Are funeral services helpful to the dead or only helpful to the living?

These services are primarily for the living, to help bring closure, to have a kind of finality that is shared and decided by the family circle and others among friends and acquaintances who knew the person. It creates a reality for them to mark the passing and to have a kind of inner reckoning with what that life meant to them and to reminisce about what has been exchanged and its meaning. So there are many ways that the retrospective that takes place can serve the living. It can serve the departed as well to see their loved ones exchanging feelings about them and to check in and see how they are faring. It will help the departed as well if prayers are said on their behalf. This is not always the case, but can be, so this is an opportunity for the living to continue their relationship in an active and positive way to have prayers of remembrance and blessings be filled with a desire for sending love to the departed to wish them well on their journey and to thank them for all they contributed during their lives. This is an exchange at the highest of levels and is the purpose of life to begin with—to be a bringer and bearer of love for others as well as the self. That need not stop with the departure of a soul from the earth plane, it can continue through loved ones and the souls will be living on and will know the gesture is made, and it will raise them up and will be a source of joy.