When did funerals become so informal and laid back?
When I was growing up, men wore a black suit for two reasons: someone else’s funeral, or their own.
You might wear a black suit to a wedding, but generally you’d wear something a little more colorful, like blue or gray. Unless you were the father of the bride, and you wanted to show you were in mourning.
When I was a teenager, you certainly wouldn’t wear anything so vulgar and uncouth to a funeral as a sports coat, or worse, just a shirt and tie! Pearls would be clutched, faces would be fanned, and people would fall into fainting couches.
Wearing a sports coat to a funeral was a slap in the face to the deceased, their family, and their ancestors. You’d be shunned by your local community, and the only way to get back into their good graces was to wear a tuxedo to church for three weeks in atonement.
I’ve been fortunate because in the last ten years, I haven’t had to attend very many funerals, and the only wedding of any significance was my oldest daughter’s.
Later, I took off my jacket and danced with my own bride of 31 years, free from the straitjacket of respectability. I also danced with my daughter and tried not to cry.
It’s not that I dislike wearing sports coats or suits; I just don’t want to. And I’ve managed to avoid wearing a tie more than once a year, despite having to wear them every day for the first 16 years of my career. (I can still tie them without a mirror.)
Still, there are times that I shrug on a jacket and shoulder the burden for a few hours. It’s not my first choice, but as I learned growing up, "It’s not about you. You can put your own preferences aside for someone else’s sake for a while."
I’m paraphrasing, of course. What I was actually told was, "Because I said so!"
Recently, I told my wife, "We’ve reached the age where I should probably get a black suit because I’ll need to wear it a lot more frequently over the next several years."
She replied, "Pretty optimistic that you think you’re going to need it for that long."
Ouch.
A couple weeks ago, a good friend passed away, and I was worried about attending the memorial service because I didn’t own a black suit yet. I had dark blue slacks and a black sports coat, but it was no black suit.
"Well, this is going to be awkward," I thought. "I’m going to be the only schlub there in a sports coat. Might as well show up in jeans and work boots."
Sunday came, and I went to my friend’s memorial, and I certainly was the only person in a sports coat.
Because nearly everyone else wore golf shirts, dress shirts, or camp shirts, those short-sleeve button-down shirts, usually sold by Tommy Bahama. If you live in Florida, the state sends you a free one on your 65th birthday, along with a gold bracelet and pinkie ring.
There were a couple of older guys in suits, but everyone else was dressed like we were going to the beach afterward. One guy even wore a gray golf shirt, tan cargo shorts, and flip flops. Other people wore camp shirts, button-down shirts (no tie), or golf shirts and jeans. At least most of the shirts were black, in deference to the occasion. But it looked like the first day at a corporate retreat/golf weekend.
"What’s going on here?" I thought. "Is this a funeral or a picnic? Are we tossing around a Frisbee later?"
I wasn’t the youngest person in the room, but I was probably in the middle third. Still, there were plenty of people older than me who certainly should have known better.
After the funeral, I posted to social media and asked if this was the new normal, or was something else going on?
According to the people who responded, a lot of funerals have gone casual these days, and no one wears suits anymore. For one thing, people don’t feel the need to be so formal and uptight about dressing up anymore. Other times, it’s because the family doesn’t want people to wear black; they want everyone to wear bright colors to celebrate the deceased. Or to wear that person’s favorite color. Other people said, "You’re in Florida. Nobody wants to wear a suit in 95-degree heat."
I can’t do this, though. It’s not what I was taught when I was growing up. You wore a suit, or at least a sports coat, to funerals and weddings. It didn’t matter how hot it was.
Besides, for some of the funerals I was going to, it was going to be a lot hotter for the deceased anyway.
Photo credit: Matham315 (Pixabay, Creative Commons 0)
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