My Mother Taught Me To Go To The Funeral
My mother is a doctor. A family doctor, which means she sees people through from beginning to end. She used to deliver babies—she was the first earth-side person to hold many people, including my brother’s fiancée. Cradle to grave, she says.
Growing up, we always went to funerals. Not just the ones that stopped our family in its tracks but also the quiet ones—friend’s grandparents, distant relatives, someone we had met once at a birthday party, or maybe never at all.
My mother and father would pull us out of school, bundle all four of us into the car (baby-wiping the toothpaste blob off our ties), and drive hours if necessary.
Funerals rarely happen at convenient times. They’re almost never at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. They’re at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday when people are at work, when children are in school, when life, as usual, expects to carry on.
Attending a funeral means choosing to do something inconvenient.
My dad has been a dedicated Otago Daily Times reader my whole life. He pores over the “Deaths” section near the back, noting the names we know or half-know. “Con, that woman who taught you piano died on Tuesday.” Of course I went to her funeral.
“To support the family,” my mother would say. That was the reason. That was always the reason.
By the time I left school, I had been to dozens of funerals. We had a protocol:
• Bring a card, written neatly with a calligraphy pen.
• Read the message aloud to Mum for approval.
• Stand where you are needed.
• Shake hands.
• Try not to hover over the club sandwiches.
We were often the only school-children there.
My mother still goes to a funeral every couple of weeks. She has a funeral dress—black velvet, long sleeves, just below the knee. Black tights. Black knee-high boots. “A patient?” we would ask when she got ready to leave.
Some people say to never bring a baby to a funeral. Absolutely not.
My sister breastfed her baby Teddy at our great-aunt’s, slipping out to the lobby only when he fussed, returning with him milk-drunk and half-asleep. Someone said “a baby at a funeral is hope”.
When my grandmother died, she stayed in our lounge for three days. The house was still, hushed but not heavy. My best friend came over to sit with me and, without hesitation, stepped into the room to see her body—the same room where we’d once had sleepover birthday parties.
My mother took photos of us around her. Recently, when going through boxes of photographs, I saw the images I had taken of mum, her blue eyeliner glassy eyes looking through the camera as she touched her mother’s face.
Going to a funeral is not about whether you knew the person well. It is not about whether your presence will be noticed, appreciated, or even remembered.
It is about showing up.
I have never regretted attending a funeral.