I was with both of my parents when they died (10 years apart). My father died with his eyes and mouth open. I gently closed his eyelids, and tried to close his mouth, but it stayed open (as anyone who knew him would have predicted).
So how many of you have touched a dead person?
My grandfather, in his casket. I didn’t want to be too icked out to touch him and then lose my last chance. He was embalmed and everything, though. (Which honestly just made it weirder.)
Me. Both my paternal grandparents.
I expect any doctors, nurses and emergency responders around will be chiming in shortly.
In 1991 I shook hands with Ronald Reagan in a reception line at a formal dinner. That’s about as close as I wanna come. The man had the limpest handshake I’ve ever encountered.
My parents.
My mother a few minutes after she passed. I kissed her on the cheek.
More than a few. My babysitter used to take me to funerals and have me kiss or at least touch the corpse (it’s an old superstition), my father died while we were sharing a bed, I’ve had to give CPR twice (unsuccessfully- both were already dead), I kissed my mother’s body when she died, and other connections.
Feels like chicken.
Sampiro you are bad!
Yes - my grandfather, my mother and both my mother and father-in-law.
My Dad. I put my hands on his one last time, during the viewing.
Absolutely! I had the “pleasure” of dissecting around 6 corpses in my gross anatomy lab course in the 1st year of dental school (which is just like 1st year of med school).
I’ve touched all kinds of parts taken off bodies in the histotechnology lab - does that count? 
Yes, but only in the casket, post-embalming. They always feel like not-people. Touching a dead person in the casket doesn’t bother me exactly, but I’m a little … creeped out is too strong, more like vaguely bothered … by the difference between expecting to touch a person, and then ending up touching something else. (For whatever reason, I have yet to adjust my expectations, and I’m always a little surprised by it).
I always assumed it was the embalming that seems weird to me. For people who have touched corpses both before and after embalming, is it different?
Worked in a funeral home, including the back room.
[QUOTE=gatorman]
Absolutely! I had the “pleasure” of dissecting around 6 corpses in my gross anatomy lab course in the 1st year of dental school (which is just like 1st year of med school).
[/QUOTE]
ewwwwwwwww, they make dentists disect bodies? That just seems wrong on so many levels.
Yes, I’ve touched a dead human. I touched my dad shortly after he died. I don’t recall ever touching one before that, although I can recall being encouraged to touch dead grandparents when I was a kid.
[QUOTE=Muffin]
Worked in a funeral home, including the back room.
[/QUOTE]
My best friend lived in a funeral home, growing up. They had a bright euphemism for the back room or embalming room, and I suppose by default the desanguination chamber. They called it “The Flower Room”, as it was at the backdoor where flower deliveries wer4e accepted.
My answer is, obviously, yes. However the first was my great grandmother. I was 11. I found her dead and touched her to be sure.
Occasionally we’ve had to x-ray corpses. At least then we don’t need to worry about lead shielding.
Also, part of our training takes place in the cadaver lab. There we touch them inside and out.
I performed CPR on a guy who had had a heart attack and struck a light pole. The firemen took over when they arrived. He never came back.
Nobody has ever died in the midst of any of my x-ray procedures, yet. Coded, yes, but not died.
(I don’t know how picunurse could do her job. The heartbreak would kill me.)
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
In 1991 I shook hands with Ronald Reagan in a reception line at a formal dinner. That’s about as close as I wanna come. The man had the limpest handshake I’ve ever encountered.
[/QUOTE]
Known as the “dead fish” handshake.
Back in my wasted youth, I dated a medical student. She took me into the lab where they practice on the donated bodies, and we rummaged around in a bin conatining different parts, including one guy’s head that she handed to me.
Yes, always in the casket, post-embalming. I really don’t like it. The embalming / viewing procedure is still way too alien for me, product of a culture that, while we do have a sort of “viewing”, never have it for long as it’s usually too hot there, and then we cremate. I haven’t been to enough wakes / funerals to really be comfortable with it.