Max's funeral

Funerals and the perpetuation of social stigma

In this commentary, Paul Kefford raises important concerns about the ways in which funerals might obscure a person's valued identities and reinforce social stigma.

A funeral director might frequently remark to a funeral officiant, “it's a straightforward funeral” or “they are a lovely family” or something similar. I think many funeral practitioners will recognise this kind of description, usually formulated after a family member has relayed a short biography of the deceased to the funeral director at the time of funeral arrangement. Often such mini obituaries speak loudly to the ancient aphorism 'of the dead, say nothing but good'. These first few utterances at the funeral parlour typically conceal the messier reality of a life lived within a complex of varied and sometimes difficult relationships.

Beyond these few, kind, respectful words, many other narratives of the deceased person are told, retold and curated at around this time. The doctor or coroner makes their utterance from a medical perspective; the registrar is given a narrative by whoever registers the person's death; and stories are shared for example by the friend who chatted over a beer; the sister who recollected a childhood; the husband whose wife struggled with poor mental health; the secret lover; the postal worker who had a near daily encounter; and the priest who saw a faithful church goer.

All these stories, the “leavings of a life”, need a narrator for their telling and one or more listeners to do their hearing. Sometimes the stories collide or the narratives don't add up. Listeners will form their opinions and perhaps selectively pass the stories on. Yet the deceased themselves cannot correct any tales told or fill in any significant gaps. Concerns about errors and omissions may be particularly acute both when we are considering what is said in public at a funeral and when aspects of the identity or life of the deceased are somehow contested or might be deemed socially undesirable or unacceptable.

Max's case story leads readers to understand that Max is both a son and a gay man. These identities are put into conflict by one narrator of Max's life, his father Roger, who gives precedence to the 'son identity' because he finds Max's 'gay identity' unacceptable. Roger's insistence that “no son of his was going to be called 'gay'” both reflects and perpetuates a social stigma against homosexuality.

Social stigma and spoiled identity

Social stigma arises when some particular attribute or characteristic that a person can have is treated by others as devaluing or discrediting of the people who have it. It can result in what has been termed a 'spoiled identity'. If the social messaging about the attribute or characteristic is widespread and oft repeated, those people who have the attribute might internalise negative beliefs about their identity. Sometimes the negative and excluding views about particular attributes are so pervasive that people do not recognise them as the cultural framings that they are.

In the case story, Max had become unashamedly open about his sexuality and his same-sex lover, although his father Roger found these facts of Max's life unacceptable and discrediting. In other circumstances, we might have been uncertain about whether Max should be 'outed' at his funeral. But Max's privacy would only be infringed if he had been secret about his sexuality, feeling the need to stay 'in the closet' (where somehow the closet might seem benevolent because of the homophobia that threatened outside). In this case story as we have it, more wrong seems to be done to Max by impinging his interests in self-identifying and being identified at his funeral as a gay man.

Had Max been an older man and entered into a civil partnership with Nick (or some other), it is unlikely Roger would have been able to assume the 'right' as a biological parent (and bill payer) to determine the manner of Max's funeral rites. Another person would have curated the narratives and presentation of Max's identities. But in the case story as it stands, Roger's choices as the default disposer of the dead illuminate an assumed hierarchy (in both who controls a funeral and what is said) that here privileges heteronormative culture. Max's own narratives and identities are not just treated as inferior, they are excluded as unacceptable. And combined with Roger's influence (control) over the funeral, Roger's homophobia restricts the way in which Max's death can be publicly grieved.

Roger seems unable and unwilling to contemplate celebrating Max as he had lived, the 'Maxness' of his son. Roger seeks to closet Max in an assumed heteronormativity which many people find suffocating and oppressive. Roger's concern for heteronormative compliance, for a straight funeral, dominates the arrangements. In Roger's enactment of Max's funeral, important aspects of Max's reality, his identity, and what mattered to him, including his important relationships and friendship are airbrushed out. They are replaced by Max's presumed conformity to the imagined ideal of a son and brother within a largely mythical construct of what a happy family unit should look like. Pat and Sophie may have some qualms, but they seem to give nominal assent, so all Max's family - however consciously, willingly or under pressure from Roger - become complicit in this reimagination.

Challenging social stigma can be practically and ethically difficult for a number of reasons. This is perhaps especially so at a funeral and when the people who have been closely bereaved may have mixed feelings about the attributes or characteristics of concern and might themselves be impacted by the imagined spoiling of identity associated with the stigma. The importance and sensitivity of deciding what to 'name' within a funeral is perhaps brought into sharpest focus after a person has died by suicide. My practice in coming alongside people bereaved by suicide is to invite the naming of a person's completed choice such that the one act of exit does not define the life. Naming the manner of death in the opening remarks of a funeral also creates space to go on and talk about the life lived before the final moment and means no one need be left focusing on the fact of suicide as the thing that was missing mention in the funeral. In contrast, not naming what had occurred (especially in an age of social media when almost all present are aware how the person had died), means the completed suicide continues to be treated as shameful and taboo - which is what we are trying to avoid.

Acknowledging and grieving the loss of relationships

In this commentary, Vikki Entwistle reflects on why it is important to acknowledge relationships that mattered to a person who died. Not doing so can limit both appreciation of the value of the person's life and the support that people who grieve their loss can derive from a funeral.

Funerals can serve several purposes. For many people they are, among other things, an opportunity to express appreciation for the life of the person who has died and to show or offer some form of support for others who have been bereaved.

Acknowledging and appreciating the relationships that the deceased person enjoyed with other people, and the ways they enriched their lives, can be important for both these purposes. This is often evident when people share stories and show photographs at funerals. The stories and photographs typically remember and celebrate not only the person who died and their achievements as an individual, but also (and sometimes more so) the love, friendship, collegiality, and neighbourliness which that person shared with others. The people someone lived among feature at least implicitly in tributes paid, and often explicitly too, with specific mentions and images particularly of the living who enjoyed close relationships with the person who has died.

When Roger took charge of arranging Max's funeral, he seemed determined to deny that Max was gay and in a same-sex relationship with Nick. This had several implications. Most obviously, Roger excluded Nick from what Roger designated as Max's family and from the planning of the funeral. But also, by not recognising Max and Nick's relationship, Roger would exclude from the funeral acknowledgement of some of the value that Max contributed to others' lives, and acknowledgement that Nick was grieving the loss of an important relationship.

What might have happened?

The case story doesn't tell us how the funeral went, and it leaves room for several possibilities. Most likely, I think, the funeral went ahead without Nick and with no mention of his and Max's relationship. But Nick might have managed to attend Max's funeral if he had wanted to. After all, most funerals are held in places of worship or crematoria and open to anyone.

If Nick did attend Max's funeral, we can imagine various ways in which the scenario might have played out. Given the story so far, however, it seems unlikely that Nick would have been warmly welcomed by Roger or readily recognised and offered generous support by others from Max's childhood community.

Even in quiet attendance, it would have been evident to Nick that a funeral that obscured Max's gay identity also publicly downplayed - one might even say denied - Nick's presence as a gay man and the significance of his relationship with Max. Nick's particular grief would go unrecognised, treated as impermissible. This phenomenon, when a person experiences grief at the loss of someone or something important to them but the importance of their loss is not recognised by others, is sometimes called 'disenfranchised grief'.

And if Nick attended the funeral, his position would be socially as well as emotionally difficult. Even a well-intended conversational inquiry from another mourner could generate worry. “How did you know Max?” In this funeral context, a fully honest answer would seem vulnerable to a socially disruptive and perhaps hostile response, while a partial truth such as “I'm a friend from university” could feel like a betrayal and would seem to further deny the reality of the relationship that significantly shaped Nick's grief. Although sexuality is a characteristic that now has legal protection from acts of discrimination, the real possibility of homophobic attitudes and stigmatising assumptions can make funerals a daunting prospect for gay mourners.

Sometimes funeral professionals will recognise the possibility of difficult relationships among mourners (and, indeed, between mourners and the person who died). Some funeral directors try to discern from their clients if there are any tensions among people who might want to attend a funeral and suggest ways in which attendance might be subtly managed. Some officiants consider funerals, in part, as occasions to express and build community. As part of their pastoral or supporting role, whether religiously motivated or otherwise, they may try to find words and ways to acknowledge the significance of the deceased person to a range of people, including those not specifically mentioned. Many encourage respectful and caring support for all who mourn. Words such as these, while not personally specific, might have left Nick feeling somewhat less excluded, and perhaps that is as much as can be done in some circumstances. We can imagine that fuller support might have been derived from an alternative gathering, albeit without Max's body present, in which Nick's and Max's friends explicitly acknowledged their relationship and the grief associated with its loss.