Viewing The Body

 

If you read this blog long enough, you, the reader, knows I’m not fond of funerals. Actually many of our cultural events I am not fond of.

Many are excuses to party and act silly and dress up and tell stories about it the next year. These events cover everything from a New Year celebration to a costume holiday with an excuse to give children candy to the birth of the savior with gifts under a fur tree. We, as a culture, look forward to gather and dance and consume massive amounts of alcohol for an Irish saint and a Easter bunny.

Yet there are personal ceremonies that don’t require fireworks but are occasions to show affection for those who attend. Birth showers are like this (if they follow weddings). There are no ceremonies for imprisonment or divorce but maybe there should be?

Then there is the end-of-life ceremony.

Like birth, we ALL will attend this ceremony. There are a plethora of varieties on the remembrance of the deceased. Some are quiet while some involve religious directions to the afterlife while others just evolve ranting and raving around flames.

I’ve attended and participated in most of these ceremonies. I’ve given fondue pots to all my friends (as they did for me) at their first wedding, but no gifts for the second (or third…). We don’t have ceremonies when we buy a car or get a job or move into your neighborhood (except by your real estate agent going to the bank). We don’t have ceremonies when we change our hair color or find a mistress (unless we post videos on Porn Hub) or when we get Covid-19.

Funerals, on the other hand, have certain requirements. Everyone must dress in black. Keep the small children at home. Drive your car slowly with your lights on.

If it is a good funeral, you can sign in the attendance book in a darkened room where everyone talks in whispers (like the corpse will listen) and some fella you would avoid on the subway comes up and holds your hand given you are pre-recorded condolences while checking your credit.

At this parlor of death, the family gets to choose a designer box to put the remains in for eternity at prices that range from IKEA DIY to a humanity sealed glass sarcophagus enclosure for viewing at anytime.  Since most of us do not die in how we would like to present ourselves for family and friends, the creepy guy holding your hand through this gruesome procedure will offer to dress the dead during the embalming process. You can choose an Amazon outfit on your iPad or can just let the professional select an outfit to match your Botox skin tone. If the beloved had a special jersey or some jewelry that they had indicated they want to wear into the get beyond or you can just close the box.

Which gets us back to the title: “Viewing The Body”.

Part of our saying farewell to a friend or family member or if you just like to sit in on depression, the deceased is rolled out for all to view. I don’t know how many go up to touch or kiss or check the wallet for they will not respond (unless you heard the tune Jack-in-the-Box). It is uncouth to eat around the body, participants bring food to be served in the next room with the open bar while they can reminisce over old photos and if they get loose enough will rely stories of sexual encounters that maybe exaggerated unless the open coffin inhabitant is buck naked.  

After all the praying and praising and hallelujahs, the lid is closed, slid out into a black station wagon and driven out to a quiet plot of land where it is dumped in a hole and covered with dirt. This process is hastened when there is a disaster because the piles of decomposing bodies stink quickly. Funeral identification may be difficult when that’s little Johnnies shoe with his foot still in it or Aunt Mary’s apron is missing something.

If we really wanted to view the body, why not just put a glass cover over the hole so when you come by every so often to lay flowers or a wreath, you can look down into the hole and watch how the decay process is going, like we do to mummies in museums.

So as more of my age checks the obituaries to see if their name is listed, the grime weeper will continue to fill the ground with our carcasses. The headstone will only identify a name, date of birth and a date of death.

How is that for long life lived?

What are you looking at?