July 2025 Feature - Why Funerals Matter

Editor's Note: This month, we welcome the contribution of David Stamile, a long-term care chaplain who writes passionately about the role of funerals in the life of his community of older adults. Years ago, I made the decision to skip my own graduation. I told myself the ceremony would be long, tedious. and mostly forgettable. So, I stayed home. But what surprised me in the weeks and months afterward was how unfinished everything felt. I had worked so hard for that diploma, but without the ritual—the cap, the gown, the moment of crossing the stage—it never quite felt real. I had left something behind by not showing up to mark the moment.

Years ago, I made the decision to skip my own graduation. I told myself the ceremony would be long, tedious. and mostly forgettable. So, I stayed home. But what surprised me in the weeks and months afterward was how unfinished everything felt. I had worked so hard for that diploma, but without the ritual—the cap, the gown, the moment of crossing the stage—it never quite felt real. I had left something behind by not showing up to mark the moment.

I remember this moment when I hear people downplay the significance of funerals. “I don’t want a big fuss,” they say. “Just cremate me and be done with it.” I understand that impulse. But just like I didn’t realize what the graduation ceremony might have offered until it was gone, we often don’t realize the emotional and spiritual significance of funerals—until we are left without one.

The Theory Behind the Funeral

Grief scholar and clinician, J. William Worden names four essential tasks of mourning, and the first is accepting the reality of the loss . Attending a funeral or memorial service helps us do just that. Have you ever known in more conscious moments that a loved one has died, but out of habit picked up the phone to call them or been a bit surprised when they weren’t in their chair? If so, then you have experienced what some grief scholars call “middle knowledge” where you know your loved one has died, but in another sense you do not know. In other words you are likely working on the task of “accepting the reality of the loss” (Worden, 2018) 

We need funerals to help us know more deeply that our loved one has died. We need moments of shared remembrance to allow us to bear witness—to what was, to what is no longer, and to the grief we carry together. When there is no service, it can feel like the loss never quite settles into our hearts. We are left with a quiet ache and a lingering sense that something was left undone.  

Funerals play a vital role in helping people take the first steps in that process. They mark a clear moment in time when we stop what we’re doing, gather in community, and say: “This person mattered. This life had meaning. This loss is real.”  

More Than Tradition

Some assume that funerals are only about religion or outdated custom, but that misses the larger picture. A funeral is a communal act of love and witness. Whether traditional or modern, religious or secular, elaborate or simple, the core purpose is the same: to gather, to name the loss, and to honor the life.

Psychologists have found that people who participate in rituals after a loss—even small ones—often feel more supported and more able to cope. (See the study reviewed below in the section, Research that Matters for more explanation of this matter).

Funerals help people begin the difficult process of integrating a death into the ongoing story of their lives. They also send a message to the wider community:  This person lived among us, and we remember.

Funerals are not just for the deceased; they are for the living. They are one of the ways we tend to each other’s grief, and to our own. The older adults I serve tend to be more in touch with our shared need for funerals. One resident in my community recently commented, “I didn’t even know they had died. I would have liked to say goodbye.” There was no drama in their voice; just a quiet disappointment. It is something I’ve heard from many: how hard it is when a neighbor dies and there’s no opportunity to gather, remember, or mark their absence together. 

I suspect this quiet protest over the absence of funerals is, in part, an indirect way of saying, “I hope that when I die, someone will care enough to have a funeral for me.” The thought lingers: “Their life came and went with barely an acknowledgment; I wonder if that will also happen for me,” an idea suggested by Hoy (2025). 

There is a certain stoicism in our culture that makes it hard to say directly, “I want a funeral, and I want it to be meaningful. I want people to come.” Instead, we come at it sideways: “It’s not right. Why didn’t we hold a funeral for them?”

Making It Easier to Talk About

It can be hard to talk about funerals ahead of time, but doing so can be one of the greatest gifts you leave behind. When families are left to guess what someone would have wanted, it can compound their stress and sorrow. When clear plans are in place—whether in writing or through a conversation—it allows survivors to grieve with fewer burdens.

Pre-arranging a service or even simply expressing a desire  for  one can help ensure that your life will be honored in a way that brings comfort and meaning to those who remain. A funeral doesn’t have to be somber or grand. It just needs to be  true —a gathering that tells the story of life, surrounded by those who knew and loved.

References. 

Hoy, W.G. (2025). Creating meaning in funerals: How families and communities make sense of death. Routledge.

Worden, J.W. (2018). Gr ief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner, 5th ed. Springer.

The Author : Holding an M.Div. from Truett Theological Seminary, David Stamile is a board-certified chaplain and a student in the Doctor of Ministry program at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. Since 2020, David has been chaplain for Providence Village, an Ascension Living continuum of care community in Waco, Texas. Beginning August 8, David will be Director of Spiritual Care at Martha Jefferson House in Charlottesville, Virginia. He and his wife Erin have one son, Ben.

Research That Matters

Becker, C.B., Taniyama, Y., Kondo-Arita, M., Sasaki, N., Yamada, S., & Yamamoto, K. (2022). How funerals mediate the psycho-social impact of grief: Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses to a national survey in Japan. SSM - Mental Health , 2 , 100169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2022.100169

Over the last several years, Carl Becker and his colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan have been studying the role of funerals on the psychosocial and physical wellbeing of bereaved individuals. While not the latest of these studies, the present study does a nice job of overviewing the overall positive role funeral rituals have on bereavement. As the study authors readily admit, “Japanese attitudes towards funerals and mourning may show unique cultural peculiarities, but also may provide glimpses into human psychology and utilization of latent social networks (p. 1). After an extensive review of previous research about the overall positive impact of funerals on bereavement outcomes, Becker and colleagues note that the present study reinforces these earlier findings: “Research in Japan and Hawa’i’ has shown that rituals reduce grief for bereaved caregivers and families…” and noted that “rituals allow expressions of grief to be controlled and packaged, and help participants to feel grounded and interconnected to their own cultural traditions” (p. 2).

Utilizing an in-depth survey administered to bereaved family members in 2018 and 2019, the present study was funded by Japanese Ministry of Education (Grant A#18H04075). A total of 240 respondents completed the survey in 2018 at time intervals between two and twelve months post-loss; 48 respondents completed the survey a year later. The researchers seemed somewhat surprised at the overall positive comments offered by respondents about the helpfulness and supportiveness of funeral professionals and an overall satisfaction with more elaborate rituals. One respondent noted, “I was so shocked by the loss of my beloved wife, that I seriously contemplated suicide; only the strong support and encouragement of the good mortuary staff throughout the wake and the funeral enabled me to carry on” (p.4).

What respondents found unhelpful were over-optimistic medical professionals, which in turn, had prevented adequate planning because deaths came more unexpectedly. The most commonly voiced regrets (“I/we should have done more…”) related to not having invited enough people, often including neighbors and work associates about whom family members often did not seem to be aware. Those who had engaged in some level of funeral preplanning expressed the greatest satisfaction of those studied. The researchers noted that those who had opted for a small funeral gathering, even when done so for economic reasons, often regretted the choice because many people did not know of the loved one’s death. In their conclusions and takeaways, the researchers noted four enduring messages:

• Funerals and funeral directors leave a tremendous impression and impact on the bereaved; their concern and follow-through is invaluable.

• Traditional funerals are psycho-socially supportive, while abbreviated funerals leave much regret and subsequent criticism.

• Rituals—especially saying farewell to the body, and subsequent services for the soul—remain central to Japanese evaluation of and recuperation from a loved one's departure.

• No one regrets advance planning, but a majority regret inadequate planning and preparation, and resent overoptimistic medical prognoses that let the death take them by surprise.

The full article is available for free download and print at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2022.100169 .

YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY

Hoy, W. (2025).  Creating meaning in funerals: How families and communities make sense of death .  Routledge.
 
Reviewed by Molly A. Keating, MA, CT
Editor,  GriefPerspectives

It is remarkably appropriate to be reviewing Dr. Hoy's newest book here in this special edition of GriefPerspectives. I regard myself as a "student" of Dr. Hoy's and for the last 15 years I have continued to learn something new or gain a fresh insight at each workshop. The continued learning that I experience in his presence is a product of his intention to continue learning himself. 

And so, this new book grows out of the answer to his 2013 book,  Do Funerals Matter? ,  and tells us  how  to make funerals matter. 

In his chapter on pediatric death, Dr. Hoy mentions a young pastor who felt he had missed the class on how to do funerals for children. This young pastor's outcry and worry recognized that getting a funeral right has a method to it and it requires skilled expertise that is hard to come by. I would argue that in writing  Creating Meaning in Funerals ,  Dr. Hoy has written the nearest equivalent to a Master Class on funerals that you could ask for. Covering everything from the cost of funerals to Memorial Merchandise, how the Pandemic forever shifted the funeral landscape, and explanations of cultural and religious approaches to death rites, Dr. Hoy's book answers questions you didn't know you had and looks at death from angles you have always wondered about.

This book is laid out beautifully from a research perspective with citations accompanying each chapter offering truly rich and specific resources to readers. Chapters also end with discussion questions that make this book feel immediately as though it belongs in class rooms, professional book clubs, discussion groups, and certainly the hands of a curious pastor. 

No matter your take on funerals, you will learn something powerful from this book and take from it a profound understanding of the journey a funeral conveys for both the living and the dead.

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