DEAR MISS MANNERS: Are there socially acceptable alternatives to expressing one's grief or sense of loss regarding the passing on of friends or relatives short of attending the wake or funeral? I guess what I am asking is if attending wakes and/or funerals is considered de rigueur?
For reasons even I do not understand, wakes and funerals cause me an undue amount of stress and anxiety. I don't handle them well at all and wonder if there are less stressful options for me when needing to convey my sense of loss regarding an acquaintance's passing.
GENTLE READER: Miss Manners understands your reasons for disliking funerals, because everyone else shares them. You are not a special, sensitive case.
Funerals focus on the horrible fact that someone connected to you is now gone, and the frightening fact that one day you, too, will die.
Nevertheless, it is no exaggeration to say that they are a defining element of civilization. We wouldn't think much of a society, no matter what its other achievements, that threw its deceased into a disposal like garbage. Funerals honor the dead, comfort the bereaved and give life a sense of meaning and continuity.
So get a grip on yourself and go. Yes, there are other ways of expressing grief and compassion -- writing condolence letters, sending flowers, paying calls on the bereaved, establishing memorials -- but these are additions rather than substitutes.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the reason bread and butter is not served at formal dinners?
GENTLE READER: It will spoil your appetite, as your mother used to say before she lost the battle against eating between meals. Formal dinners are planned in advance and consist of at least four courses, so there is no need to appease the appetite while waiting for the first course to be served, as at restaurants, or to supplement a meal consisting chiefly of lettuce leaves, as at luncheon.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a young person who has had the unfortunate privilege of having been made to be the unwilling confidante of more than one unpleasant older person at church. These people are not elderly or senile, which would make their actions tolerable, but are old enough to be my parents -- and even know my parents -- and would seem to know better.
The first time an attack happened, I was too surprised to say anything. The next time I had my guard down, it happened again.
How do I make sure that these conversational assaults never, ever happen again? If you could, please provide me with a few choice lines of defense, since total avoidance of these people is not yet an option.
GENTLE READER: You do not specify what sort of confidences these people are unloading on you, and Miss Manners is almost afraid to ask. In any case, however, your response should be a sympathetic, "I'm not really the right person to ask about that. I'm sure the pastor would be more of a help."
Oddly enough, this will work all the better if it is not quite relevant -- if they are telling, not asking, and indulging in petty meanness, rather than in more interesting sins.
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