I’d only feel uneasy because I wouldn’t want my cousin to be buried shirtless.
Well, I think I would feel honored that my cousin thought of me and wanted me to have the jersey.
If it was a team I also loved (SF Giants or SJ Sharks) I would be thrilled to keep the jersey and maybe even wear it to games and such.
If it was a team I didn’t love then I would keep it for a while and then maybe see if anyone else in the family wanted it and would “get more use out of it” than I did.
As for his name being on it, I think the letters are patches that are stitched on. You could always have them removed or replaced.
Honored x 2, but probably wouldn’t wear it.
I’d be honoured, and I wouldn’t mind it having touched a dead body at all. But I’d be confused, and a little sad that I would never be able to ask what the connection was, why I was to have the shirt.
For me personally, the only thing I can imagine is that it is a huge prank because I despise sports, so it would be my cousin’s way of forcing me to have a sports shirt in my house for ever! MUHAHAHA! Pretty good final prank, come to think of it.
I would also, as PunditLisa said, irrationally worry that he was buried shirtless. And picture the awkwardness of trying to get a shirt off a dead body.
I’d be honored outwardly and horrified inwardly. Well, horrified and honored, really.
I don’t know what it is about a shirt that weirds me out more than, say, a piece of jewelry, but unless it was a really close family member, I really wouldn’t want to wear the dead guy’s shirt. Especially given that he’d last worn it in his coffin.
However, I’d keep the shirt and I would never, ever tell his sister that I wasn’t just delighted all the way around. I’d also keep a sharp eye out for another family member who might be actually thrilled to have it.
It really is pretty funny that the fact that it is cloth makes it worse for people than jewelry. I kinda get it, but it doesn’t affect me.
It seems like because cloth is absorbant, some of the ‘scary deadness’ can be absorbed. We know it probably won’t be any actual germs, because:
- The body was probably embalmed & wearing a shirt underneath
- Hi Opal!
- You could just wash the thing. In fact, it was probably already washed by the cousin’s sister.
Jewelry wouldn’t absorb the “scary deadness”, because it isn’t absorbant. Totally irrational, but somehow, understandable. Is that what it is for most people who said they would be horrified?
Honored outside. Uneasy inside. But the uneasiness is because it seems like an unusual thing to me. I’d put the shirt away some where. If he has some kids or grandkids I’ll give it to them some day.
Agreed. It wouldn’t be the dead-body part of the scenario that would make it uneasy. It’s the fact that we weren’t close. I would graciously accept while saying to myself, “Why is did he want to give this to me? Gee, now I feel bad that I never tried to get to know him better. Wouldn’t one of his friends or close relatives be a better choice?” If he had kids, I would definitely hold on to it and pass it on to one of them.
Option 3: Outer me is honored, inner me is horrified.
Death is part of the circle of life, we all die someday, a corpse is just an empty shell after the departure of the soul, yada yada yada, but ew - a corpse was wearing that! I say how honored I am, but I either throw it away, or wash it and donate it to charity on the double. Ew ew ew.
If someone is being buried in a show casket, with a viewing and all the procedures, that’s costing more than a lot of jewelry is worth.
That’s the only way that the symbolism of putting something in a casket makes sense, to me.
Outer me uneasy, inner me horrified. If it was in his coffin during the wake it’d better have gone in the grave with him.
Something along this line happened when my husband’s uncle was killed during his first month in Vietnam. Before he’d left, he’d gone to a local florist and paid to have bouquets delivered to his wife on all the special occasions over the next year. I don’t know how his wife felt about getting flowers from her dead husband (shudder).
Outer me honored.
Inner me confused.
Honored, horrified (partly because they didn’t bury it with him, which they seemed to want to do because that’s what he was wearing at the funeral, and partly out of concern for infectious diseases due to his immune system not fighting them off any more). It’s getting washed, framed and hung on the den wall.
Well, questions of hygiene do apply to clothing, while it’s usually irrelevant for jewelry. You don’t share clothes without them being washed in between, but I’ve never heard of washing jewelry between wearers. (Possible exception for piercings, some of those aren’t shared at all…) We know now that unless someone died of something very contagious corpses don’t transmit disease, but that knowledge is much younger than most of our customs and taboos. An aversion to dead bodies and stuff that has been soiled by contact is, or at least was, sensible. But we generally consider jewelry as not something that gets soiled.
Plus, it’s usually a lot more valuable. It’s amazing what money will do to overcome taboos. 
I’d have it framed and hang it up in my den. Of course, this is an alternate universe where I have both the money to have a jersey framed and a home with a den.
I’d be outwardly honored and inwardly I wouldn’t give a crap. The jersey would go in the hall closet at my parents’ house - the one with my old cub scout uniform and other worthless pieces of memorabilia that don’t get worn.
Now, that’s mainly because it’s a jersey and I consider jerseys tacky as hell. If it were a really nice fedora or set of cufflinks or what have you, I’d wear it and feel honored.
Outer me honored, inner me appreciative about gesture but indifferent about the gift itself.