"Golf courses and cemetaries - biggest wastes of prime real estate."
We humans have some strange customs. When someone dies, it's customary to dress them up and position their dead body in a box for the living to gaze at. Depending on where you're from, it's called a Viewing or a Wake. Whatever you call it, it's odd. I'm all for gathering with family and friends and recalling the life of the deceased (or even celebrating it, if necessary) but to have the body itself propped up and on display is in itself an idea that I could live quite comfortably without. I suppose that's the "viewing" part, and if it is, include me out.As we grow older, we go to more funerals than weddings, and even fewer birthday parties. Tomorrow night, I will be dragged by some people at work to a Viewing for a co-worker who passed away last week. I'll go because (a) someone else is driving and (b) I have to work with these people. Left on my own, I'd sooner not bother, but I suppose it's one of those duties that we (the humans) are bound to.
In the best spirit of bringing a horse to water but not forcing him to drink, I'll make an appearance, but I will not walk up to the opened casket and gaze inside. My hope is that the family isn't gathered around it so that I can find someone and say something and leave.
Another odd part is that aside from the co-worker, I don't know anyone in her family, and to my knowledge I have never met anyone in her family. Strangely, the only person who would recognize me besides my living co-workers is the dead one. I think, if we were truly beholden to our own actions, not too many of us would bother with funerals and viewings. But, we succumb to peer pressure and we feel that we owe the dead some measure of respect.
There's a lot of money to be made in the funeral business. Mostly, they're family businesses, with generations of funeral directors passed down from fathers to sons. The services are expensive, but having never paid for one, I can only imagine. People seem to want expensive caskets, which amazes me to no end. You'll spend a fortune for something that you're going to bury. It's a display piece, and some people think that if you skimp on the casket you didn't care enough for the deceased. I think, if you spend a fortune for a box you're burying you have more money than brains.
I see fewer flowers and more "in lieu of flowers" requests on death notices. Finally, people are realizing that expensive flowers are a bad investment.
Do you wonder (as I do) what happens when we run out of places to bury people? We will, you know - it's a simple matter of available space and time. I suppose at some point, cremation will be mandatory, since there won't be any more ground to dig. The things I think about.
Maybe the reason I feel this way is that I went through this as a child with my father, and after that experience, I soured on the process. Maybe it's because, when my time comes, I'll probably be buried in a potter's field or claimed by dental records after being found by corpse-sniffing dogs.
If no one comes to my funeral, I'm not likely to notice.
4 comments:
That's why I'm going with cremation.
I'm going to be cremated too and I've already expressed my wishes and where I am to be "spread out" when the time comes.
The funerals that I can recall going to have all been closed casket. I don't know or remember anyone with an open casket...scaring small children and staring at someone who is cold as ice is not an image i want to have of someone i once knew and possibly loved.
our older generation though, it's a show of respect the quality of their burial. i've talked to my mom several times (her chat not mine) about what she wants...as i'm sure your mom has discussed it with you at some point in her life...i dont want my mother haunting me if i dont carry out her wishes. ya know?
I've been to both opened and closed. Chads fathers was Sunday. Here we call them calling hours, and since he was so sick and looked nothing like himself, it was closed.
and yes its expensive. his mother went with base line everything, even choosing just a private grave side service over a funeral and it was 7000.
He had no life insurance so she too had instead of flowers please donate to the funeral home for his account. after all... flowers die. Ive never been a flower lover....unless we're talking rose petals on a bed but that a different story :-P.
i think that in the end what we must realize is that funerals and calling hours are for the living, its closure.
xoxox
Wow. 7 grand for a basic funeral strikes me as taking advantage of grief-stricken loved ones.
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