Open casket - helpful?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I went to a funeral for a friend of mine today. I stayed outside during the open casket bit, and now I think I regret it.

This is the first time I’ve been to a funeral where the death was really unexpected (he was in his early thirties and healthy) and where the cause of death has not yet been determined (tests have been done but we won’t know for some weeks).

I’ve always avoided the open casket thing before, I think because I’ve been prepared to accept the fact of the person’s death due to illness, age or accident . This time, even though I know he’s dead, I just can’t quite get it through my head. On some level I just don’t believe it. And I think maybe it would have helped to have gone in to take a look at the body.

What’s your experience? Did viewing the body help or did it just distress you?

2

Not sure what you mean by “open casket bit”. The wakes I have attended (Catholic) in the USA have been open caket (unless deemed unviewable) throughout the entire wake. Is there a point in time when they tell you they are going to open the casket? Just curious.

Or did you mean the funeral mass? In this case I never seen it opened in church.

3

OK i gotta ask this and this may be abit of a hijack. In an open casket funeral, is it taboo to touch the dead person? The last funeral I went to was of a friend who died too young from cancer. I was an emotional wreck and for some reason I had this urge to touch her face one last time but thought better of it. Would I have caused a scandal if I did?

4

I doubt it. You might not want to touch the face becasue there is a ton of make-up on the person but I’ve seen people place their hand on the hand of the dead person. As long as you aren’t manhandling the corps (sp) I don’t think anyone would have given you a second look

5

I’ve been to many funerals of friends and loved ones, and personally I really appreciate an open casket.

Just a week and a half ago my 19 year old cousin was killed in a car accident, and was too badly injured to allow an open casket service (by his parent’s request). I wish at least the family had been able to see him, because it’s still so hard to imagine that it’s all real.

When I was 15 my first boyfriend was killed and was cremated. Again, it still didn’t seem real.

When my grandmother died we had an open casket service. I could actually grieve properly. I was able to hold her hand again, run my fingers through my hair, kiss her cheek and actually let go.

As for touching the corpse, it’s definitely not taboo. My husband works at a funeral home, and it’s almost expected, as long as you do not disturb the body or do anything disrespectful. That’s part of the appeal of having an open casket service.

6

Well, in some areas the funeral and visitation are separate. They may have an open casket visitation one day and the funeral the next (closed casket) as my cousin’s family did last week, or they may do it the same day, but close the casket halfway through.

It’s generally more for the family and close friends, they allow them time with the body before the service, to kind of work through the intensity of the grief and say goodbye before all the acquaintances and other people show up.

7

NYR407, in this case the deal was this: the funeral started at 2pm. The casket was open until 2.30. Family and friends who wished to go between 2 and 2.30 were welcome to. At 2.30, the coffin was shut, everyone went in and a memorial service was held.

8

My uncle died recently. Although it was a closed-casket funeral, my aunt had to look in the casket before the funeral to confirm that it was indeed my uncle and they hadn’t made a mistake. I suspect that dead bodies in general don’t look much live people–at any rate, in this case although it definitely was my uncle, it didn’t look quite like him. My aunt hasn’t been able to shake that impression. Now, a year later, she still asks me occasionally for reassurance, “It really was him, wasn’t it?” I think if she had never looked in the casket, she wouldn’t be worrying about this.

9

I think it’s very much a case of your background, culture and expectations. I personally find it distasteful in the extreme to have an open casket. In my immediate family, we prefer to have a cremation followed at a convenient time with a memorial service. At my mother’s memorial we had a picture of her on a table next to a rose in a vase, and some friends played and sang music she had liked, and we talked about our memories and what a wonderful person she was. To me this was meaningful and comforting.

However, I fully accept that to others it would not be. My mother-in-law has had the misfortune to lose 2 husbands and a son. Her church has a long and intricate funeral ceremony with the open casket in the center of the room. There is much crying and kissing of the dear departed. Graveside is also replete with open and vocal mourning, including the bereaved offering to leap into the grave. It seems to me that a good deal of what happens, including lavish expenditures on every appurtenance, is for show. For me, the whole thing is horrible, but to her, it somehow brings comfort and closure.

To each his/her own. I find my MIL’s way mawkish and disturbing. She finds mine cold and bereft of something essential.

10

My immediate family is not religious and are not funeral people at all. We go for others, but when it comes to us, we donate to science, cremate, and then bury the ashes some six months later. Only immediate family attends.

My husband’s family, on the other hand, is into the lavish funeral, picture boards, I created a CD of my sister-in-law’s favorite music, wailing at the graveside, the whole nine yards. Some people need it this way.

When our nephew died, his kids were in and out of the casket, dropping toys in for him, kissing, talking, blah, blah, blah. They also celebrate the anniversary of his death with a big luncheon at his favorite restaurant. People fly in from all over the country to attend and comfort his bereaved family. The family needs this, and as bizarre as it is to me, I have to respect that they require this in their grieving.

I prefer to keep my mom’s memory in my head and heart, knowing she would have hated the circus atmosphere.

11

My immediate family is not religious and are not funeral people at all. We go for others, but when it comes to us, we donate to science, cremate, and then bury the ashes some six months later. Only immediate family attends.

My husband’s family, on the other hand, is into the lavish funeral, picture boards, I created a CD of my sister-in-law’s favorite music, wailing at the graveside, the whole nine yards. Some people need it this way.

When our nephew died, his kids were in and out of the casket, dropping toys in for him, kissing, talking, blah, blah, blah. They also celebrate the anniversary of his death with a big luncheon at his favorite restaurant. People fly in from all over the country to attend and comfort his bereaved family. The family needs this, and as bizarre as it is to me, I have to respect that they require this in their grieving.

I prefer to keep my mom’s memory in my head and heart, knowing she would have hated the circus atmosphere.

12

Damn. Sorry.

13

There’s not a single thing I like about funerals.

I’d prefer not to have one at all. I can’t stand hearing people bullshitting in the background, I hate having to go to the surviving family members and try to console them. It all sucks.

The body always looks like shit. It’s like a bad bad BAD backroom freak show and I don’t want any parts of it.

14

Kalhoun, you reminded me of another thing – photographs! My MIL needs to have a photo of the deceased in the coffin. Gives me the shivers. I don’t need to be reminded that someone is dead – I prefer to remember that they lived. I have a beautiful picture of my mother that shows her swinging on a rope swing over a stream when she couldn’t have been far into her 20s. My sister by some magic reproduced it on silk using an old photo and a photocopy machine. It has been more than a decade since she died and I still miss her every day, but the last thing I would want is a picture of her in a coffin. But, somehow these things comfort others, although I cannot imagine why.

15

My in-laws through so much shit into the coffin, there was barely room for the body! Plus, her husband purchased NEW JEWELRY to bury her in. But it makes them feel better. Why? I’ll never know. My motto: Die and Fry.

16

Shit. You know I meant “threw”. Shit.

17

My grandmother died on May 5, so this is still pretty fresh for me. At her funeral, the casket was open right up until the service began. Then they closed it so my grandfather would enter the room for the service. He remained in one of those little side rooms – he didn’t want to have anything to do with viewing his dead wife’s body, after 63 years of marraige. I do not blame him.

I approached this funeral with much dread, since the memories of my other grandfather’s funeral were still fresh (although that one was 15 years ago). My sister and I did not want to go up to his casket. Our dad made us, so we could “say goodbye.” Bad idea. To this day, whenever either of us picture Grampa, we can only think of that embalmed excuse for a Grampa, that didn’t look anything like him. The memories I have of him walking and talking get pushed out of the way, so all I can see is the death look.

I did not want this to happen with Gramma a couple weeks ago. I sat in the back of the room for a long time. Finally my sister came back to me and whispered, “It doesn’t matter. You can go see. She doesn’t look anything like she did when she was alive. You won’t even recognize her.” She was right. It was like they put someone else’s Gramma in the box, 'cause mine didn’t look like that. My gramma was always smiling. This dead person was not.

I wonder why the undertakers can’t make the bodies smile a little? What do they do to the faces that makes the bodies not look like they did in life?

Maybe you’d better not answer that. I think I’d be better off not knowing.

So, to respond to the OP, no, the open casket has not helped me in terms of closure. What did help was thinking about all the things Gramma passed on to me: her cookie recipes, her secret to making perfect gravy, her green thumb and love of gardening, her love of family and animals… What also helped was telling and hearing all the stories about her life. That woman worked her ass off for 88 years. I sincerely hope that she’s passed to me at least half of her work ethic…

When I die (and I think my sister and mom feel the same way), I expect to be cremated and I want nobody messin’ with my corpse after the fact. The circus atmosphere that somebody mentioned is exactly what I find morbid and sick about funerals. Again, to each his/her own. We all have different ways of dealing with grief. (In my family, it’s cracking sick and twisted jokes. My uncle was aghast at the 15-year warranty on the concrete box they put the casket in… “Well, every year we’re gonna make 'em dig her up just to make sure that box is intact! I wanna collect on that warranty, dammit! Who checks on those things anyway?” It was a very funny rant and we milked that one for days after the funeral.)

18

Actually, deathbed photos were extremely common from the advent of photography up until I’d say, oh maybe World War II?

Even then, you sometimes have deathbed photos of important and famous individuals.

I’m the daughter of a funeral director, and I’d prefer a closed casket. Actually, I just want a simple, no frills funeral. It’s insane the amounts of money some people wish to spend on their funerals.

One funny, though somewhat macabre story-when I was little, we lived in one of the apartments above the funeral home where my father worked. I used to sometimes visit my dad while he wasn’t busy, and my mom and I would sometimes help clean downstairs. I don’t really remember doing this, exactly, but my mom says I would sit on the kneelers in front of the caskets and carry on a conversation with the bodies.
I was only four years old when we did move from there, and at the time, I thought they were fake people. I didn’t really understand “death” or anything when I was that small.

19

[slight hijack] some of the coffin photos stuff may be a holdover from the early days of photography. tintypes and glass plate negatives took a very long exposure time. (somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes … sorry, it’s been rather a while since i last had a tintype picture taken). during that time, the subject was not supposed to move, or else the image would be blurred because the motion would be captured also.

also in that timeframe, deaths were early and common. many infants and children didn’t make it past their 5th birthday. memories of such short little lives would obviously be fleeting. the custom of taking pictures of deceased children, either laid out in their coffins or in “naturalistic” poses (feigning sleep, as it were) were a means of remembering these offspring.

i suppose taking pictures of adults would also been a means of capturing a “final rememberance” of the deceased. remember, in the early days having a picture taken was a Big Deal. since it was a necessity to be perfectly still in order to capture a good image, and since most people might not already have had pictures of themselves that their relatives could keep, taking pictures once they had died probably made sense to those who wished to remember them.

the whole process might have become part of the cultural norm in some instances. i seem to recollect hearing that it’s rather more common in some European or Slovak-type areas than in many others. [/end hijack]

20

I’ve been to funerals where the casket was closed and open. When I was at the closed-casket funeral, I imagined the person inside, lying as if asleep - this made her death “real” for me. The people don’t quite look right because there is no emotion in their face.

I doubt it would matter too much if you had gone to see him. When someone goes unexpectedly, it takes time for the reality to sink in. I think you just need to give yourself some time to accept that it really happened. Even when someone has been ill, it takes a while to really accept their death.

Be gentle with yourself and allow time for the reality to hit, allow the grief when it happens.

My condolences - losing someone is never easy.