Must I go to a funeral I’ll hate?

I READ your description of your mother’s funeral with interest. I have a problem of my own.

My (younger) partner had four brothers. Three died relatively early, at 28, 30 and 60. The surviving fourth (and eldest) is not in good health.

My partner’s family are all Jehovah’s Witnesses. At the funeral of her grandmother, I could not believe the ceremony. I heard of The Bible — and about the beliefs of the congregation and the departed — but not a mention of her life, or her family. The whole service seemed an indoctrination into the faith.

Now I am thinking that when the day comes that my partner loses her surviving brother I do not wish to attend another such ‘celebration’.

I want to remember the man I have come to know over 35 years. Would I be wrong not to attend? DEREK

MY fIrsT thought is that if the grandmother was indeed a committed Jehovah’s Witness then ‘The Bible and the beliefs of the congregation’ will have been entirely relevant to ‘her life’ and ‘her family’.

As for ‘indoctrination into the faith’…since the Witnesses wear out shoe leather going from door to door, proselytising is natural and normal.

similarly, when the sad day comes, their funeral rites will be entirely relevant to the brother-in-law you have known for so long, since he, too, is a Jehovah’s Witness.

It will not be a ‘celebration’ but a funeral — and the practice is for the ritual to be short and very simple. Would you be ‘wrong not to attend’?

My instinct says, ‘Yes’. You would be attending the funeral to support your partner and pay respects to the man you knew — even if you only knew him in part.

An atheist will attend a Christian funeral without feeling that he/she has either to be entertained — or confirmed in a self

generated idea of what the event should be like.

We can and should respect the rituals of others for the sake of their symbolism, no matter how we view the mystery of what may (or may not) follow.