Funeral grief

by Mrs. S
(Jefferson City, MO)

I'm finding that I get more emotional at funerals then I would like and would like to control this and even more, want to understand where this is coming from.

I noticed an increase in these feelings at a friends father's funeral, after he passed away from prostate cancer. My dad had the same cancer a few years previous to this, and I felt that it was too close to me, that THIS could have been me in my friends shoes, and I too could have lost my father. Recently, I went to a friend's Mother's funeral and again, the pictures came out during the services, and it hit, this overwhelming wave of emotion that I could not stop. This woman had been a huge part of my life for 18+ years as a neighbor and childhood friends mother, but why did this hit me so hard?

I'd like to get in touch with my feelings on this to decipher if it's really the loss of this person, or could it be because of a recent awakening of childhood abandonment that these deaths bring up a time that I thought was happy, but recently found they they were not what I thought.

Thanks for your thoughts.