Of Death and Funerals

Isn't it weird to go to a funeral for someone you never knew? But then, I think it's weird to go to a funeral for someone you did know. The very act of honoring someone who is not able to bear witness to their honoring seems a very strange ideal. If you didn't know the person, you have no claim to their life; why should you have claim in their death? And why should we honor their death, anyways? Honoring their death is not an honor to their life. It is an honor to their death, and that is all. And who are you giving the honor to - their memory? I don't understand the concept. If the person is not alive, why should we lend our senses to them? Why should we drown ourselves in the memory, when life is waiting for us? Their time of changing has passed. If anything, we should learn a lesson from those passed: live life while one can. Doesn't that lesson in and of itself throw the idea of a grand funeral into doubt?

Then again, I've never lost someone who is extraordinarily close to me. If and when I lose a parent or sibling, perhaps then I will understand better the need for closure from grief.