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funeral practices
I think I've always felt weird about seeing bodies at funerals and viewings. I certainly feel weird about it now. But I did as a kid, too; I was raised to never go into someone else's bedroom when that person was sleeping, and this seemed even more an invasion than that. (The analogy for death was sleep.)
The first two funerals in my life were when I was 5 (in one case) and either 5 or 6 (in the other case). One was my aunt Mary, and her death was not unexpected. (Well, it came as a surprise to me, because no one had told me the reason she kept giving things away when we visited, but it was expected by the adults.) The other was my grandfather, who died without any warning at the age of 50. (Heart attack. No prior problems. Died in his sleep.)
Now, especially in the case of my grandfather, we heard a lot of things like "he's in a better place now" (with Jesus, with the angels, etc). Christianity has a lot of focus on the afterlife, so it makes sense that these ideas would be comforting, especially when someone dies young. The religion of my childhood taught me to look forward to the afterlife -- that this time on earth is just a passing thing, vastly inferior to what awaits if we're good. (Yes, I asked the obvious question early on: if you try to hurry things along to reach that goal sooner, you won't reach it at all.)
This sort of thing never comforted me, though. I guess I was, and am, too much of a here-and-now person; especially in the case of my grandfather, I was a greedy child who wanted him back now. I didn't believe he was in a better place, and even if he was, I wanted him to wait. Five-year-olds aren't very sophisticated, but there you have it.
As an adult, I find the theology foreign. We should live good lives, of course, but because doing so makes this world a better place. God gave us this world to care for and live in, after all. An afterlife, if it exists, is a bonus; this world is certain and that one is not. So when someone dies young it's not a comfort to think about the afterlife; rather, I think about all the things that person was doing or might have done in this world and how we're the lesser for his absence.
I don't believe that death is a punishment; people don't die because they were bad and God zapped them. (Well, I suppose it can happen, but it's not the usual case.) But death is not a reward, either; it just is.
Someday, I hope a long time from now, I'm going to have to face the funerals of my parents. I'll be told lots of things by well-meaning religious people that are supposed to comfort me and that won't; fortunately, I'll also have a community that has a different approach, one that seems to resonate more for me. I'm not sure there's anything else that will produce such a sharp division between what my relatives do and what I do.
I'm not sure all this babbling has a point, really, but I found myself thinking about it after our conversation, and I wanted to write something about it.
Shmira
In the South, there is a practice much like this. In the very deep South, where my Dad's family comes from, I should say. His sisters and others were extremely upset when my mother died that no family members could stay with the body while it was at the funeral home. (The funeral director assured them someone would be in the cold room with it all the time. Ummm.)
But, in the south (I now know, having been told about 5 years ago by a 102 year old woman who came from Mississippi), the "watching" is more guarding in the literal sense -- so that no one can steal it to do bad magic with it, or put a curse on it to keep the person from going to Heaven, and so on. It must be a blood relative (in-laws won't do).
I'm also told that in some areas they wait three days for the funeral to be sure the person is really dead.
Oh, and she said the open casket comes from the practice of kissing the dead person on the lips to prove you a) really cared and b) didn't kill them. Yeuucch.
(When my dad died, his 91-year-old sister pitched a fit because we didn't force all the little children [all under 8] to kiss the body. Later on I took them all up and we talked about how he didn't smell like granddaddy any more [no tobacco or bourbon], that his skin looked like a frozen turkey, sort of blue-ish [boy, did I have to bite my tongue not to laugh], and why did he have lipstick on. Eventually all the kids touched his hand, and decided it felt like meat in the supermarket -- cold and weird. and when I asked them how they felt about that, all of them told me that it wasn't him, anyway, just his leftovers. I don't know why our family runs to food metaphors!!!!)
Re: Shmira
When I did Shmira, I was in the corridor outside the cold room. I'm not sure how close one has to be (it would be easier to do it from my apartment 5 blocks away, but probably not as meaningful).
As for the reason, the practice might originally have had a more literal guarding aspect to it, but as it's been explained to me now, it's more of a spiritual thing. I'm going to retell one thing I was told in my own particularly quirky way. OK. A live person is body + soul. A dead person is just the body. So it doesn't quite know what to do with itself. It's not quite gotten into the swing of returning to the earth, because the burial hasn't happened yet. So the Shmira person is there to keep it company, so it doesn't feel bad before the funeral. (I also like the idea of covering the challah on Friday night so it doesn't get embarrased.)
It must be a blood relative (in-laws won't do).
As far as I know, I was no relation to the people that I did Shmira for. In one case, the deceased was the relative of someone I knew in my synegogue; in the other, I didn't know the deceased or the family of the deceased.
his 91-year-old sister pitched a fit because we didn't force all the little children [all under 8] to kiss the body
What, was she going to pay for the years of psychotherapy? Or maybe she suspected them of doing him in. Ugh. I'm glad that I don't have that tradition. I miss my grandfather very much - I still have dreams where I'm talking to him, and just as I realize that it must be a dream, because he's really dead, and I try to tell him how much I miss him and love him I wake up. I didn't see him right before he died - I was about 2 hours away, and we thought it wasn't that serious. He saw pictures of his 5th great-grandchild who was born a few days earlier, and died in his sleep that night. I didn't need to see his body at the funeral - I felt the weight of it as I helped carry the casket.
OK, it's late and I think I'm rambling. One more thought:
As far as food metaphors, they are a bit disturbing when talking about departed loved ones.
Food and Death
As far as food metaphors, they are a bit disturbing when talking about departed loved ones.
As I've thought about it some more, I think the littlest ones (4 and 5) could only deal with the idea of "dead bodies" by comparing it to the only things they were familiar with which were once alive and are now dead -- chickens and what not in the grocery store. As something to help them cope with the idea, I've got no problem with it. ;-)
But, interesting enough, in the gnostic philosophy I now "practice", we have a "feast" to celebrate the passing of our friends. There's more about it in this comment from thinking about 9/11....
g'night, all.
Re: Food and Death
That makes sense. After all, what other examples would they have? Road kill? A pet that died?
in the gnostic philosophy I now "practice", we have a "feast" to celebrate the passing of our friends.
Interesting. There's food involved in Jewish mourning rituals, but then again, this is Judiasm we're talking about: food is involved with everything. As far as mourning goes, it's mostly that the community provides meals for the family during the seven day Shiva period, usually to the point that they've been given so much food they feed visitors too. This lets the family feel like they're being good hosts to the guests who visit, while not forcing people in mourning to deal with cooking.
Food and Hosting
<font="maroon">THat's really the southern tradition, too. Everyone brings a casserole or something to freeze so that you can give food to the visitors.
It's so ingrained in me that when I hear of someone's death too far away for me to get there, I almost automatically head for my favorite food site and send some deli meats and fruit and what not.</font>
Re: Food and Death
So am I. Thanks for sharing!
Oh, one more thing....
Re: Shmira
I am very unhappy to say that I got a phone call from my friend Mendel on Saturday night - his grandfather died and Mendel was in the morgue. So I guess relatives can do Shmira. Damn, this is not the way I wanted to find out this information.
Re: Shmira
Re: Shmira
I've heard that too -- with parallels drawn to Jesus' death. (I don't know more details, sorry.)
Oh, and she said the open casket comes from the practice of kissing the dead person on the lips to prove you a) really cared and b) didn't kill them. Yeuucch.
Ewww. I have never even touched a corpse, let alone kissed one.
Five years ago, at my (maternal) grandfather's (Greek Orthodox Christian) funeral the family was lined up and we were each sent up individually to stand in front of the open coffin, right there in the front of the church, with the strong expectation that we would say a prayer or touch it or something. Doing this at all creeped me out a little; doing it in front of the entire freaking congregation really bothered me. I considered just standing, looking, and then moving on without doing anything, but that would have come off to that crowd as unloving or something. So I quietly said a short blessing in Hebrew [1]; I think only the parents and maybe the priest heard exactly what I said. (No idea if the priest was Hebrew-literate; my parents weren't.)
When my (paternal) grandfather died when I was a child, I remember having a conversation with someone -- an aunt, I think, not a parent -- about why he looked like plastic. It must not have struck me as particularly natural-looking.
[1] "Dayan ha-emet", for those who are curious. I didn't have all of kaddish memorized at that point; I had a copy in my pocket to read privately at the cemetery.
Dead bodies...
When my mom died, I was in the room with her. My sisters Peggy and Linda and I started giggling, because her head just sort of slipped to one side and her mouth fell open -- just like she looked every night when she fell asleep in front of the TV. I had spent all day sitting with her, even though she was mostly under morphine. When she died, I remember the three of us all walked up and rubbed her feet, just like we did when we'd come in at night and she was asleep in front of the TV. It was.... closure, in a very personal way. My sister Barbara thought it was really inappropriate, but the nurses smiled at us and hugged us. They had come to love her, too, and their care of her was very tender.
Gosh. All these memories. I think I'll go take a shower and cry for a while.
Re: Dead bodies...