy” is always appropriate. Do not say, “I know just how you feel.” You cannot know how others feel when they grieve, even if you’ve been through a significant loss.

Make the most of a hug or a handshake. Sometimes words fail. Sometimes at a death, words are unnecessary. Try a light squeeze on a shoulder, a gentle hug or a two-handed handshake to communicate deep feelings.

Offer a tissue. Tears can heal. You may want to cry, too, because you’re grieving. Of course, you were not as close to the loved one as a family member, but this death may bring back memories of someone with whom you had a close relationship. Sometimes our own feelings of grief return when we are faced with someone else’s grief.

Be ready to sit and listen even if the surviving family wants to talk about the death, including shocking details. “Why didn’t Pat stop smoking?” “Why didn’t she get help for her drinking?” “Why didn’t Marie call if she was that depressed?” “What was Lee doing in that part of the city at 2 a.m.?” Unless you truly are able to, don’t provide answers.

Don’t offer comments or observations on death and dying, unless you know for certain that the survivor will appreciate your thoughts. Rather, if appropriate, ask questions in a gentle, quiet voice. You may be shocked to find that your poker buddy Ernie, who seemed blasé toward religion, was just the opposite.

Although you may want to share how a scripture helped you at a difficult time, be sensitive. The death may be too raw for survivors to see the beauty in the words. Oftentimes at a death, survivors remain for

some time in the anger stage of grief when they are furious at the world and at their loved one for dying. This is normal.

If it’s comfortable, use the loved one’s name. “Jacob was a fine man.” “Susanne was so organized; I’m not surprised she chose the hymns for the funeral.” Survivors yearn for their loved one’s presence and by using their name, you acknowledge this special person is still important.

Stay connected with the survivors. Know that those who are grieving may not feel like chatting as they once did, but you can remain close. You might want to offer, “Would you mind if I call (or email) every afternoon?” If the survivor says, “No thanks,” give it a week or so and repeat it.

Be creative with ways to stay in touch. Don’t say, “Let me know when I can help.” Survivors won’t accept your help, because most people think it’s polite to offer, but don’t actually want to be of service. Instead make suggestions for concrete ways to help. “Mind if I walk the dog for the next few weeks while you have your hands full?” Or, “I’m heading to the farmer’s market for strawberries. I’ll place a basket by your front door on my way home.” Look for ways to say, “I remember.” Trim a comic from the morning paper and pop it in the mail. Share a recipe, a cross-word puzzle or a silly joke. Cards, notes and photos, even if not acknowledged, may be just what the grieving person needs. If you stop in at the grieving family’s home, don’t be surprised if they’re not up to “company.” Keep the visit short and at the front door.

Talk if you want to. Don’t expect to start a deep conversation. Survivors may be grieving too deeply to carry on a discussion. Instead, share memories and chat about the “good old days.” You might want to recount the good times between you and this friend. Or perhaps share something that became a life-long joke. “Did you hear about the time Jack and I went fishing? He brought home trophy-sized trout.

All I ‘caught’ were trophy-sized mosquito welts.”

On television everyone knows what to do or to say. In real life we often say too little or too much. What is right? A pat on the hand and a heartfelt, “I’m so sorry,” are always appropriate and appreciated.