Why Do Birth, Death and Funerals Change the Way We See Life?
But lately, I have been thinking about birth, death and funerals differently. To me, they are not three unrelated events. They are three chapters of the same human story. Birth is our arrival. Life is the story we create between two unknown dates. Death is our departure. A funeral is what the people left behind do when they are learning how to continue without us.
And somehow, thinking about all four makes me think more seriously about how I am living today.
We Celebrate Birth Because Possibility Has Arrived
When a baby is born, nobody knows exactly who that person will become. We celebrate before the story has even been written. There are wishes, photographs, gifts, prayers and excited messages. A tiny life arrives carrying possibilities nobody can completely predict.
That has always felt beautiful to me.
We do not celebrate a newborn because they have achieved something. They have not built a career, earned money, helped thousands of people or accomplished a dream. They are simply here.
Maybe that says something important about human worth. Perhaps our value was never supposed to depend entirely on what we accomplish.
Birth gives us the beginning of a story. Then life starts filling the pages.
Then We Get Busy Living
This is the part we often forget.
We grow up, study, work, fall in love, make friends, argue, forgive, fail, succeed, worry about money, scroll through our phones and plan for a future that feels much farther away than it really is.
We become so occupied with tomorrow that we sometimes miss today.
That is one of the strangest things about being human. We know life is temporary, but we behave as though there will always be another opportunity to call someone, visit someone, apologize, travel somewhere, take a photograph or simply sit beside a person we love.
Death quietly challenges that assumption.
It does not mean we should live frightened. It means we should live awake.
Why Does Death Scare Us So Much?
Maybe it is the unknown. Maybe it is pain. Maybe it is the thought of leaving people we love. Maybe it is the unfinished plans, the book we never wrote, the place we never visited, the words we never said.
For me, one of the saddest parts of death is not only that a person disappears. It is that ordinary moments disappear with them.
You cannot suddenly message them and receive their familiar reply. You cannot hear their laugh from another room. You cannot ask that small question you never thought would become your last question.
That is why death can make ordinary things feel precious.
A voice. A meal together. A stupid joke. Someone waiting for you. A familiar name appearing on your phone.
We usually recognize their value most clearly when we realize they cannot happen again.
Then Comes the Funeral
A funeral can look different depending on culture, religion and family tradition. There may be prayers, rituals, flowers, silence, burial or cremation, speeches and mourning periods.
But underneath those differences, I think there is one common human purpose: we gather because someone mattered.
It allows people to stand together and admit, “This really happened.” It creates a moment to say goodbye when the mind is still struggling to understand that there will be no more conversations.
Sometimes someone tells a funny story and everybody laughs through their tears. Someone remembers a strange habit. Someone talks about a kindness nobody else knew about. Suddenly, the person who died feels present again, not physically, but through memory.
That is something I find deeply moving.
What Does a Funeral Really Tell Us About a Person?
Not everything.
A funeral cannot perfectly summarize a human life. A person is far too complicated for a few speeches, photographs or sentences.
Still, funerals can reveal something.
They show who came.
Who travelled for hours. Who stood quietly at the back. Who cried. Who remembered tiny details. Who had a story to tell. Who could not speak at all.
And sometimes I wonder whether that is a better measure of a life than many of the things we chase while alive.
We spend years wondering whether we are successful enough, attractive enough, rich enough or important enough.
But imagine the end of the story.
Would those things be what people remember?
Or would they remember how safe they felt around you? How you made them laugh? The advice you gave them? The way you showed up when they needed you? The ordinary kindness you probably forgot five minutes after giving it?
That thought changes something in me.
My Thoughts on My Own Funeral
Who would come?
What would they say?
Would somebody tell an embarrassing story that I would secretly hate hearing if I were there?
Would people remember the big things I achieved, or the tiny things I did without thinking?
Would someone say, “She really listened when I needed someone”?
Would someone smile because a particular memory reminded them of me?
Did I love people properly?
Did I say thank you enough?
Did I apologize when I was wrong?
Did I spend too much of my life worrying about strangers' opinions?
Did I postpone happiness until some imaginary future when everything was finally perfect?
If I could somehow sit quietly at my own funeral, I do not think I would care much about flowers, decorations or how impressive everything looked.
I would want to hear stories.
I would want to know that my existence had touched somebody's life, even in a small way.
That thought changes what I want to do while I am still here.
What Funerals Can Teach the Living
A funeral can remind us that relationships deserve attention before they become memories.
- Call the person.
- Visit when you can.
- Take the photograph.
- Ask the question.
- Forgive when forgiveness is possible.
- Say “I love you” without waiting for a special occasion.
Do not underestimate ordinary days. Most of life is not made of dramatic moments. It is made of tea, conversations, traffic, meals, messages, laughter, tired evenings and people sitting beside each other doing almost nothing.
Those ordinary moments may become the memories somebody holds onto one day.
Different Rituals, Same Human Need
Funeral traditions vary enormously around the world. Some communities emphasize burial, others cremation. Some observe long periods of mourning, others focus on remembrance and celebration. Some traditions are quiet and private, while others bring entire communities together.
Yet the underlying need is surprisingly familiar: to honor the person, support the grieving, acknowledge the loss and give meaning to a painful transition.
Understanding funeral traditions can also teach us to respect grief that looks different from our own. Not everybody cries. Not everybody wants to talk. Some people need company, others need silence.
There is no perfect script for losing someone.
Perhaps Death Is Also a Lesson About Living
I do not think thinking about death should make life darker.
For me, it does almost the opposite.
It makes a normal morning feel less ordinary. It makes conversations worth paying attention to. It makes apologies more urgent and gratitude more natural.
Death tells us that time is not something we own. We borrow it.
Birth reminds us that every person begins as possibility. Life gives us the chance to turn that possibility into something meaningful. Death closes our chapter. And funerals become the moment when others begin carrying pieces of our story forward.
Maybe that is why I no longer see a funeral only as a place of goodbye.
I see it as a mirror.
It asks the living a difficult question: If your story ended sooner than expected, would you be proud of the way you were living?
There are things I would change, people I would appreciate more, moments I would stop taking for granted. But perhaps that is the gift hidden inside an uncomfortable thought.
We are still here.
The story is not finished.
There is still time to call someone, become kinder, repair something, create something, explore somewhere new, laugh until your stomach hurts, sit beside someone you love and tell them they matter.
One day, every story will end.
But until that day comes, perhaps the most meaningful way to think about death is not to ask only, “When will I die?”
Maybe we should also ask, “While I am here, how do I really want to be remembered?”
And then, more importantly, we should live in a way that gives the people we love an answer.