Age when you (or your kids) attended first funeral?

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skigirl1689

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My family was discussing this after my mom and I attended my brother-in-law’s grandma’s funeral this week. I said if I had kids I would try to introduce them to the funeral process at an early age, if possible, before they would have to attend a funeral for a family member just so it wasn’t such a scary thing. My parents couldn’t do that as no one us kids knew died until my grandpa died.

I was 8 when I attended my first funeral, my grandfather’s, and it was kind of traumatic (maybe not the best word) for me as I totally lost it when my dad brought me up to the casket during the visitation at the funeral home. I mean, I’m sure my parents tried to prepare me, but I still had a difficult time. Since then I can’t go up to a family member’s open casket at first…I might do so as the day goes on (where my family is from, visitations are long the day prior to the funeral).

Anyways, since then I’ve went to 7 funerals for my remaining grandparents, three uncles, and an aunt (all prior to graduating from college), plus a handful of others for nonfamily acquaintances and friends. I have a big family. But I knew people in college who never attended a funeral…they are so fortunate not to have had to!

I just am curious as to when you or your kids were introduced to funerals.

On a different note, has anyone been to a funeral where the casket was closed in front of the congregation? Witnessing it for the first time this week was a little unexpected…the funerals I have attended prior to this one always had the pre-service (Mass) viewing in the entrance of the church, so everyone was already in the sanctuary when they closed the casket. It just had me wondering.
 
I had just turned six when my three year old brother was killed by a horse. His casket was open, and I did kiss him goodbye.
 
As kids, we always attended funerals for relatives. So, I was probably about 4 or 5 years old when I saw the open casket at a funeral home.
 
My first experience was at age eleven ,my oldest brother died of aneurism at the age of 22
… The first and only open casket funeral was for the 14 year old daughter of my best friends, she also had an unexpected death, also had a brain aneurism …
I had been to a number of funerals , some more emotional than others,
I guess it’s also up to the parents to decide if they believe if their child is mature enough to participate , my wife when she was school age was never permitted by her parents to attend a funeral, Not even her grandparents, because they believed these things are only for adults to attend,
 
Similarly to previous posters, I was 7 when my grandfather died and I remember the wake. I don’t think I actually saw him in the casket but I saw pictures afterwards. I don’t remember feeling traumatized. I think everyone, adult or child, will react differently.

I think it’s a good idea to introduce children to the reality of death fairly early in life because they need to know they don’t have to be afraid of it. My own kids didn’t experience a death in the family until they were grown, but if they had I would have explained it to them according to their age, and always give them the option to not go if they really felt strongly about it.
 
I was seven when one of my grandmothers died. Open casket and I was seriously dismayed when one of my aunts insisted that I kiss her.
 
My kids have been to several funerals since they were infants. None were for people that were super close to my kids, though. Mostly me and my husband’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends of family, etc. In our area, if there is a viewing it is the evening before. My kids have not been to those. I have probably been to 10-15 funerals in the last 10 years and none of them has been open casket.
 
The first one I remember was 7 and it was for my mom.

I remember the wake more than the funeral.
 
I attended several funerals as a child, including one for my 11-year-old cousin, whose death I witnessed. My step-daughters just turned 13, and they have attended the viewings and funerals of two great-grandmothers and a grandfather. They went to their first funeral when they were five.

IIRC, all the viewings were open casket. The caskets were closed during the funerals themselves.
 
skigirl1689 said:
My family was discussing this after my mom and I attended my brother-in-law’s grandma’s funeral this week. I said if I had kids I would try to introduce them to the funeral process at an early age, if possible, before they would have to attend a funeral for a family member just so it wasn’t such a scary thing. My parents couldn’t do that as no one us kids knew died until my grandpa died.

I was 8 when I attended my first funeral, my grandfather’s, and it was kind of traumatic (maybe not the best word) for me as I totally lost it when my dad brought me up to the casket during the visitation at the funeral home. I mean, I’m sure my parents tried to prepare me, but I still had a difficult time. Since then I can’t go up to a family member’s open casket at first…I might do so as the day goes on (where my family is from, visitations are long the day prior to the funeral).

Anyways, since then I’ve went to 7 funerals for my remaining grandparents, three uncles, and an aunt (all prior to graduating from college), plus a handful of others for nonfamily acquaintances and friends. I have a big family. But I knew people in college who never attended a funeral…they are so fortunate not to have had to!

I just am curious as to when you or your kids were introduced to funerals.

On a different note, has anyone been to a funeral where the casket was closed in front of the congregation? Witnessing it for the first time this week was a little unexpected…the funerals I have attended prior to this one always had the pre-service (Mass) viewing in the entrance of the church, so everyone was already in the sanctuary when they closed the casket. It just had me wondering.
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I was fifteen when I went to my first funeral; it was a boy at school who had had a brain tumour, but then died from a blood clot from the operation which had removed it.
My Granddad-Pop died when I was 7, however, and I wasn’t allowed to go to his funeral because I was “too young.” This is, I’m sorry to say, something that I resent even to this day. He was my most favourite person in the world and I never got to say goodbye. Children need to be exposed to death when it happens in their family; it’s how they learn to deal with grief, and how they learn to make the most of the time that God gives us on His Earth.
 
I don’t really remember. I’m sure it was whenever the first friend or relative died. I don’t think my parents would have kept me home from a funeral, thinking I wasn’t ready or anything like that. Death is part of life.
 
I think it’s a bit different in the UK, as the coffins are always closed at funerals and viewing of the body is done privately at the funeral director’s premises, and certainly not by all the mourners - normally only people who were really close to the deceased. Family often arrange to view the deceased person more than once before the funeral - I went back on my own to see my dad a second time. When mum died, I wanted to keep her body at home where she had died, in her own bed, and I managed to do this.

I didn’t attend any funerals as a child, but I have attended more than I would have liked to since then. Children seem to be kept away from funerals here unless they are very closely related to the deceased.
 
I was 4 when I attended my first funeral and wake (that I remember). It was my grandmother’s. Then I remember attending quite a few older relatives (great aunts) funerals who I didn’t even know. Then I attended an uncle’s at 10 and my grandfather’s at 15. Another grandfather’s when I was in college. I too think it a good idea to expose children to the funeral process. Too many adults my age have never attended a funeral, and do not know the social niceties that go along with attending funerals. I too, knew many people in college who had never been to a funeral.

My own children, have not been to a funeral yet. (We were too far away, without the means to travel the distance, to attend my husband’s grandmothers, and my husbands grandfather did not have a funeral). Though when the time comes, we will take them to my grandmother’s and any great aunts and uncles.
 
I was 3 years old when I first attended the funeral of a neighbor who died in an accident. I understood that he was dead and that his daughter (my friend) would never get to see her father again. At that time I did not know anything about God. All I knew is that dead people got buried.

I think that children can be introduced at an early age, to the realities of death and dying. Of course words must be chosen carefully and the explanation done gently. For example: My sister and I had to put our dog down two years ago, and a little girl who we cared for loved that dog. We told her,(she was just over a year old) that the dog had to go to the clouds to be with God. She accepted this.

Since then she has asked about the dog and now understands that he is dead and can’t come back. Every time she asked about him we adjusted our response according to her age and ability to understand. She also knows that our grandparents and mother have died and are with “her dog.”

I have been to funerals with closed caskets. Sometimes people do this because the deceased requested it, or because the deceased has been so badly disfigured due to illness or injury that having an open casket would bring no solace to anyone. My sister lost her first boyfriend to murder and his casket was closed because of the appearance of his face, head and chest. It was the hardest thing she ever went through at that point in her life.

I take the stand that death is part of life, and that each child does need to understand that sooner than later. In many ways we have become so removed from that aspect of life I wonder if that is not part of what leads young people to suicide and/or homicide and suicide. They just don’t get that death is so real and final.
 
skigirl1689 said:
My family was discussing this after my mom and I attended my brother-in-law’s grandma’s funeral this week. I said if I had kids I would try to introduce them to the funeral process at an early age, if possible, before they would have to attend a funeral for a family member just so it wasn’t such a scary thing. My parents couldn’t do that as no one us kids knew died until my grandpa died.

I was 8 when I attended my first funeral, my grandfather’s, and it was kind of traumatic (maybe not the best word) for me as I totally lost it when my dad brought me up to the casket during the visitation at the funeral home. I mean, I’m sure my parents tried to prepare me, but I still had a difficult time. Since then I can’t go up to a family member’s open casket at first…I might do so as the day goes on (where my family is from, visitations are long the day prior to the funeral).

Anyways, since then I’ve went to 7 funerals for my remaining grandparents, three uncles, and an aunt (all prior to graduating from college), plus a handful of others for nonfamily acquaintances and friends. I have a big family. But I knew people in college who never attended a funeral…they are so fortunate not to have had to!

I just am curious as to when you or your kids were introduced to funerals.

On a different note, has anyone been to a funeral where the casket was closed in front of the congregation? Witnessing it for the first time this week was a little unexpected…the funerals I have attended prior to this one always had the pre-service (Mass) viewing in the entrance of the church, so everyone was already in the sanctuary when they closed the casket. It just had me wondering.
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Infants. We just always have been the type of family that does everything together. They pray for the person (I have had two and three year old pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet) They know what death is and what life is. My four year old still is trying the concept out but generally accepts the answers I provide.
 
A parent died when I was seven. Open casket. I’m glad I saw him. I was very traumatized by his death, and so seeing his body prevented me from actively looking for him later in life. I remember five or so years after his death I saw someone in town who looked like my dad and I thought it was him, but then I reminded myself that I had seen my father’s dead body. Had I not seen the open casket I may have gone legit crazy.
 
Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I agree it gives closure to attend a wake and/or funeral.

I guess I didn’t word the situation about closing the casket. It was open prior to the Mass but the funeral directors actually removed the crucifix that was on the inside of the top, her jewelry, and the flowers and closed the casket in front of everyone except for the children of the deceased, who had been escorted out into the entryway of the church. The funerals I attended prior to this, they always closed the casket with no one present; everyone was already in the sanctuary. Obviously, you knew they closed the casket, but you didn’t actually see it. I just found it a bit hard to witness.
 
skigirl1689 said:
Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I agree it gives closure to attend a wake and/or funeral.

I guess I didn’t word the situation about closing the casket. It was open prior to the Mass but the funeral directors actually removed the crucifix that was on the inside of the top, her jewelry, and the flowers and closed the casket in front of everyone except for the children of the deceased, who had been escorted out into the entryway of the church. The funerals I attended prior to this, they always closed the casket with no one present; everyone was already in the sanctuary. Obviously, you knew they closed the casket, but you didn’t actually see it. I just found it a bit hard to witness.
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Oi. That would break my heart. May God grant peace.
 
skigirl1689 said:
Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I agree it gives closure to attend a wake and/or funeral.

I guess I didn’t word the situation about closing the casket. It was open prior to the Mass but the funeral directors actually removed the crucifix that was on the inside of the top, her jewelry, and the flowers and closed the casket in front of everyone except for the children of the deceased, who had been escorted out into the entryway of the church. The funerals I attended prior to this, they always closed the casket with no one present; everyone was already in the sanctuary. Obviously, you knew they closed the casket, but you didn’t actually see it. I just found it a bit hard to witness.
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With my grandpa’s funeral they funeral director closed the casket (and removed all the items) with us present at the funeral home, then we all walked behind the casket down the street to the Church for the funeral Mass. He had lived on the main street in a small town, and both the funeral home and the Church were close by, we walked passed his house in the procession).
 
I was eight when my father died. I’m not sure that was my first funeral- I think attended one for my great uncle when I was four or five, but I had never actually met him, so I wasn’t really sad. My father’s is the first one where I had to confront the reality of death. Anyway, it was open-casket, which is probably a good thing. I’m told my younger brother insisted on poking his body, apparently to confirm that he was really dead.
 
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