I Refused To Go To My Parents' Funerals

To most it would seem unthinkable. Here, Hannah Betts explains her decision

- Hannah Betts

As a society, we no longer harbour many taboos. Little we do retains the ability to shock, be it our manners, our moral behaviour or dress. However, over the past couple of years, I have embraced what turns out to be a fundamental transgression: I couldn’t bear to attend either of my beloved parents’ funerals, and so I refused to go.

The reaction to this was – and continues to be – one of profound shock from strangers, colleagues, family members and friends.

When I told people about my decision, each time it elicited as much lack of comprehension as horror. Even my partner, who knows me better than most, attempted to persuade me out of my position before eventually coming to terms with it.

The collective reaction was, ‘But they created you – didn’t you love them?’ The answer was not that I never loved them, rather that I loved them so profoundly that I didn’t wish to put my emotions through a wringer I consider as tawdry as it is unnecessary. ‘You’ll regret it,’ everyone warned me. But I never have, and am convinced I never will.

Genuine emotion

Of course, I understand that for some people, funerals can be a healing process and I respect them for that. But for me, it would not have felt right to attend.

My mother, Pam, died in the summer of 2015, at the age of 69. She was a retired nurse who had met my father, Tim, a neuropsychiatrist, on the wards of the hospital in Birmingham where they both worked in the 60s. My father died a year after her, last summer, aged 76.