Death

MCcuddles2MCcuddles2
edited March 2022 in General

This is an uncomfortable topic, but I think it's worth talking about.

I attended my cousin's funeral yesterday. It's a Muslim funeral so there are certain rites that have to be performed.

For example, relatives have to personally wash the body and prepare it for burial.

A relative also has to stand inside the grave and help lower the body in. Once inside, the relative has to position the head so it faces a certain way.

All of this is an extremely intimate experience and it's the last physical touch you experience with this person's body. Which is what made me want to share it here.

I think this is in stark contrast to the western approach to death, where it is filed away and left to professionals, who preserve the body using chemicals and makeup, so the dead person can give the illusion of life.

In a way I feel like it is hiding from the inevitable. I apologize if this topic makes people uncomfortable and mods can remove it if isn't appropriate.

I'm not looking for condolences, but i feel like discussing an uncomfortable topic that is a fact of life for every human being.

Also, I once listened to a tedtalk that encouraged us to spend some time with the dead. This used to be common, before the American Civil War, which kick started the modern embalming and funeral industry, so families could have their sons transported back home.

Comments

  • BrianLBrianL

    My cousin also recently died, after the autopsy (whenever they can get to it), she will be cremated. Her body won't be preserved, nor given the illusion of life. Even if she were to be buried... whole, it wouldn't be pretty given the time it'll take to get the autopsy done.

    And having been to other funerals, that illusion is tenuous at best.

  • quixotic_lifequixotic_life

    I was in the room with my mother when she passed, and with my uncle when he went as well.

    With my mom it was as a CD she enjoyed played it's final song and was just as I finished up the last of many phone calls coordinating what she wanted done with her remains (to be donated to science then cremated). I still find it humorous that she and I both exhaled in releif within moments of each other and that it was just like her to hang on long enough to see I did what I said I would.

    With my uncle there were three of us and as we sat with him the nurse snuck us a few medicine cups. We each took a shot of his favorite tequila then another of peppermint schnapps (the only time that kind of back to back combo could work). And we just hung out for a few hours calling everyone on speaker so they could say their goodbyes, share stories and laugh together reminiscing (through a few tears of course). He was also cremated (at the place he'd chosen because it's near the top of a butte and has a stunning view), and I got to pick him up - It was actually a very special and meaningful moment for me.

    I also got to be with my dog when he died. That one caught me a little off guard because it was happening right as I woke up. But I was able to make him comfy and pet him as he went. He's now in the back next to his bestie Jack (a massive black cat that left us way too early).

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    A few years ago I read a fascinating book called “The American Way of Death Revisited” by Jessica Mitford. In that book she talks about the “industrialization” of death. She points out how our as life expectancy increased and death rates, (especially among infants) fell, people started “outsourcing” what had previously been a very personal experience of holding a funeral in their own homes, most often in the parlor.

    As we as a society continued this trend, we further distanced ourselves by doing away with “parlors” in own homes and replaced that term with “living room”.

    There is also a tremendous amount of money to be made by up selling over priced caskets and services to grieving and vulnerable families who may be will to spend an extra $6,000 for the fanciest casket because _________ “deserves the best”. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the subject because it provides a lot of historical context and modern day comparison to how death is handled in other countries.

  • SuperManCuddlesSuperManCuddles

    @MCcuddles2 Thank you very much for this valuable information. I did not realize the difference in celebration of our dead 💀 depending on cultural practices and or history.

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod
    edited March 2022

    Very good topic.

    The Victorians fetishised death and tried to pretend sex didn't exist. Our society fetishises sex and tries to pretend death doesn't exist.

    The lastest thing here in the UK is disposal without a funeral. The companies offering it distinguish themselves from the rest of the industry and pretend they are not undertakers/morticians. I presume they just collect the remains from the mortuary or whereever, and that's it. You never hear from them again.

    I've never touched a dead person. Not sure how I've reached this advanced age without doing so, but here we are.

  • vivlnnwvivlnnw

    "The Victorians fetishised death and tried to pretent sex didn't exist. Our society fetishises sex and tries to pretend death doesn't exist."

    @CuddleDuncan :)

  • [Deleted User]Moxytocin (deleted user)

    @JohnR1972 I find all of that fascinating, how people used to handle the bathing, dressing, and preparing the funerals of their own family members in their own homes. You might like Caitlyn Doughty's Ask a Mortician channel on YouTube. I LOVED it but haven't watched in a while, so now I'm off to catch up.

    https://youtube.com/c/AskAMortician

  • [Deleted User]Saysoh (deleted user)

    I watched my Mom die. My Uncle moved in with me (he's terminal), so I'm going to have to watch him die as well.

    When I think about death, I think about what a friend told me on LSD once: "When I sleep I don't know where my soul goes," This resonated because I think about consciiouness. When I was a kid, your soul went to, "heaven." Nobody could define soul, though. I'm currently reading a book how religion(s) might have been started by fear of dying whislt on a phychedlc experience and am also reading a book about the search for a fundamental theory on consciousness. Obviously, these two collide but also meet when you think about death. Religion promises a hapy soul after death, the other is trying to define a soul. Death is a deep question, I think. It's taboo and rarely visited, but I definitely think it should be talked about more often so people understand how to grieve and prepare yourself that you're going to die.

  • RockRollCuddleRockRollCuddle

    I don't handle death well. I wouldn't be able to do the process you described OP. I also don't believe in heaven and hell.( I don't judge those that do) I just think when we pass away our world goes black like when we sleep , but minus the dreaming. Its interesting tho how different cultures do things. in the USA I always say morticians and funeral home owners will always have clientele and often take advantage of the bereaved with insane funeral prices..The way you described sounds like the burial would have to happen fast?

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @Moxytocin
    I love Caitlyn’s YouTube channel. She has discussed some fascinating topics on that channel, especially as it pertains to more “green” ways of dealing with human remains that are still respectful to the deceased as well as the environment.

  • waynewvwaynewv
    edited March 2022

    That is a subject so many people don’t want to think about or talk about it. I have seen people in there 80’s that refuse to do a will or even talk about what will happen when they die. As a child it seemed like we went to a funeral every month or so. I know many religions handle it differently. My self, I’m going to be cremated and buried in my home state. I think having a wake with an open casket is not a good thing. You may wonder why I say that, for me it’s because you will always remember that person laying in that casket, not the last time you seen them or maybe hugged them. My older brother was killed in a very bad auto accident and they had to have a closed casket service, but I was told if I wanted to see him that they would open the casket for a private viewing, but at 14 I didn’t want to see him dead I wanted to remember him smiling and have a fun day.
    As a teen around 16-17 I worked a job digging up people at a local cemetery because a new road was coming thru.
    That was when I decided I wanted to be cremated, I didn’t want somebody digging me up one day and moving me. No where could I find anything in my King James Bible about cremation, it does refer to dust to dust and they way I look at it I will just be hurrying up the process.
    There is no way to avoid it no matter how rich you are, we all will die one day!!!
    For me, being near death and having 2 out of body experiences has changed my overall view of a lot of things.
    We never know what tomorrow will bring.

  • [Deleted User]Moxytocin (deleted user)
    edited March 2022

    We were supposed to have flying cars in the year 2000. We had Dolly the sheep at one point. In 2022, we should be well on our way to harvesting clones, having brain transplants, memory downloads... Something. Scientifically engineered reincarnation/immortality. What are all of the geniuses doing?

  • mettamsomettamso

    Our consciousness is a social construct somehow living in a physical space. A great amount of the data lives in our bodies, which is how a cuddle or massage can calm, relax, elevate, improve our mood. Every attempt to remove human consciousness from a body has created sociopaths that complain about constant pain despite not understanding where they are. You've witnessed small versions of this when people just don't pay attention to their body as much as they should. Our bodies are homes... meant to be lived in, experienced, appreciated while we have them. They are more too. They are us. They contribute significantly to our ways of knowing, our ways of being, our states of feeling.

  • mettamsomettamso

    Things that are born will die. It's terrible and wonderful. I wish you all a good journey living today.

  • sunnysideupsunnysideup

    Can’t have the dark without the light. Cold without hot. Chaos without order. Life without death. They are intertwined.

    There was once culture that celebrated death in a festive way. I think that it preferable to the gloom we have surrounding (not saying that some amount of grieving isn’t unhealthy).

    But threads like these remind me to appreciate those people that matter in my life. Make it so that there are no regrets.

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