There’s something deeply broken in the way we say goodbye now.
Somewhere along the line, funerals stopped being a sacred pause and started feeling like a business deal.
A cold, rushed, transactional moment dressed up in overpriced flowers and laminated brochures.
And here’s the thing:
It doesn’t just feel off.
It makes the loss worse.
Because when you’re already shattered by grief, and then the funeral, the last chance to honor someone’s life is stripped of soul and meaning?
It lands like a second heartbreak.
You sit in that room and realize…
They’re talking about your person, but not really telling who they were.
There’s a slideshow. A standard poem. A line or two about their job or hobbies.
But where’s the real stuff?
Where’s the chaos of their laugh?
The late-night wisdom?
The little rituals and weird quirks and soft spots no one else had?
You wanted a goodbye.
You got a template. And let’s talk about the cost because the funeral industry knows you’re vulnerable. And they use it. Hard.
Suddenly, you’re being guilted into thousand-dollar caskets, “premium” services, and velvet-lined vaults because, after all, wouldn’t they have wanted the best?
But what if what they really wanted was something honest?
What if they didn’t care about gold trim and white doves, what if they wanted a bonfire, a backyard toast, a playlist of songs that made them feel alive?
This whole polished production isn’t comforting. It’s disorienting.
And it keeps us from what we really need:
To grieve.
To remember.
To connect.
To feel.
Because your person was one of a kind, and their goodbye should be too.
So no, you’re not “being dramatic” for wanting more than the default.
You’re grieving, yes, but you’re also honoring. And that should never be commercialized.
Let’s reclaim our losses. Let’s reclaim our love.
Let’s make death human again.
Because your person was more than a name on a card,
More than a line in an obituary or a photo in a frame.
They were midnight laughter, Sunday pancakes, crooked smiles,
The favorite song that still makes your chest ache.
They were a whole universe in one soul.
And they deserve more than a polished script and a padded casket.
They deserve to be remembered in color, in texture, in stories
To be grieved like they mattered.
Because they did.
They still do.
And love like that? It deserves a farewell with heart.
