I don’t get open casket funerals. Am I the only one?

[Anonymous]

My brother in-law is in the funeral business and even he agrees it a racket. It has made him very wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of the new eco-trend where the body is dissolved in liquids?

It’s supposed to be better for the environment. Only allowed in some states though.

Okay, so THAT gives me the heebie jeebies. I am fine with open caskets. I am fine with burials. I am fine with cremation. I am fine with burial at sea.

Dissolving bodies in chemicals? Not so much.

Please don’t feel that way. Just read the BBC article.

It explains its better for the environment.

Don’t you want to protect the environment?

But it’s not better for the environment. It requires a significant amount of water, which is scarce in many areas, and then the waste water has to be treated. I have done the research in my work. Water cremation is NOT environmentally friendly, despite what the manufacturers of these machines and the few providers of this method want you to believe. And it is much more expensive than traditional cremation, as it requires more than 2-4x the time and significant, expensive regulatory compliance to ensure the waste water is treated properly. It is unlikely that we’ll see the wide-spread adoption of this method for these reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I kind of think the Muslim and Jewish bury them right away is traumatic. Like they were alive this morning and by sundown they are in the ground.

+1. Also doesn’t give people who live far away time to get there.

I do not think same day happens. Most families wait a day or two to allow immediate family to travel.

[Anonymous]

Here's the link on human composting. Sounds wonderful!

Staff had placed Sharon’s body in a vessel filled with alfalfa, straw, sawdust, and notes written in biodegradable ink. Hymns played over the speaker system, a tribute to Sharon’s membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By early summer, all that would be left of their matriarch was a few hundred pounds of rich, dark soil.

https://www.theverge.com/c/23307867/human-composting-process-return-home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as an open casket funeral. The wake has the open casket.

Skip the wake and just go to funeral or burial at cemetery.

I have been to open casket funerals. The saddest funeral I was at was for a fairly young father. His wife and children were at the coffin as it was closing. Still makes me teary. It was in a Catholic Church.

That was the viewing in the church not the actual fu real mass. For the funeral mass the coffin has to be covered with a pall so it is closed. But you can have an open casket viewing in a Catholic Church.

Those freaked out by by open casket would be even more freaked out by my rural Ireland upbringing where people were laid out in their bed or on their couch for a few days until their funeral mass. So when my Granny died she was kept at home for two days. People came by at all times to see her and us. Then we would go to sleep in the room next to her, say good morning to her, say a prayer and welcome more people. Eventually the casket arrived and we all helped place her in it then she spent one night at the church and we slept there with her. In the early 2000s a local man opened a funeral parlor but he only does embalming still. So even today when I go back for a funeral the person is embalmed (helps with the smell) then brought back home and laid out in the bed or on their couch for a few days. It is a normal part of life there so kids aren't distressed or freaked out by it. We would talk about it at school but everyone grew up having a body or two in their house for days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as an open casket funeral. The wake has the open casket.

Skip the wake and just go to funeral or burial at cemetery.

I have been to open casket funerals. The saddest funeral I was at was for a fairly young father. His wife and children were at the coffin as it was closing. Still makes me teary. It was in a Catholic Church.

That was the viewing in the church not the actual fu real mass. For the funeral mass the coffin has to be covered with a pall so it is closed. But you can have an open casket viewing in a Catholic Church.

Those freaked out by by open casket would be even more freaked out by my rural Ireland upbringing where people were laid out in their bed or on their couch for a few days until their funeral mass. So when my Granny died she was kept at home for two days. People came by at all times to see her and us. Then we would go to sleep in the room next to her, say good morning to her, say a prayer and welcome more people. Eventually the casket arrived and we all helped place her in it then she spent one night at the church and we slept there with her. In the early 2000s a local man opened a funeral parlor but he only does embalming still. So even today when I go back for a funeral the person is embalmed (helps with the smell) then brought back home and laid out in the bed or on their couch for a few days. It is a normal part of life there so kids aren't distressed or freaked out by it. We would talk about it at school but everyone grew up having a body or two in their house for days.

This is how my Irish parents always described it. I think I would have struggled with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as an open casket funeral. The wake has the open casket.

Skip the wake and just go to funeral or burial at cemetery.

I have been to open casket funerals. The saddest funeral I was at was for a fairly young father. His wife and children were at the coffin as it was closing. Still makes me teary. It was in a Catholic Church.

That was the viewing in the church not the actual fu real mass. For the funeral mass the coffin has to be covered with a pall so it is closed. But you can have an open casket viewing in a Catholic Church.

Those freaked out by by open casket would be even more freaked out by my rural Ireland upbringing where people were laid out in their bed or on their couch for a few days until their funeral mass. So when my Granny died she was kept at home for two days. People came by at all times to see her and us. Then we would go to sleep in the room next to her, say good morning to her, say a prayer and welcome more people. Eventually the casket arrived and we all helped place her in it then she spent one night at the church and we slept there with her. In the early 2000s a local man opened a funeral parlor but he only does embalming still. So even today when I go back for a funeral the person is embalmed (helps with the smell) then brought back home and laid out in the bed or on their couch for a few days. It is a normal part of life there so kids aren't distressed or freaked out by it. We would talk about it at school but everyone grew up having a body or two in their house for days.

I am not Catholic but there had already been a viewing at the funeral home. The Casket was closed and followed by a long service. Communion was offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Queen Elizabeth II didn't have an open casket, did she?

A "viewing" comes before the funeral. Funerals are always closed casket. That is what you saw on TV -- the funeral. I have no idea what the royal family did prior to the funeral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I kind of think the Muslim and Jewish bury them right away is traumatic. Like they were alive this morning and by sundown they are in the ground.

+1. Also doesn’t give people who live far away time to get there.

My husband’s side is all Jewish and the funerals are always a couple days into the future giving people time to travel. They are not Orthodox but they are observant so there clearly is some leeway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After my mom was wrecked with cancer, we did not embalm and did not do open casket. It was met with no small number of requests to go back in the back of the funeral home and have a special look--relatives who insisted they couldn't say goodbye without staring at her corpse. I've thought for a long time that it is weirdly gawky--would rather remember them alive and thriving than stuffed in a box with makeup on (20 years later the first thought of my uncle are his levitating hands perched above his stomach like a mannequin). People so uncomfortable with their own mortality have a lot of weird rituals.

“Levitating hands” are a sure sign of a careless, lousy undertaker. I wish you and other family members hadn’t seen that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can do you one better, op-- I don't get funerals. I have buried enough loved ones to know that they don't provide closure.

I've made it clear that I don't want a funeral/obituary under any circumstance. Donate my body to science, enjoy the insurance money, and move on with life.

If you choose to donate to science, be sure to specify for what uses. People have ended up part of experiments they nor their family would have approved of had they known the full details (e.g., crash test dummy)

NP
Does it matter? Seems like that could save lives.

[Anonymous]

I went to a funeral recently for a Indian friends mother and the casket was open the whole time. After the service they took the body for the cremation. I don’t know how that went down as I took the child and my child for ice cream. This was in Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as an open casket funeral. The wake has the open casket.

Skip the wake and just go to funeral or burial at cemetery.

I have been to open casket funerals. The saddest funeral I was at was for a fairly young father. His wife and children were at the coffin as it was closing. Still makes me teary. It was in a Catholic Church.

That was the viewing in the church not the actual fu real mass. For the funeral mass the coffin has to be covered with a pall so it is closed. But you can have an open casket viewing in a Catholic Church.

Those freaked out by by open casket would be even more freaked out by my rural Ireland upbringing where people were laid out in their bed or on their couch for a few days until their funeral mass. So when my Granny died she was kept at home for two days. People came by at all times to see her and us. Then we would go to sleep in the room next to her, say good morning to her, say a prayer and welcome more people. Eventually the casket arrived and we all helped place her in it then she spent one night at the church and we slept there with her. In the early 2000s a local man opened a funeral parlor but he only does embalming still. So even today when I go back for a funeral the person is embalmed (helps with the smell) then brought back home and laid out in the bed or on their couch for a few days. It is a normal part of life there so kids aren't distressed or freaked out by it. We would talk about it at school but everyone grew up having a body or two in their house for days.

This is how my Irish parents always described it. I think I would have struggled with this.

Assuming they died at home, it's a little more natural than you would think. I was present when my Grandma passed in in-patient hospice. The hours after her death were very peaceful and I didn't not want to say goodbye to her when the funeral home came. I can see it being pretty natural to have had her body stay in bed for a few days if that was the local custom. If you're there for the illness and passing, the body doesn't seem that scary? OTOH I do still have bad memories of my grandpa's open casket funeral. And I think I would have been extremely traumatized if my mother had had an open casket. But in both of those cases, I was totally uninvolved in the final illness/passing, which happened in hospitals. I guess ... if the whole process of dying isn't hidden, then the body is less scary.

[Anonymous]

My cousin was 11 when our great grandma died. Nobody told her the casket would be open before the funeral. She wandered into the room and there was great grandma. My cousin still mentions how awful it was, and she's 40 now.

I don't attend viewings now that I'm an adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I kind of think the Muslim and Jewish bury them right away is traumatic. Like they were alive this morning and by sundown they are in the ground.

+1. Also doesn’t give people who live far away time to get there.

My husband’s side is all Jewish and the funerals are always a couple days into the future giving people time to travel. They are not Orthodox but they are observant so there clearly is some leeway.

My dad is Jewish and while he was raised basically non-observant, his aunts/uncles/cousins were all Conservative or Reform. Even in the 80s, some of the funerals we went to were <72 hours vs <24 hours.