You might think it’s about the money, but something cultural is also happening here, and the trend is not good or healthy.
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My mother’s second husband died after her, but his family decided there would be no funeral, which was a shame. It took a few years for my siblings and me to like him, but we wished we could have said goodbye differently. The decision not to have a funeral service is sometimes financial, but that was not the case here.
Denying the survivors an opportunity to grieve and mourn together is short-sighted and selfish. Unless you are Charles Manson or a serial killer, some loved ones and family exist and need to spend time together, sharing grief. And together does not mean on Zoom or live-streaming. Funerals also remind us of our mortality and how to live every day to the fullest. Most of our lives are spent in death denial, and not attending a funeral strengthens that fallacy.