Marion was the sweet old woman who lived next door to us, married sixty years to her husband, Ed. She passed away a few days ago, and for the past few days Ed’s numerous family members have been around to offer support. Today we did what we could by attending her funeral service this evening.
Personally, I don’t understand the concept of open caskets and viewings. I know it offers comfort to many (“She looks so peaceful”) but I just find it disturbing. A gussied-up corpse isn’t Marion. Marion was the smiling, charming woman who smiled out at us from dozens of photographs that had been arranged in displays around the viewing parlor, from childhood photos to her youth with Ed (she was quite a looker in her prime, I might add).
In any event, we offered our condolences and support, and we figure since we’re right next door to him, we’ll try to be his first resource whenever he needs anything.
Sixty years. Wow.
PAD
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I have no profound words to say excpet that you have my condolences.
Wow, talk of Synchronicity. I just came by to tell you how I read the “Tribute” back up stories from the 1990 annuals and I wanted to tell you how beautiful this quote was:”I know you care about me, and always will, but I guess… I guess you’ve got to start caring about yourself more. Think of me now and again. Even love me from a distance, if it gives you a faint, pleasant ember in your heart. But Give the fire and flame of your heart to someone else. It’s okay. I want you to. “
I hope it’s a comfort, for it is to me.
Personally, I don’t understand the concept of open caskets and viewings. I know it offers comfort to many (“She looks so peaceful”) but I just find it disturbing. A gussied-up corpse isn’t Marion. Marion was the smiling, charming woman who smiled out at us
Ditto. I honestly don’t even know why the casket is present at all. Closure, I guess.
Last year, we lost my maternal grandmother. She had been married to my grandfather for nearly 62 years.
62 years.
Taking my grandfather as an example, I’d say that its good that you and your family are willing to be there for him. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the offered help.
A year later, we have my grandfather living with us, and now his old house has been sold. He seems to be doing ok.
I mostly tend to agree, closed caskets are much more dignified for friends and some family.
Personally, from experience open caskets are a dreaded necessity for a few. Like Matt suggested, closure is important. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the idea that your loved one was very much healthy and alive one day, completely gone the next. In the case of my two year old, I was out of town when the accident occured. It took two or three viewings before it “clicked” for me what it was exactly in front of me.
But, even then I personally do *not* want to view an aquaintance or neighbor in that situation. I can’t say “I’d rather not” when the bereaved asks me to view their parent/spouse. I’m not that rude but it is awkward and uncomfortable. I think the family should do what it needs to do to get by. But when people begin to show for visiting or services, it’s time to close the casket.
re:casket.
that’s why (in all seriousness) I want a closed casket service. That way, and the end of the service, they open the casket and it’s fill ed with ice and bottles of soda/drinks. Start the party.
(Yes, I’m serious, and putting it in the next will I draw up.)
Personally, I don’t understand the concept of open caskets and viewings. I know it offers comfort to many (“She looks so peaceful”) but I just find it disturbing. A gussied-up corpse isn’t Marion. Marion was the smiling, charming woman who smiled out at us from dozens of photographs that had been arranged in displays around the viewing parlor, from childhood photos to her youth with Ed (she was quite a looker in her prime, I might add).
Ah, but Peter, the open casket funeral is for several reasons. Yes, the making up of the body and dressing it up softens the blow, but having the casket be open crystalizes the loss. It hardens the blow. It’s as old truism has applied to much of human history:
Seeing is believing.
It’s one thing to be told something is true but another to see it with one’s own eyes. Be it someone’s death, the growth of a child, the building of some skyscraper, even the progress made in a war effort. It’s one thing to be told what is true but another to see it for oneself.
For someone who works with words, ideas in symbolic form, the image may not be necessary, but as someone who works with comics, with tv, with movies, who’ve described in one of your BUT I DIGRESS columns the powerful feeling of walking on-set to SEE the ideas you’ve written on a page being brought to life by set designers and actors, was a powerful thing.
Seeing is believing.
— Ken from Chicago
“Ah, but Peter, the open casket funeral is for several reasons. Yes, the making up of the body and dressing it up softens the blow, but having the casket be open crystalizes the loss. It hardens the blow. It’s as old truism has applied to much of human history: Seeing is believing.”
Well, I’ll tell you, Jews have been having closed-casket funerals for thousands of years, and somehow I doubt that at a single one of them, mourners have looked at the coffin with narrowed eyes and said suspiciously, “I won’t believe it unless I see it.”
PAD
Well, every funeral I’ve been to that had a body (as opposed to cremation) was open-casket. I’ve always found it comforting in one sense. I get to say a final farewell to someone in my life.
I don’t think I could do that in a closed-coffin case. I’d almost have to shout what I was thinking to the dear departed out loud, so the sound would get through that dámņëd box.
And it does give me one last look at a person and hope that he or she is at peace. Because in all honesty, whether they are or not, the mortician’s art enables me to sustain that feeling, illusion or not.
Sixty years. Wow.
Lisa and I got married on my grandparents’ 61st anniversary, which unfortunately also wound up being their last, since my grandfather passed away the next spring. It’s a pretty impressive thing to be able to look back on.
(When my grandmother passed away a few years later, we scattered both of their ashes on the banks of the Charles River in Boston, since that’s where they met. Not sixty seconds later, a pair of ducks came waddling up onto shore, one of them quacking away as if to give the other one directions. All of us thought the same thing instantly: “my God, they’re back!” It made for a very nice moment.
TWL (no casket, please)
Before the viewing, that my dad was dead was just something I’d been told. The rational part of my mind knew it was true; that this wasn’t some bizarre practical joke or hoax or mistake…but it still wasn’t quite real. Seeing him there in the casket at the viewing brought it home that he was really honest-to-God dead. Only then was I able to cry.
Dav2.718
Probably my most painful memory is of seeing my grandmother, who died in 1996, laying dead in her coffin at the viewing. I’m crying a bit now just remembering it. I remember that my grandpa, who had just celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, was kneeling by the coffin and holding her hand, pleading with her to wake up.
This is a little harder to write about than I thought it would be.
My point is that, while I understand the concept of the open-casket viewing, it is absolutely not for everyone. To some people, it can be downright traumatic. I think there ought to be separate services – maybe an hour or two closed-casket, so little kids (or impressionable sixteen-year-olds) don’t get freaked out, and then an hour of an open casket, for those who need or want to see such things.
I agree. I want a wake where all my friends get together and talk about what a great guy I was. Obviously their tongues loosed with much liquor.
Anyways, in related news, 3 days until the Hunter Cannon-shot.
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3982747,00.html
PAD,
My condolences on the death of your neighbor.
As to open vs. closed casket, I’ve been to both types of funerals, but former is more commonplace. Why? I suppose it’s an opportunity to say goodbye, face-to-face, as it were. I’ve often seen people put something in the casket with the body- some small item that had apparently been important to the deceased.
Let’s not forget that once upon a time, these open casket viewings took place in people’s homes- specifically in their parlor, not at a funeral home. And even creepier, if you’ve seen the movie “The Others”, you’ll recall there’s a discussion of how the recently dead would be photographed sitting up straight, as if alive. I did a little research and found that they didn’t make that up for the movie; people actually did that. They would sit a corpse in a chair, and take its picture, as if it was a living person sitting there with his or her eyes closed.
I’d rather have an open casket in a funeral parlor.
And speaking of which, Bill Cosby once did a routine about how sick it was that people would say, “didn’t he look like himself?” He went on to suggest that for the people who always feel the deceased looks like himself or herself, a tape recorder could be hooked up for a small additional fee. That way the deceased could “talk” to people as they went by. “Hi, how’ve you been? Don’t I look like myself? Aren’t I wonderful? It’s good to see you.”
When my time comes, I’m doing that.
Rick
Well, as we all know from comic books, someone isn’t dead unless you see the body.
In seriousness, if the person was ill or bedridden for any amount of time before death, a good undertaker can make the person look better than they had before death, so an open coffin allows a better last view of the person.
Punchline to an old joke about what you would want people to say over your casket while viewing your body. “Look. He’s moving!”
Sorry for your loss and more importantly your neighbor’s loss.
There was a story recently about a Pittsburg Steelers fan who, at his funeral, they had him set up in his EZ-Boy chair or something, decked out in Steelers gear, as if it were game day.
And that’s what the guy wanted.
Anyways, I think the only closed-casket funeral I’ve ever been to was for my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. It was a big Catholic funeral, where everybody is seated and then the paul-bearers bring the casket down the aisle and put it in place. So, I don’t even know if they had a viewing.
I guess it’s just a case of tradition on the other side – open casket, barring request or good reason (ie, some sort of physical trauma to the head).
funerals and memorials affect all people in different ways. some people may take comfort in having the last goodbye, while others would prefer to remember that person the way they were in life.
my parents were both openly viewed: to be honest, I was never able to look directly at Daddy but with my mother, she had been through so much in her terminal illness, that I needed to see her feeling no pain and looking the same.
I feel it is a matter of religious belief or personal want for each family involved in making the funeral decisions and if at all possible the decisions were hopefully made by the person prior to their death.
religions customs and family traditions play a huge role, and while I might prefer to be cremated, there are many from my family that would find this disgraceful. I can still remember watching a movie as a child, in which a norse family set a woman’s body afloat on a pyre and shot flaming arrows into it. as a child the idea seemed actually quite peaceful to me, but as an adult I think I would be alot more content with something more simple and less dramatic to apease and comfort my family.
my brother’s memorial, was just that. it was held to memorialize his life, and his death was kept closed from our eyes, by only having pictures of him in all the poignant moments of his life… such as holding his children during their births,
amongst his friends at a fire dept hoopla, and learning to line dance with friends for fun. it was a soothing semblance of his life to me, but for others it lacked the sorrowful ceremony they expected, so there were ‘some’ negative comments.
the bottom line, the immediate family and the deceased loved one have to make a decision based on what they are comfortable with… we as friends, co-workers and neighbors should take comfort in knowing that it was hopefully a last wish fulfilled.
funerals and memorials affect all people in different ways. some people may take comfort in having the last goodbye, while others would prefer to remember that person the way they were in life.
my parents were both openly viewed: to be honest, I was never able to look directly at Daddy but with my mother, she had been through so much in her terminal illness, that I needed to see her feeling no pain and looking the same.
I feel it is a matter of religious belief or personal want for each family involved in making the funeral decisions and if at all possible the decisions were hopefully made by the person prior to their death.
religions customs and family traditions play a huge role, and while I might prefer to be cremated, there are many from my family that would find this disgraceful. I can still remember watching a movie as a child, in which a norse family set a woman’s body afloat on a pyre and shot flaming arrows into it. as a child the idea seemed actually quite peaceful to me, but as an adult I think I would be alot more content with something more simple and less dramatic to apease and comfort my family.
my brother’s memorial, was just that. it was held to memorialize his life, and his death was kept closed from our eyes, by only having pictures of him in all the poignant moments of his life… such as holding his children during their births,
amongst his friends at a fire dept hoopla, and learning to line dance with friends for fun. it was a soothing semblance of his life to me, but for others it lacked the sorrowful ceremony they expected, so there were ‘some’ negative comments.
the bottom line, the immediate family and the deceased loved one have to make a decision based on what they are comfortable with… we as friends, co-workers and neighbors should take comfort in knowing that it was hopefully a last wish fulfilled.
funerals and memorials affect all people in different ways. some people may take comfort in having the last goodbye, while others would prefer to remember that person the way they were in life.
my parents were both openly viewed: to be honest, I was never able to look directly at Daddy but with my mother, she had been through so much in her terminal illness, that I needed to see her feeling no pain and looking the same.
I feel it is a matter of religious belief or personal want for each family involved in making the funeral decisions and if at all possible the decisions were hopefully made by the person prior to their death.
religions customs and family traditions play a huge role, and while I might prefer to be cremated, there are many from my family that would find this disgraceful. I can still remember watching a movie as a child, in which a norse family set a woman’s body afloat on a pyre and shot flaming arrows into it. as a child the idea seemed actually quite peaceful to me, but as an adult I think I would be alot more content with something more simple and less dramatic to apease and comfort my family.
my brother’s memorial, was just that. it was held to memorialize his life, and his death was kept closed from our eyes, by only having pictures of him in all the poignant moments of his life… such as holding his children during their births,
amongst his friends at a fire dept hoopla, and learning to line dance with friends for fun. it was a soothing semblance of his life to me, but for others it lacked the sorrowful ceremony they expected, so there were ‘some’ negative comments.
the bottom line, the immediate family and the deceased loved one have to make a decision based on what they are comfortable with… we as friends, co-workers and neighbors should take comfort in knowing that it was hopefully a last wish fulfilled.
About 5 years ago my grandmother died. She was an amazing woman and her passing had a huge impact on me. It took me 30 minutes to enter the room she was in, let alone go up and actually view her in the casket. Once I got the strength to see her in the casket, everything became fine and I was able to pull it together. Looking at her I realized, this isn’t my grandmother. My grandmother is the vital woman who taught me checkers. While an open casket is tramatic for some, it actually eased my grieving and helped me focus more on what she had given me than any percieved loss. Tramatic for some, helpful for others.
Very sorry to hear about your neighbor. I hope her husband is getting along as well as possible at a time like this. I know having neighbors like you will be a great help.
When I was very young, I was forced to two funerals, both open casket. I’ve been able to see those dead people in their boxes ever since and because of that have sworn for the past 20 years or so I was never going to another funeral (or wedding for that matter – different trauma).
Then my mom’s sister died the beginning of the year. She was only nine years older than I, more like my sister than my aunt.
She’d fought cancer for a long, long time and we knew the end was coming, which made the loss not one bit easier, even knowing she was finally able to rest.
I went to the…I dunno what they call it…viewing? the day before the funeral. The funeral home had a two room kind-of set up, so my plan was to stay in the main reception room with the family and greet people and stay far away from the other end where the casket was. So of course I ended up helping my grandmother in and she dragged me straight to the coffin.
Now, when I think of my aunt, the first image in my head is that lifeless, heavily made up corpse lying in a box instead of the vibrant young woman that could always laugh about something, even in the midst of her illness.
When asked if I thought she looked better in the coffin than when I saw her last in the hospital, I can only truthfully say no. She didn’t. She looked dead. As bad as she looked in the hospital, at least she was breathing.
Selfish? Sure, I guess it is. Whatever, I just know I never want to do that again. And I know I will, anyway. Hopefully not for another 20+ years at least.
Your mind is trained to realize death based on how you have seen it during your entire lifetime.
If you are raised in a faith that holds the casket closed for funerals, your mind will assimilate that as death. If you have been raised in a family that consistently chose open viewing, you may need that extra push to find closure that a person is dead.
Pamela and I send a wish for comforting thoughts to your family, Peter. Cherish Marion’s life and the way you remember her.
Sixty years of marriage. That is almost unfathomable. Wow. The impressiveness of that is the thought I want to carry away from this thread.
But, this whole casket question has brought up a couple of other thoughts. Generally speaking, I suppose the open caskets seem a little creepy to me. As it happened, my mother had a closed casket, as she had some swelling from the breakdown of her body over her final weeks. Luckily, everybody in the family pretty much agreed about everything in the funeral process. (Mom’s thoughts on the subject weren’t known since she the last time she was really conscious she had no expectation of dying, but we all felt that she would rather not be seen in that state.)
As it happens, I watched “The Body” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer again this past Saturday. (Comments above about needing to see the deceased’s body to fully believe it reminded me of the episode, as Dawn Summers had the same problem.) I know that a lot of people around here were Buffy watchers, from the Cowboy Pete’s from back then. But, for anybody who hasn’t seen this fifth season episode, it really is as true and powerful a depiction of death and our reactions to it as I have ever encountered, in any medium.
Anyway …. Sixty years. Remarkable. My condolences, to all involved.
I’ve been to a few wakes (or viewings) of the deceased before, as well as some of the funerals that went along with them. It was always open-casket, so I never really questioned it. i do remember at the wake of one of my great-grandmothers that my sister was upset because she no longer looked like my sister remembered her in life. She had lost a great deal of weight while she was sick in her last days, so there was a definite change in appearance.
Actually, I have another idea where the open-casket wake idea may have come from, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it. This comes from something I read a long while ago, and if it’s full of crap you may tell me. Many centuries ago, people had a hard time telling if someone was really, truly dead in some situations. On rare occasion, a person would fall into a very deep cataconic state and misinterpretations by doctors would cause people to believe they were dead. The idea of the wake was that people would stay up with the body to see if the person would regain consciousness, to make sure they weren’t buried alive (hence, where the word “wake” came from). It strikes me that an open casket would have made it easier to tell if the person were coming to. Just an idea.
I’ve yet to attend an open casket visitation or funeral where the “guest of honor” did look like himself/herself. The best example of this was my uncle, who had invested in a funeral home years back. They’d obviously fallen on hard times, because when he came out, he looked as though he’d been in the oven for two hours baked at 350 degrees.
That was also the funeral where, as my brother and I waited to haul the casket over to the gravesite, the hearse driver was telling us that his previous run with that vehicle had been marred by the back door falling off en route.
We still laugh about that one.
JSM
>…the open casket funeral is for several reasons. Yes, the making up of the body and dressing it up softens the blow, but having the casket be open crystalizes the loss. It hardens the blow.>…the open casket funeral is for several reasons. Yes, the making up of the body and dressing it up softens the blow, but having the casket be open crystalizes the loss. It hardens the blow.
I have found the ‘blows’ hard enough, thank you very much. I did not and do not need to see my loved ones in their coffins. In fact, in some cases its managed to taint the good memories I have had of them.
It can be a very sad and unnecessary burden to the survivors.
When my grandfather passed away 10 years ago, his was open casket. I had always figured that they would have the open casket right in church for both the viewing and the ceremony. But I was wrong, because on the day of the funeral, my family and I arrived early at the church and as we walked into the entrance of the church there was the open casket. I was kinda of surprised, why have the casket so close to the front entrance? what if a stranger, who didn’t know a funeral was taking place, accidently walked in?
Anyhow I shuffled my way up to the casket and thought now Grandpa can make as many windmills as he wants cause cancer can’t cause him any more pain……… 🙂 I might add Grandpa made some pretty nifty windmills. 🙂
When I was a teenager I had a job brining flowers to teh funeral homes and setting them up before the services started. Nine times out of ten I was alone with corpse in the open casket. The first time was a real shocker as it was the first dead body that I had ever seen. I just found the whole thing creepy.
Since then I have gone to funerals with open caskets and do have to agree with PAD that it really brings no comfort to me personally and really do not see the person I knew when I view the body.
For a guy still in his mid-30s, I seem to have attended a lot of funerals, including that of my own father. I’ve seen a number of traditions and practices used. I’ve seen some funerals that are mournful and depressing, and some that manage to be celebratory and, believe it or not, life-affirming. So, based on my own experience, and thinking a bit about what’s been discussed here, here are a few of my own, perhaps disjointed, thoughts:
(1) Yes, many funeral customs have their origins in ancient traditions that may not really be relvant in the modern world. But tradition can be comforting (especially in times of crisis) even if on some level illogical.
(2) No matter what choices are made regarding funeral/burial services, those whose traditions would lead them to other choices will naturally find them to be odd or discomfiting. That is to say, even if you find open casket services creepy, others don’t–or may find that creepiness to be what they want in the service. There’s not a whole lot of point in getting bogged down in sweeping generalizations about whether certain practices are “good” ones or not.
(3) Ideally, the choices regarding funeral services are the decisions of the decdent’s family (or, as in the case of my father, who had the opportunity, ability, and desire to make many arrangements) of the decedent. When that’s the case, it can come off as a bit churlish to criticize those choices.
(4) That said, lots of people don’t give a lot of thought to what they want out of funeral services. To the extent that realizing that some funeral traditions are not to one’s liking helps one plan his/her own services, start conversations with family members, etc., that’s only a good thing.
Condolensces to PAD’s neighbor–and good for you for pledging to being his first, best resource. And, at the risk of repeating a common sentiment here: Sixty years–wow. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be married for so long. And I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be without a companion one’s had for so long.
I’m so sorry it always horrible when death takes away the people we really care about. This is very cold comfort and cliché but take solace in the fact that she had a full long happy life before passed into what waits for us after we are done here.
The comment about confirming a person was truly dead before burying the body reminded me of a story an elderly friend told me more than 20 years ago. If I recall correctly, he said it was a true story (or at least he _believed_ it was true). In any event, a wealthy woman (perhaps related to one of the early automotive families) died and was buried. That same night, grave robbers dug up the grave to steal the various jewels she’d been buried with. They opened the casket, and were beginning to set forth at their grim task when they were caught by either police or private security. Then, as the police/security and/or family members prepared to return this woman to her eternal rest… she opened her eyes.
To quote another Bill Cosby routine (about when doctors make mistakes), “oops.” Turns out she wasn’t dead. Lucky for her she hadn’t been embalmed, and that the would-be thieves weren’t procrastinators.
I’m sure Mr. Mortlock told me what happened to her in the months, years and/or decades after that, but I no longer remember; and as he died in 1985, I can’t ask him.
If the story is true, it’s probably on record somewhere, especially if she was from a prominent family. I believe she wasn’t embalmed because that science wasn’t being practiced, and not for any religious reasons.
Rick
While not quite as dramatic as the rescued-by-grave-robbery story, I’ve also heard an antecdote of which I was reminded by the theory about sitting with the body/open casket. According to – I believe my junior high English teacher – Edgar Allan Poe woke up in the morgue two or three times. He was apparently so deeply unconscious that he was mistaken for dead. If true, that – repeated – experience could help explain his more macabre elements ….
While the topics dicussed were completely legitimate, what wasn’t discussed was that you paid your respects to a lady that wasn’t a blood relative, a childhood friend, a working associate, or a personal hero. You’ve said a number of things about All of those people, but you’ve done something that most people wouldn’t be bothered to discuss or write about: the death of a neighbor.
How many of us personally know the people in our neighborhoods? This was obviously a very special lady that you’ve seen frequently in your comings and goings from home and somehow, you established a friendship with her and her husband. When she departed, you paid your respects and extended an open door to the man who lost her. To me, that’s every bit as impressive as a 60-year marriage.
Peter, you’re a class act.