It's interesting; funerals and celebrations of life have much in common, yet they often appear very different. Each is a ceremony; a gathering of people who share a common loss. It's just that one is more rooted in tradition, while the other is the result of recent changes in social values. But both serve to do three things:
- Help the bereaved family, and their community, publicly acknowledge the death of one of their own
- Support the grieving family by surrounding them with caring friends, co-workers, and neighbors
- Move the deceased from one social status to another
Yet they achieve those things in very different ways. First, let's take a closer look at what most of us commonly see as very traditional funerals.
