Most (all?) Protestants do not do this.

I think they are creepy too. We have had a few in my family - I'm not sure if it's a Catholic thing or what. We did the thing with the open casket in the room while everyone has drinks and snacks.

I think it's macabre but my mother likes it so whatever

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The open casket wake is different than a viewing. When I was growing up it lasted for hours and ithere was food in one room and a bar in the room w/ the casket - like a cocktail party for the dead relative. It wasn't traumatizing but I remember sitting outside with my cousins on the steps of the funeral home waiting for it to end

“bar in the room with the casket,” makes perfect sense.

I think most could handle that.

No one does death better than the Irish. No one.

Anonymous wrote:The open casket wake is different than a viewing. When I was growing up it lasted for hours and ithere was food in one room and a bar in the room w/ the casket - like a cocktail party for the dead relative. It wasn't traumatizing but I remember sitting outside with my cousins on the steps of the funeral home waiting for it to end

“bar in the room with the casket,” makes perfect sense.

I think most could handle that.

Personally, I’m not going to have an open casket when I die, but I understand why others do and why it brings some closure (pardon the ironic pun) to certain people.

Folks are going to grieve differently. Just let them be.

Anonymous wrote:I still shudder thinking of when I was made to look at my great grandmother in her casket as a child.

+1. I was 12 at my grandfathers wake and they made me and my sister kneel in front of the open casket. It was horrible to see my grandfather like that.

I just attended a viewing/funeral for a family member that was open casket and I found it creepy and disturbing (and I say this as a horror movie fan). My family member did not look like he was when alive, and it brought back memories of my father’s funeral when I was 14. He didn’t look right either, and my mother forced me to kiss his corpse on the forehead to say goodbye. It was traumatizing for me and I will never forget it, and I hate that being the last memory of my father, who was an incredible and loving father and wonderful person. Thirty years later, when my beloved stepfather passed, I was SO glad that his final wish was to be cremated. My mother wanted open casket and they had discussions about it while he was sick and declining, but he was firm about being cremated and no open casket (THANK YOU!!).

I can now remember him as the last time I saw him alive, and not be creeped out by seeing him lying in a casket all puffy and posed and not looking like the person I loved when he was alive.

I'd like a sky funeral where they put the body on top of the mountain and let the birds clean it and then go get the bones later. I'd like to be useful and part of the circle of life in death.

Anonymous wrote:I like Hindu funerals. You try and cremate the deceased before sundown on the day they die - usually.

Then you immerse their ashes and bones in a river. It is all final and over.

Of course, then many rituals and days of mourning and it is helpful to have relatives around and for the reality to sink in. My FIL died recently and having to go through the rituals, and not having a dead body around was like therapy.

putting the cremains in the river is a big part of why the Ganges may be a holy river but it is disgustingly filthy.

Anonymous wrote:I'm Jewish and I don't get a lot of things Christians do with dead bodies. Embalming them, dressing them, viewing them, keeping them above ground for days. I might be hanging out in a hut with a giant ass lemon, but y'all are weird.

Please don't lump all Christians together. How would you like it if someone said "All Jews...and then y'all are weird" Bet you would call me an anti-Semite but, difference is I would never do that!

The open casket wake is different than a viewing. When I was growing up it lasted for hours and ithere was food in one room and a bar in the room w/ the casket - like a cocktail party for the dead relative. It wasn't traumatizing but I remember sitting outside with my cousins on the steps of the funeral home waiting for it to end

I like Hindu funerals. You try and cremate the deceased before sundown on the day they die - usually.

Then you immerse their ashes and bones in a river. It is all final and over.

Of course, then many rituals and days of mourning and it is helpful to have relatives around and for the reality to sink in. My FIL died recently and having to go through the rituals, and not having a dead body around was like therapy.

And cremation uses up massive, massive amounts of fossil fuel natural gas, with huge output of CO2 right into the atmosphere (plus lots of other pollutants.)

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That is not true!

It is much better for the environment because it has almost zero CO2 emissions/ no carbon footprint.

And climate change is the biggest environmental threat / threat to our very existence in the very near future!