Primaflora, I, like Cajo, can not possibly understand what drove someone to do such a thing.
All of my regards and sympathy to you on your devastating loss.
I don’t remember being especially put out by either of my grandparents’ visitations. Grandma’s death was a lot harder than Grandpa’s to take because she hadn’t been sick beforehand (she just collapsed one day, right in the A&P.) And they didn’t do an especially good job of her - she didn’t look much like Grandma. So I don’t remember the body as my last memory of Grandma; I remember her alive only. (In her brown bathing suit at the lake.)
Conversely, Grandpa’s death came after a long illness, so we were more prepared and it was less shocking. And they did an excellent job making him look, well, lifelike. So the image of him in the casket is not that difficult to take. Anyway, I remember him more alive than dead anyway.
So I don’t really have a problem with open-casket visitations. (Not that I’ve been to many. In fact, other than my grandparents and filing through City Hall to see Pierre Trudeau’s coffin, thankfully I’ve not been to any funerals at all.)
Eve! As a movie buff whose seen more old movies than God’s seen surises you must remember Rod Steiger’s treatment of John Gielgud in “The Loved One.”
Anyway, I’d bet that the book you mention is “Wisconsin Death Trip.” At first you’re creeped-out by the post-mortem photography, but that’s just the first layer to break through - after that you start to feel a very weary empathy for the culture depicted.
As for the OP; I’m of two minds. No offense to the skilled and compassionate members of the funeral-service community who may be reading this, but SOME funeral directors DO take advantage of grieving people when they are at an incredibly vulerable time and get them to buy a lot of expensive, useless shit.
On the other hand, look at the Nazis, Hutus, Serbs, etc. No fancy funerals there. If their victims weren’t healthy enough to dig their own graves, they’d just pile them up and let the crows have at it. It makes a strong argument for funeral rites being more than basic sanitation but rather a mark of respect. There’s probably good reason why in Greek mythology, if you didn’t bury your dead, not only were they barred from the underworld, but so were you. (most of my argument on this side was already stated by SuaSponte. See above)
But on the other hand again, from personal experience, I can vouch that the “they look just like they’re asleep” bullshit doesn’t wax as pertains infants. Babies’ lips are always slobbery wet, awake or asleep. I’ts not the shut-eyes or even the stillnes that gets to you - it’s the dry lips. If that baby had been close to you and you couldn’t bear to view that, Jesus Christ, who could blame you?
Ah! Slithy Tove! You mention “The Loved One”!
[somewhat related hijack] I have a funny story about “The Loved One”. I was too young to remember this first hand, but I’ll try to remember how it goes. My dad, as I mentioned before, didn’t like the idea of some funeral homes ripping off the grieving. So, when “The Loved One” first came out in the theatres, he wanted to see it. (It does a pretty good send-up of funeral homes.) However, (so he had heard) “The Loved One” was a thinly-veiled satire of a big funeral home chain in Southern California, Forest Lawn. Forest Lawn was very unhappy about the film. Apparently they had a great deal of influence on the area, and the word was that they had put pressure on all the area theatres to not show the film. So, NO THEATRES in our area were showing “The Loved One”. (We lived in Glendale - there’s a Forest Lawn in Glendale, along with several other locations in S. Calif.) So my dad had to drive to hell and gone to see the film.
And yeah, we had my dad’s memorial service in the Glendale Forest Lawn. Go figure. [/somewhat related hijack]
**
I doubt the reason you dreamed about your father was because you didn’t see the body. I saw my father’s body shorty after he died to say goodbye and make sure he was really dead. He died in 1996 and I still have dreams in which he makes a cameo appearance. Except when that happens I know it is a dream and I wake up.
I have nothing against open casket funerals. I’ve been to a couple and although it is kinda strange it isn’t all that big of a deal. The thing I do find to be in poor taste is to have an open casket when the body is in poor condition. A&E interviewed a guy working in a funeral home and he said his worst request was an open casket on a guy that had been decomposing a week before the body was discovered.
Marc
Anyway, I know I am rambling. The thing was, NONE of us could have stood to see him in a casket. (For another thing, my dad would have hated to see us pay all that money to Forest Lawn! 
) Also, my sister and I are potters, and we had this idea to make him a custom made urn out of pottery. (We haven’t done that yet, though.) And then there’s the idea to use a bit of his ashes as a glaze ingredient. Potters do this a lot.
Anyway, that’s what I want - I’d like to end up in a good glaze. **
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There’s a section of the cemetary in my hometown where a lot of the old headstones have the funeral photo on a piece of porcelain and inset right there in the gravestone. That’s sort of eerie.
When my grandmother died a few years ago, my aunt and parents seemed to think it was important that I go to the viewing. I wasn’t keen on the idea, as I was barely holding it together as it was, and I didn’t want to be there sobbing over her body. But I couldn’t articulate this well, and so I went at their urging. I guess I’m glad I did. I hadn’t seen her for several years, and it also helped cement in me the idea that she was gone.
What’s interesting to me is how important they thought it was. I was out sightseeing with my cousins and when I’d mentioned casually that I hadn’t been to the funeral home yet, my aunt stopped everything to drive me back home so my dad could walk me over. Was it tradition? Superstition? A belief that it showed respect, or brought closure? I never asked. I didn’t think it was sick. I just thought it might not be for me. For some of the reasons others here have mentioned.
Yeah, it can be hard to avoid embalming. My sister was horrified at the concept, she told everyone in the family she wanted to be cremated ASAP and that her body was not to be tampered with (including me on the off-chance that I was the only survivor of some accident that took the rest of us, even though I was just a child). When she was murdered my parents told the funeral home this, and they assured her that she would not be embalmed, it would not be necessary since they would be cremating her corpse as soon as they got it from the morgue after the autopsy (which we realized was unavoidable in the circumstances, despite her wishes). We did not know that they went ahead and embalmed her anyway until they billed us for it, and when they were confronted on it they at first claimed that it was required by law. When my mother did a bit of research and proved that it was not, they took it off the bill. How nice of them. 8^(
As to open casket funerals, I’ve been to a few and don’t really have a problem with it, though I didn’t cry at my grandfather’s funeral until I went up to view his body. Even in my sister’s case where there was no funeral, just a memorial service, my mother went to the morgue to say goodbye to her.
I’ve now got a grudge against funeral homes. My family has been told to refuse to spend any money on the disposal of my corpse and let the authorities handle it the same way they would that of some transient with no family - the way I see it garbage disposal is something we pay taxes for, and I see my corpse as nothing but bad meat.
Magdelene—I did read the Mitford book; when I was in college I took a course in Death (the joke was that we had to die for our final exam, and got extra credit if we killed a friend, too). We visited a crematorium, did all kindsa fun stuff.
Tygr—I guess it’s a good thing you weren’t there the day I found roadkill in my cats’ litter box, then ran to vomit in the toilet, but it was plugged up . . .
Tove—Of course I have “Wisconsin Death Trip,” but the book I’m thinking of was a coffee-table book of post-mortem photos, no text. Can’t remember the name. “Sleeping Beauties,” maybe.
The first time I saw a body at a wake, it really bothered me. It was my great-uncle Jack, and he had died of lymphatic cancer. He looked so artificial–the makeup couldn’t conceal that jaundiced look, and the smile was really, really fake. I had a very hard time handling it.
The next time was my friend Matt. Matt had been struck by lightning, killing him nearly instantaneously. Knowing how I felt when I saw my uncle, I was hestitant, but I owed it to Matt to say goodbye properly. He looked pretty good, actually, and his mother and fiancee had put up a board next to the casket with lots of photographs of Matt from over the years. I felt better for having seen him.
My paternal grandmother died in January 2000, and I did not get to see her body. I felt horrible, because when she died, we were on bad terms, and I had not actually seen her for a few years. But because of Jewish funereal tradition, I didn’t have an opportunity to see her. I did, however, act as a pallbearer, placing my grandmother’s casket in the ground and helping to bury her. I wish I had been able to see her first.
When my cat, Sunshine, died last month, I insisted on seeing him. His death was a complete surprise, happening during a dental procedure at the vet, and my wife and I had to see him one last time. Our last memory could not be of dropping him off at the vet in a carrier and telling him we’d be back for him that afternoon. We spent quite a while with his body and mourned him, and petted him.
Sometimes you just need to see them one last time.
I’ve never really reacted badly to an open-casket funeral; there’s really nothing about the corpse being in the casket that surprises or shocks me. But that might be years of self-conditioning; when I was eight, my grandmother died, and my parents refused to take me to the wake or the funeral because they weren’t sure I was old enough to handle it. Dammit, I loved my grandmother and wanted to say goodbye, and I suppose that could be why I work so well at being calm at funerals.
Of course, when I die, I want to be embalmed and placed in a chair so that little kids can sit in my lap and have their picture taken with the dead body. $5, $2 if you bring your own camera.
Try to time it so you die around Christmastime, and leave a request for your survivors to dress you up like Santa Claus – then pull that stunt in the middle of a mall.
:eek: Shades of The Three Faces of Eve! I think that’s way too much for a kid to handle. (In Eve White’s case, of course, there were other factors contributing to her MPD in the book that weren’t included in the movie.)
Once, while browsing in a bookstore, I came across a book of post-mortem photos of the vintage Guin and our Eve mentioned. A lot of the photos were of children posed to try to make them look as if they had just dozed off while, for instance, reading a book. But dead faces relax differently from sleeping ones, and the kids were obviously dead. I almost bought it because I was in a pretty morbid phase at the time, but I decided against it.
Open coffins don’t bother me. I don’t think they’re sick. But I certainly would not force anyone to view one.
When my grandfather died when I was about 14, I didn’t cry until I saw him in the casket. I think that until I saw him, I couldn’t persuade myself that he was really gone. It made a big difference to me.
And yeah I want an open casket. And I want a coffin that has a light sensor on it, so that every time somebody comes up to the casket a speaker placed under my head cackles with laughter and groans “I’m coming for ya…”
pan
My mother was traumatized as a child at her grandfather’s open-casket funeral. According to her, the way they had him made up, he looked NOTHING like the man she’d known. The fakery aspect of the whole thing deeply disturbed her.
So I have strict instructions for her, involving cremation and a beach in Oregon. Simple.
As for me, I’d rather just be cremated, but at the very least I do not want to be put on display. Or I will come back and haunt you. Really. It’s one thing for family, maybe, but to be put out for everybody to come and look at the body…ewwwwww. When my father died I had the opportunity to look but turned it down. I didn’t want my last memory to be of his body. But that was just me. I know it helps some people.
Another thing about viewings . . . What if they put me in an outfit I wouldn’t be caught dead in? I mean yeah, they’d probably get the clothes out of my closet—but what if they put me in a beige sweater with a gray skirt?! Or a striped skirt with a patterned blouse?! Or glittery eyeshadow? If I can’t accessorize myself, forget it. Another reason to be cremated.
I guess I may be a little morbid but I like looking at dead bodies. I like touching them and in the cases of people I love, I hold their hand and kiss them goodbye. Never thought it was creepy at all.
Even more morbid is the fact that I was fascinated by the work the mortician did on my little brother who was hit by a car and died of massive head injury . . .
[hijack] public service announcement - KIDS, WEAR YOUR BIKE HELMETS![/hijack]
. . . and my mother’s cousin who died in his home and wasn’t found for more than a week.
Not to sound deranged, but I peaked under my little brothers baseball cap that covered the broken part of his head and I admired the paint job that covered up the black parts of my second cousin’s skin.
I know it isn’t for most people, but death can be pretty interesting.
Diane, it sounds to me like you were born to be a mortician . . . have you ever considered a career change?
[Insert jokes here about how “people are dying to get into the profession” and about all the “stiff competition”]
No, I would make a poor mortician. I would be too busy posing the bodies with fingers up noses and flowers in butt cracks to get any work accomplished. The poor souls would rot before I got around to embalming them.
Sidenote - My great uncle owns a large mortuary/cemetery in Ogden Utah. This guy is 150 years old, wears his hair like Elvis, and is goofy looking. However, he drives a Porche and has cute little 20-something year old girlfriends.
Hummm, maybe I should reconsider.
I think you can go being unembalmed, but there I believe no coffin is a no-no. WAY too much of a health hazard, according to my father.
If you want to be natural-go with a plain pine wood casket. It deteriorates more naturally.
I forgot to mention-the hardest part of being a funeral director isn’t the dead bodies. No, it’s dealing with grieving families, the bodies of babies killed by abusive parents. My father told us about the time he’d never forget, when I was just a baby, about a baby girl who had been beaten to death by her mother. They brought the mother to the funeral in her prison garb and shackels. According to my mom, my dad was a wreck that whole week.