wake me up before you go-go
Open casket wakes are not a good idea. In my relatively short life I've now been to 5 -- 3 were older men (50's-60's), 1 was a young man, and 1 was a young woman. All were just plain awful.
The first one I saw was so horribly done, I swear I could see the stitches keeping his eyes and mouth closed. It was so bad the widow of the deceased asked me if I was ok. I seriously was not. It was like some kind of horror movie done is scent-o-vision; the flowers overbore almost all your senses and the horrifying thing inside the casket was so awfully done it was like a train wreck - you had to stare.
And there really is no need for this -is there? I'm not one to throw stones at others religious beliefs, but what is the reason for the open casket thing? The person is gone. Their spirit has left their body and is heading for who-knows-where. This vessel, that people are so hell bent on looking at, is dead. It's not a real person At All. And all it does is lead to bad behavior.
Case-in-point: the young man whose wake we attended died by 'accidentally shooting himself' - well, that's what the family had to say, because should his death be marked a suicide, he could not be buried as the religion he was. And that, if I may side-bar, is a real shame. Why lie? He put the gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and is now dead -- And the church would ban him for that? In reality, the church should take some (just a little) responsibility in this -- someone somewhere obviously failed to provide him with the support he desperately needed to stay alive in the first place. So now they have failed him not once, but twice, and now his family has to lie about his death so that he can still be buried as a whatever. Hrumpf. SO- back to bad behavior -- this man shoots himself, and everyone at the wake knows this, and so everyone who goes to 'pay respect' to him stares awfully long and un-ashamedly at his perfectly put together head looking for the exit wound. Just awful. Terrible. There was none, by the way. I looked.
The other wakes were similar -- people filling past, trying not to look, but looking anyway, and gawking at the horror of the terribly done make-up, the all-too-thick bronzer, the mementos lining the casket, and the truly bloated and disfigured hands resting on this poor dead body. It's really really awful and something I hope to never have to go through again.
The first one I saw was so horribly done, I swear I could see the stitches keeping his eyes and mouth closed. It was so bad the widow of the deceased asked me if I was ok. I seriously was not. It was like some kind of horror movie done is scent-o-vision; the flowers overbore almost all your senses and the horrifying thing inside the casket was so awfully done it was like a train wreck - you had to stare.
And there really is no need for this -is there? I'm not one to throw stones at others religious beliefs, but what is the reason for the open casket thing? The person is gone. Their spirit has left their body and is heading for who-knows-where. This vessel, that people are so hell bent on looking at, is dead. It's not a real person At All. And all it does is lead to bad behavior.
Case-in-point: the young man whose wake we attended died by 'accidentally shooting himself' - well, that's what the family had to say, because should his death be marked a suicide, he could not be buried as the religion he was. And that, if I may side-bar, is a real shame. Why lie? He put the gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and is now dead -- And the church would ban him for that? In reality, the church should take some (just a little) responsibility in this -- someone somewhere obviously failed to provide him with the support he desperately needed to stay alive in the first place. So now they have failed him not once, but twice, and now his family has to lie about his death so that he can still be buried as a whatever. Hrumpf. SO- back to bad behavior -- this man shoots himself, and everyone at the wake knows this, and so everyone who goes to 'pay respect' to him stares awfully long and un-ashamedly at his perfectly put together head looking for the exit wound. Just awful. Terrible. There was none, by the way. I looked.
The other wakes were similar -- people filling past, trying not to look, but looking anyway, and gawking at the horror of the terribly done make-up, the all-too-thick bronzer, the mementos lining the casket, and the truly bloated and disfigured hands resting on this poor dead body. It's really really awful and something I hope to never have to go through again.
posted by sara @ 1:37 PM
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