chinarider

Don't want to bring everybody down, but I had to get some of this out & this seemed like the most appropriate place to do it.

Anyway, just got back from one & as funerals go this was a happy one. Guy was 80 and dropped dead working on his farm (this is a rural area). No hospitals or nursing homes. Active & pretty good mentally (altho slipping a little) before it happened. He was a vet and very active in 4H & the county fair & township government, etc. thus had many people at the funeral. Flowers from high schools and organizations in neighboring states. So by the standard of a man is judged by his funeral, he won. Still, I'm bummed. Part the reason is the open casket-- no matter how well they do it, it still seems a little like a shrunken head (and body). Also, it makes me think no matter how well you live your life, death always wins. The only question is how much pain it puts you through to prove its point.

And don't tell me he will be rewarded in the afterlife. I am what I call a reluctant atheist: I wish I could believe, but I can't--never did. Religion has always seemed like mass delusion-- an escape for those who can't handle reality.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow (as forecasted) think I'll go on a long ride...........

Mojo Slim

The road is your church. Your saddle your pew.

zonatandem

Our bodies are donated to science. No funerals.
Now go out and celebrate and have a 'pastie' for us!

John E

I do not care at all for open caskets (or any caskets, for that matter), but I think a tasteful memorial service and celebration of a life well-lived can be a comfort for the survivors and a great way to bring long-lost friends and relatives together.

chinarider

When my dad died 12 years ago he was buried in a plain pine casket (closed; and my mom could have paid much more without blinking). I liked it a lot better than these pieces of furniture that cost thousands. I think many people think their love will be measured by the cost of the casket. I agree that a tasteful service can be a comfort. It just needs to be remembered that the service is for the survivors, not the decedent.

My Mom (84 and relatively healthy) wants to be cremated when she goes.. I think I agree.


Dan

cranky old dude

I'll be dealing with my father's soon. He's 80 with leukemia. Mom's
got him dead already but that's the sky is falling mentality she lives
by. I'm kinda numb about the whole thing myself and being the "Black
Sheep" of the family I remain somewhat removed, mostly by their
choice I think.

I figure as a part of life we're all going to die, the two big questions are
how and when. If we're content with who we are, neither of those should
really matter all that much. I'm not much on religion and don't hold a lot
of stock in the traditional "Hereafter", but I do wonder about the
Spirit Dimension.....are there Spirits? What or who are they?

Just my thoughts and wonderments.

Good idea taking that bike ride tomorow, I think I'll grab one of the road bikes
and take a ride too.

TruF 

I come from a long line of open-casket Catholics. My mother specifically requested an open-casket before she died. She believed that seeing the body helped the living let go. I would have agreed with her, except that embalming the body to make it look like the person is taking a nap kind of undermines that theory.

The funniest thing I heard was from a co-worker whose family never had open caskets. She thought that people who wanted open caskets at their funerals just wanted to be "on stage" and the center of attention one last time. Had to laugh at that one. (and wonder?)

Cremation or plain pine box (sans embalming) for me, please.

ib4it

"death always wins"

That is where you are wrong.

Monoborracho

At her request (she's 87, oldest of 13 kids and has outlived 5 of them) I've just finished planning my mother's funeral. They don't have to be sad.

As for myself, my funeral will be full of good old southern hymns. I'll be buried on a windswept hill in West Texas just across from my great-grandfather, in the family plot on the south side of the Colorado. My four boys will be shoveling the dirt.

Here's the map. Feel free to drop by and visit if you're in the neighborhood. I'll be in the southwest corner. (zoom in, its the square plot about 1/2 mile south of Stacy on the west side of 503)

https://www.mapquest.com/maps/Stacy+T...:::::f:EN:M:/e

And I'm with ib4it.

chinarider

Show me someone who has beat it.

bkaapcke

Sounds like he made the "clean getaway" the older ones are all looking for. bk

BSLeVan

I understand your pain. I hope your long rides help ease it.

I had an uncle who was not to be ignored. He was simply one of life's memorable characters. His laugh was bigger than life, his voice rang out loud and clear, and the twinkle in his eye was a small indication of the wit, kindness, and mischief that lay beneath. When he died 15 years, I has the same reaction at the funeral. How could he look so small, thin, shrunken? When I shared this reaction with friends and family, several pointed out that he was only 5'5" tall and barely weighed 110 lbs when alive. It was the life in him that made him seem over six feet tall and able to fill a room with his presence. I suspect that the separation of the person from the physical body always makes the body seem so much less.

Finally, Elise Boulding, a Quaker writer, talks about having a 200 year life. What she means by this is that when we are born, we have people in our lives before us and after us who know us, and on whom are presence has an impact. So, while your friend is physically gone his impact will go on for some time yet, via this memory in you and others. I don't know if there is an afterlife in the sense of someplace we go after death. But, I try to live my life so that the memory of me is a positive one for those who know me and will live past me. My children never knew my maternal grand mother in person, but they know her from the stories I've told and from the phrases, characteristics, and lessons I learned from her. Some times I'll be doing something in the kitchen (she was a chef) and the kids will say, "Dad's acting like great grand mom again." She lives on through me. So too shall your friend. It is this connection that makes us human, different from other animals who likely have little or no collective memory of there ancestors.

ilmooz

I'm OK with funerals as long as it's not my own.

Ken Brown

My mother died 10 days ago, age 94. She lived a long life and better she go with minimal suffering, as she would have had to contend with cancer if pneumonia hadn't taken her quickly. My siblings and I are a little sad but not grieving.

No funeral planned as her friends and siblings are all gone (she had seven brother and sisters) and my sister is teaching in China. My brother and sister and I will go to a pub when she gets back, down a few pints, and reminisce. We don't need a formal funeral to celebrate her life.

Artkansas 

Well the nicest funeral I ever attended was my uncle's. His ashes were scattered at sea by his widow. A friend of theirs took us out on their sailboat and there were just his widow, his two kids and me. But it was a beautiful day, and you could see the mountains above Los Angeles almost out to Mt. Baldy. He lived his life and had his successes (Playboy Interviews, editor/coauthor of Roots) and his failures. We made a wreath to mark the spot where his ashes were put into the sea, and as it drifted away, it seemed like he was slowly leaving us.

I think that we borrow everything in life. Our very atoms will go on to become plants, mountains and other animals. That's very magnificent to me. Some think that eternity is that they will hang around grooving with God. I think that God has billions of other uses for my bits and I'm glad to give service, because they are all God's bits anyway. But I can't tell you God's nature. No one can. In that we are all equally clueless. But I'm conviced that the creation and the laws of the universe didn't happen without cause.

I haven't found any evidence of a "soul", so after death I merely expect a cessation of experience. But I've been persuaded that conciousness is a part of the universe with its own flow and that we partake of it while we are here, each being using some of it in their own way. A canary taught me that. When his mate died, his usually chipper song turned into one of the saddest and eloquent blues numbers I have ever heard. A long wailing descending note. He never sang like that again and went back to his usual singing in a few days. But it taught me that while he may not understand as much of the universe, he is just as concious of it.

twobikes

Chinarider,

The long ride will improve your mood. Still death is a reality for us all. Notice the four questions in my signature. These are not the questions of a confused cyclist without a map, but are existential questions all of us will need to answer at some point. While people in this thread may be averse to religious expression, the things posted express each author's religious philosophy and beliefs, even, "The road is your church, the saddle is your pew."

I have worked with people who, like you, were reluctant atheists of one form of another. There was a period in my teen years when I was close to where you are and questioned everything I had been taught in the church of my youth. God has promised that He will be found by all who seek Him with a sincere heart. We are only four weeks from celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I would encourage you to begin reading the Bible, particularly something relatively easy to wrap your arms around, like the Gospel of John. It is a great comfort to believe that Jesus has conquered death and all who trust in Him will live forever with Him in eternal joy. PM me if I can be of help.

TruF 

I'm so sorry for your loss, Ken. Perhaps when things happen in their proper "season" the pain isn't so overwhelming? (To quote that old Byrd's song, "Turn, turn, turn")

Artkansas 

Which of course is a quotation from Ecclesiastes. Some things never change.

ricohman

I kind of feel bad for you that you believe that you will absolutely cease to exist after your death.
As a catholic, I obviously believe differently but I also believe that we continue to live in others that we have touched in our lives and of the things we have done with our lives.
Good or bad.

linux_author

my estate's check to the funeral home will bounce...

sincerely,

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Ken Brown

Pete Seeger wrote Ecclesiastes? Who knew!

chinarider

Got my ride in today-- feeling a lot better. Didn't mean to be overly dramatic yesterday. Its just that, as I said, I hate funerals! Thanks to all for their concern.

Dan

chinarider

I agree that things we do during our lives have effects that outlast us. I was referring to the more traditional notion of an afterlife or even the thought that we rejoin some kind of universal consciousness or spirit. I did have some of the latter feelings in college, but I attribute that to Walt Whitman, Alan Ginsberg, pop-buddhism and the drugs.......

Dan

Artkansas 

He's certainly old enough.

Catweazle

As they all should be, regardless if the fact that it's also a time of grief and mourning.

Funeral day is one day in the midst of our mourning, and it's the day on which we formally celebrate the life of the loved one, friend or acquaintance we've lost. We plan that celebration, and when our plans come to successful fruition it is perfectly natural to feel a sense of elation which infects those around us. Thus the 'wake' which in some form or other is common to most cultures.


The most emotionally shattering 'loss' I've experienced was the death of my little grand-daughter Jacinta.



I've never really "gotten over" that loss. Writing and reading Jacinta's eulogy, and then carrying and lowering her tiny casket were the hardest things I've ever confronted in my life. That doesn't alter, though, the fact that I am pleased her funeral service ended up being a truly beautiful celebration of her life. There are moments amongst it which elicit feelings of intense emotion in me. I can no longer hear the song "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" without shedding a tear. Every time I hear my nephew Nicky playing didgeridoo in his unique, soft and pensive style I recall him walking in front of me. But overall the memory of that day is the memory of a moment of joy and celebration amidst that period of incredible grief.

After the service those who wished to gathered at my place of residence, and it was a rather large gathering, with many moments of quiet happiness, because people were touched by the beauty of the occasion and relieved that it had proceeded smoothly. That evening was the first time I'd seen my daughter smile since the day of the accident.

Not all that long after people had gathered I was out front of the house with the children - Jacinta's brothers and cousins - when another car pulled up out front of the house. It was the funeral director, Scott, who had facilitated the planning and overseen the service. He asked if he could come in, and almost apologetically explained that it was a very unusual request for him to make. He was welcomed, of course. He'd developed emotional attachment during the process as well as a professional one, and he too needed to see the 'celebration' through to completion.

When those moments of 'happiness' occur during our grief and mourning they are not moments of delight. Instead they are moments of relief.


An open casket can be a very confronting thing for people to deal with, but it can also be an experience which helps us to accept the 'fact' of death. In other words, it can be something which helps contribute to the 'healing' we need to undergo.

Rather than an open casket we had a 'viewing' the day prior to Jacinta's funeral. We were advised to, and reflecting back on the time I'm convinced that it was a wise and beneficial thing to do, especially for the other children. Doing that helped make the Goodbye 'real' to them. Death, loss and grief had intruded on their lives, and they needed to understand it.

We each accomodate the "mystery" of life and death in our own ways. I don't personally adhere to any religion, but good cheer to those who do. That "mystery" can never be fully explained to the point of "proven", no matter what we think or believe. All of us must, in one way or another, hold "faith" in our beliefs and belief systems. Even those of us who convince ourselves that we don't actually have one!