Mass Grief… When The World is at a Loss

“Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here.” — “Hotel California” by Glenn Frey, Don Felder and Don Henley, 1976 (“Record of the Year”)

Rock Stars DeadDavid Bowie! Scott Weiland! Glenn Frey! Lemmy Kilmister! Paul Kantner! Dale Griffin (from Mott the Hoople)! What a couple of weeks this has been! It seems as if all of the Rock stars of our youth are dying all of a sudden. I did not know a single one of them, but it’s been a tough time for me nonetheless! I’m living proof of what is commonly called mass grief. Music is such a big part of my life and when someone like David Bowie dies, a man whose art has influenced or been the anthem to so many parts of my life, I truly feel the pain of loss. It’s a deeply personal feeling, even though I never met the man. I know that I’m not alone, that I share my pain with millions of other fans.

What is mass grief?

Death in Our Eyes
When We All Stare Death in The Eye

Mass grief is not a new phenomenon. Which of us raised in the 1960s cannot tell you exactly where we were and what we were doing when President Kennedy was shot, or more recently, when Princess Diana was killed? Though we’d never met these people, they still had a big impact on our lives and how we viewed the world. While more than 2,000 Americans die on an average day, it is these larger-than-life musicians, actors, politicians and celebrities that tug at our hearts.

So intense was the grief following Princess Diana’s death that the phenomenon of mass grief has taken the moniker, the “Diana Syndrome.” These feelings of grief, sometimes also called “mourning sickness,” are very real and very common. In our 24/7 mass media news society, it’s easy to feel like we know celebrities personally since we see and read about their daily activities. Sometimes, we know more about these celebrities than we do members of our own extended family. It is no wonder that we mourn their passing?

Rock FuneralsAnother aspect of mass grief is that it brings to mind our own mortality. If a larger-than-life person like David Bowie or Princess Diana can die, we realize it could happen to us, too. While we all understand that death is inevitable, most people prefer to push that fact well away from their daily thoughts. A celebrity death takes that basic part of life out of the closet and forces us to examine it a little too closely. In addition, while those closest to the celebrity can witness that person’s decline and start preparing for their death, fans are often caught unaware. The celebrity’s death is often the first indication that fans have that the person was even ill. That was the case with all of the deaths these past few weeks.

Funeral FlowersMass grief manifests itself in a number of ways. Make-shift memorials pop up outside the celebrity’s home or near other locations that were important to that person. People leave flowers, candles, personal notes and other mementoes, the same type of items they would send to a funeral of a friend or family member. The memorial for Princess Diana outside of her home, Kensington Palace, extended for several city blocks and grew taller than a man. Those in London at the time reported that the entire city smelled like a florist shop.

Mass grief also leads people to post memorials on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Millions of posts about David Bowie’s passing and his life started appearing within minutes of the news of his death.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re feeling grief over the passing of someone you’ve never met, such as a musician or movie star. Everyone experiences grief in a unique way. According to David Kaplan, chief professional officer of the American Counseling Association, “there’s no one ‘right’ way to grieve.” Just because you’re mourning a person whom you’ve never met doesn’t make those feelings any less valid. Kaplan goes on to explain that people “have a tendency to compartmentalize grief and say that we should grieve a certain way depending on the person. But grief is grief and people act in very individual ways.” In many ways, the term “mass grief” is a misnomer. This type of grief can be as poignant, as personal, as individual and as deeply-seeded as any other type of grief.

As for the naysayers, grief experts, including Kaplan, advise ignoring them. For some reason, people who would never think of going to a funeral and belittling the people attending the ceremony for their expressions of grief think nothing of leaving disparaging comments on grieving social media posts about the death of a public figure.

Mass grief also often contains a feeling of loss of control. After all, if David Bowie or Princess Diana or John Lennon was susceptible to cancer, to an auto accident, to random violence…the logic goes, so are we. Not a comfortable thought for most of us.

Why are the deaths of musicians so poignant?

"Music is in Our Souls"
“Music is in Our Souls”

Music provides the backdrop for our lives. Hear a certain song and you’re instantly taken back to the time when you first heard it. Hear the song that was playing when you first met your spouse or attended your first prom or sang your first lullaby to your child and you relive the emotions of that earlier, special time. Popular music has a way of finding its way into our souls. Consider the soundtracks to popular movies and the emotions they evoke. Music changes the way we feel about ourselves, the way we view our relationships with others and even our opinions. The lyrics of talented songwriters, such as Frey and Bowie, help to articulate our feelings when we, less talented mortals, are unable to. How many times have you felt that a song was written with your specific life situation in mind? Such experiences create a deep personal bond with the songwriter and musician. Is it any wonder that we mourn?

When a musician dies, we not only lose the person, but we feel the loss of songs that will never be written, albums that will never be released and concerts that we’ll never be able to attend. That body of work we previously saw extending for years and years in the future is suddenly finite. To realize that we’ve already heard all of the songs that a favorite artist will produce is reason alone to grieve.

Saying goodbye to fans

dead-fair-thee-wellSome artists recognize the impact their music has had on fans and, when they know they are dying, plan for that final farewell. David Bowie knew his time was limited. He also understood how our society diminishes the dying. Instead of succumbing to that standard, he kept his illness private and worked on leaving a final, parting set of tracks as a goodbye to his fans and, perhaps, to help further the discussion about end-of-life choices. That he, at such a deeply personal time, would be thinking of his fans shows that, at least for Bowie, that the relationship between artist and listener is not just a one-way street.

Sometimes public figures are buried with a massive funeral and burial rite. Look at Princess Diana’s service at Westminster Abbey that was attended by hundreds inside the church and thousands just outside. More often, there is no official final rite or that service is (understandably) limited to just family and very close friends. Because of that void, often other performers jump in to put on memorial concerts or other events to help fans work through their grief. For instance, although there is no public funeral for David Bowie, his fellow musicians are hosting a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 and April 1. Among the performers slated to appear are Cyndi Lauper, Ann Wilson (of Heart) and Jakob Dylan. Carnegie Hall is a fitting venue for the Bowie tribute as it was one of the stops on Bowie’s first U.S. tour in 1972.

When a Concert is a Funeral For a Band!
When a Concert is a Funeral For a Band!

In other cases, artists release a final album as their own tribute or gift to their fans. This is what Mr Bowie did releasing the album, “Blackstar” just three days before his passing. Another good example is Warren Zevon’s final album, “My Ride is Here.” Like funerals, these final works of art are a final gift to survivors, a way to help fans process their grief.

You can even say that when a band breaks up, the emotions felt are similar to a death. How many people are still grieving the breakup of the Beatles or the Grateful Dead? Aware of this, many artists plan a final tour or last big concert to punctuate the end of their era as a band and help fans get over the void left by the members going their separate ways. A good example is when “The Band” played their final “Last Waltz” concerts or the Grateful Dead, always more of a performance band than a studio band, spent their last summer together touring the United States.

Tips for dealing with mass grief

In many ways, dealing with mass grief is no different from dealing with the grief of losing someone who was a close friend or family member.

1. Don’t discount your feelings. As we mentioned above, don’t dismiss your feelings of sadness and grief simply because you never met the person who died. Experts recommend examining the emotions that the death of a celebrity evoke in you.

2. Seek professional help if needed. Grief is a natural process. However, when sadness gets in the way of your day-to-day responsibilities and enjoyment of life, it’s time to seek help…even for mass grief. This is especially true in cases where the celebrity took his or her own life. Studies have shown that a celebrity suicide increases the risk of self-harm in others.

3. Find an outlet for your feelings. Keeping your feelings of grief over a celebrity’s passing to yourself only succeeds in prolonging the intensity of that grief. Better to share your feelings with others, in person, via social media or by calling a grief hotline in your area. Witness the thousands of people who shared their favorite Bowie song via Facebook in the days following his passing. You might even want to organize your own mini-memorial with friends, such as a watch party of a dead actor’s top films or a listening party of your favorite albums from a dead musician.

4. Look for tangible reminders of the celebrity. Another way to process the grief over the death of a celebrity is to seek some tangible reminders of that person’s work. That’s one of the reasons that music, books and memorabilia of a recently-dead celebrity often experience a huge surge in sales. Listening to or reading about the life of the deceased can help you to clarify your feelings about their death.

The bottom line

Black StarUltimately, grief at a celebrity’s passing is natural, especially the death of someone who has been covered extensively in the news and social media. Although we’ve never met him or her, we understandably feel a kinship towards at least their public personna. Such grief requires processing. Kudos to artists like Bowie who make that process a little easier by leaving a “final act” like “Blackstar.”

Bowie once said, “I think aging (sic) is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.” …to which we respond, “YES!”

Funerals and Weddings What’s The Difference

Funeral Planning

The differences are be subtle but they are there nonetheless. The biggest is probably that people do not usually do the “chicken dance” at a funeral, and even if someone does, it rarely catches on.Chicken Dance

At a funeral, depressed people cry and scream in pain, this does not happen until months after a wedding.

At a funeral, teary eyed mourners step up to the podium to eulogize the departed. At a wedding reception a drunken idiot stands at the podium and makes an inappropriate toast about the time he bagged the bride.

After a funeral the guest of honor leaves in a long black limousine,

Funerals and Memorials
Exceptions Are Rare!

while the guests of honor at a wedding leave in a puke green Honda Civic with a crumpled fender and tin cans dragging behind them. No one writes cute little sayings in soap on the rear window of the hearse either.

If the groom is not up for the wedding night there’s always Viagra! and it works for while, but with embalming the whole body is stiff and theirs no need to call your doctor after four hours.

You will only have one funeral.

When funeral services end, people go home and reflect on the life of a lost friend or relative. When weddings end, people end up in all sort of places, some vomit uncontrollably in a holding cell.

The gifts are usually better at weddings. Re- gifting for funerals is just not cool.

It’s considered tacky to do the “hokey pokey” at a funeral but at a wedding …. well, never mind.

Funeral Dancing
One More Dance With Grandma….Anyone?

Bands have a hard time booking gigs at funerals but no problem turning a wedding into a wake.

The music is better at funerals, and no one is jealous of the attention the guest of honor receives.

Funerals end at the graveside; weddings in the lawyer’s office.

Weddings require months of planning and cost a small fortune to pull off. Funeral Planning takes a few days and is usually more entertaining.

Funerals don’t have after parties, just after lives.

At a woman’s funeral, her friends are not forced to wear hideous dresses so they don’t upstage the corpse.

Weddings are blessed affairs in which two lovers are united forever in the eyes of God, and their families become one, sharing holidays, breaking bread, loaning money, and opening their homes to each other. A funeral finally puts an end to all that bullshit.

Elvira at a funeral
It’s Not Cool to Bring a Date to Funerals, Elvira is The Exception!

At a wedding single women scramble to catch the bride’s garter, signaling that they will be next. The tradition isn’t nearly as popular at funerals. Again Elvira is the exception!

If you shove a piece of cake in a corpse’s face, no one cheers.

Cremation May be Appropriate
Funeral Crashers Are Rare!

After a funeral people fight over who gets what, but after a wedding the bride knows just what shell get! …OK, that might be a bad example.

Falling in love and getting married makes the couple feel like they were struck by lightning, a corpse just feels like it was struck by a bus.

The deceased goes straight to heaven while a marriage goes straight to hell.

People attending a funeral come to show their respect to a dearly departed loved one. People only go to weddings for the open bar.

Paulbearer
Paulbearer

Weddings have an adorable ring bearer. Funerals just have pallbearers, and they aren’t usually that adorable either.

An Elvis impersonator can perform a wedding at a drive through chapel. Try the same thing at a funeral and everyone acts like you are some kind of jerk.

A funeral marks the end of a person’s life. A wedding marks the end of two lives.

At a funeral, the mother-in-law stops being such a bitch.

When a funeral ends guests leave the church and move to the cemetery, after a wedding guests move to the banquet room of the Motel 6.

Nobody buys the deceased a toaster, and if you do everyone gets really pissed off.

The deceased’s make-up is usually better than the bride’s.

Cremation Services
This Confused Couple Got Married at the brides funeral. Death Till We Part?

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Funeral Ceremonies and The Healing Power of Music

Music for a FuneralIn all societies, music is collective and communal. It is a medium that brings and binds people together. Although we often think of music as entertainment, we often overlook its power to evoke emotions. Beethoven was well-known for being able to evoke the emotions of joy, sadness, loss and return in his famed sonatas. Obviously, music has an emotional hook, and there’s a lot more going on besides sound waves and the synapses firing in the human brain. Music and mood are connected in a manner that science has not been able to explain. To date, studies have only determined that the auric field surrounding people progresses into a calm state when listening to music. It certainly suggests that music has the power to heal the body, mind and spirit. That being said, music therapy has been used to treat Alzheimer’s, brain injury, Parkinson’s disease and cancer. Anecdotal evidence suggests that music can reduce anxiety, pain and heart rate. It can also tap long lost memories and increase social interaction.

Live Funeral Music
Live Funeral Music "Even Better"

When it comes to funeral ceremonies, music plays a vital role. It is an important part of celebrating the life of a lost loved one. Music is embedded in our souls and can stir up long forgotten memories that can only be brought to the surface with music. Playing cherished songs enjoyed together, such as “My Girl” or “I Will Always Love You”, can rewind the clock for a memory of happy times shared together. Such trigger songs are healing music that instantly connects us to memories of times, places and people connected with a loved one. Healing music helps bereaved ones go through the grieving process. It touches the soul in a manner that is comforting and almost unexplainable. The sounds of music give everyone a medium that all can share and relate to at funeral ceremonies. The power of music enhances the experience of funeral ceremonies in a positive and appropriate way.

Funeral planning and funeral music go hand in hand. Simply put, all funeral ceremonies should use healing music to both pay tribute to a lost loved one and to create an atmosphere where healing can begin for survivors. Funeral planning entails using funeral music at many times during a funeral ceremony. With so many planning cremation services, we have more time to plan and select appropriate funeral music. Funeral music can be played before, during and after the ceremony. It’s really up to those planning the ceremony to decide when music should be played. Just keep in mind that the funeral music you choose will create a mood for both yourself and attendees.

Choosing Healing Music for Funeral Ceremonies

There is no one-size-fits-all when choosing funeral music. For those who prefer to stick with tradition and a solemn funeral experience, popular hymns like “Amazing Grace”, “Ave Maria” and “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” are both powerful and rousing. These types of songs allow people who are at a loss for words to express heartfelt feelings. They unveil a dimension of feeling and meaning that words cannot do. Even though these hymns are Christian, they evoke feelings regardless of race or culture.

Selecting Funeral Music
Let The Music Take You There

If you’re not particularly religious, choosing classical and popular songs may be a better fit. This type of funeral music is ideal for playing during times of intercession and moments of silence. Here’s a list of some classical songs that are both soothing and reflective:

-“My Heart Will Go On”- Celine Dion
-“Hero”- Mariah Carey
-“Tears In Heaven”- Eric Clapton
-“Always On My Mind”- Elvis Presley
-“The Rose”- Bette Midler
-“Candle In The Wind”- Elton John
-“Imagine”- John Lennon
-“What A Wonderful World”- Louis Armstrong
-“Yesterday”- The Beatles
-“Stairway To Heaven”- Led Zeppelin

Playing a loved one’s favorite songs at a funeral ceremony is also an option that helps capture the essence of a loved one while leaving a legacy. For example, if your loved one was a huge fan of the Beatles or Beach Boys, playing tunes like “Surfer Girl” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” will make you feel like your loved one is right there with you enjoying the music. Keep in mind that it is completely appropriate today to play upbeat music at a funeral service. As a matter of fact, many people today are embracing a funeral service with a whole new paradigm. In celebrating the life of a loved one, playing vibrant music at a funeral service is a good match for a true celebration of life.

All in all, the funeral music that you choose as a tribute to your loved one is truly a personal choice. It’s entirely up to you to choose the music that you see most fit to celebrate the life of a loved one. Learn more about funeral music here.

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