@JohnBrady One of the reasons I left chaplaincy was so that I could officiate at proper church funerals again, and yes I realize that may sound insensitive, and certainly people can find meaning in many ways to remember their dead. But there is deep wisdom in liturgical traditions; millennia of knowledge about processing grief. There is so much healing to be found in those rites. Most people don’t realize how helpful it is until they experience it. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve bitten my tongue when someone insists they do not want to have a service because it would be “too sad.” (And there is always a choice; if the family refuses to have a service, I doubt a priest could – or should – force it.) But their loss and their sadness is already there; it is the structure of the service, the liturgy, and the presence of the community that helps people to begin to bear it.