Death and funerals

Maybe not the happiest topic, but... Our loved ones are dying, we're all going to die sometime, and that's the way it is all over the world. Yet, how we survivors go through grief is quite different from one culture to another. And yes, there are significant differences also between Spain and Norway.

Over the past year, I have had close family members in Norway pass away. It was heavy, and sad, in all the cases. Although two of them were over 80 years old, and had severely impaired health, the period that came with death was very sad. Sad and difficult.

But I have felt a little about it in retrospect, and think that the funeral itself, or funeral, in the Norwegian Lutheran tradition - which is usually held a couple of weeks after the actual death - with worship and aftermath, marked a kind of before and after. The manner in which the ceremonies in the church were conducted, with eulogies and layings of flowers - often of children, wreaths and ribbons with kind words read out by the priest, singing and music, comforting presence from those in attendance.

And especially the fact that you gather afterwards for communal dining, speeches are made to remember the deceased, laughter comes out, you have some time to talk to friends and relatives you haven't seen in a long time....

All of this helped me in the grieving process.

In Spain, Catholic traditions apply.

When someone dies, the deceased is usually brought to a tanatorium within the next day. There, the family continuously watches over the deceased lying in either an open or closed coffin until about two days have passed. And during this time there is usually a steady stream of family, relatives, friends, acquaintances, colleagues... They stop by for shorter or longer periods of time, to pay their respects to the deceased and show compassion for the survivors of the awake family.

So everything usually happens in a fairly intense period of a couple of days. A service, funeral or funeral service is then held. And then the collective markup is over.

But one year later, it is customary for the deceased to be commemorated by name in a service at the local church.

In both countries obituaries can be found in newspapers. Nevertheless, in Spain this is now really unusual, and something that is considered far too costly for an ordinary family. While in Norway one is often informed through obituaries in the local newspaper of such sad events, and thereby learns when and where the funerals are to take place, - as mentioned, it usually takes a couple of weeks before it takes place, - in Spain this is not the case. Everything happens over the course of a couple of days, and the information usually goes from mouth to mouth.