For some reason, as bizarre as this whole thing seems, I totally relate to the concept of handling and dealing with your dead loved ones as opposed to passing them over to a funeral home to be dealt with. Of course, this seems like something you wouldn't want to just do without knowing exactly what was needed.
All the same, I like the idea of families and friends of a deceased person doing the "dirty work" themselves. I think it makes it less cold. Though the image of handling a dead body is a little stomach turning, I think that if it were my mother or father or sibling, I would feel differently about it.
This first experience with a home funeral showed Lyons that carrying out intimate acts such as bathing and dressing her deceased friend actually made it easier to deal with the loss.
"It helped us with our mourning and grieving," Lyons said. "It made it more meaningful because we were the ones touching her body instead of turning her over to some strangers she didn't know."
For some reason, that just makes perfect sense to me. Alright, go ahead, tell me I'm crazy...
Posted by Maria at June 23, 2003 04:27 PM | TrackBackFascinating topic Maria.
I have long-maintained that the common American mentality surrounding the preparation for burial of its own is hugely dismissal in nature.
I come from a family who has only recently used the "funeral home" as the venue for the death ritual. As recently as 1992, my great granduncle was buried from the front parlor of his home and the viewing of the coffin was conducted from that room. The eulogy was conducted in the home by the family minister and there was the most amazing sense of familiarity and reverence around it.
"Visiting hours" were truly that. One "called on" the family to express sympathy and love. The concept, like many personalized aspects of modern culture, has now been brushed out of sight... perceived as unpleasant and "unclean" somehow.
To our forbears (and indeed to this writer), I assert this notion would have been blasphemous.
When my own Aunt (who was largely responsible for my raising) passed away several years ago, I honored her wishes. Her greatest fear was that her "mind would go". "Will you make sure I am made comfortable if that happens and not allowed to linger without any semblance of dignity??" she asked. I assured her I would.
As it turned out, her mind did go. She stroked repeatedly and when her diagnosis became terminal I fought to bring her home and care for her with Hospice care in an effort to return her love and afford her the dignity she deserved. I was fought by her primary care physician (a so-called "pro-life" doctor and a devout Roman Catholic). But, happily, sanity prevailed and the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice intervened and convinced the doctor that her needs would be best met by allowing her to "come home".
The night she died, I knew it was taking place. Nothing really palpable took place other than an instinct on my part. I brushed her hair and put on her favorite Mozart tape on the tape player. I lit candles and lay next to her on her bed. She slowly slipped away. It was simply amazing. And I was honored to have been with her.
I called the undertaker. It would be "an hour" before he would arrive. I changed her and hand-bathed her in a ritual fashion. It never occurred to me not to make her presentable for when she left my home.
Upon arrival the undertakers said, "But she's all clean already"?? (in a rather shocked fashion)... I said that she would have wanted me to do so. They said it was "rare these days".
NO MARIA.. you're not crazy. You're entirely sane.
Thanks for posting this topic.
Posted by: Chosesinconnues at June 23, 2003 10:01 PMThanks for sharing that experience Choses. I've never known anyone personally who had a home funeral for a loved one...or maybe it's just not the kind of thing that often comes up in conversation. Anyway, I think that is really cool. Especially the part about preparing your aunt. (Apologize for previous typo).
I grieved the death of my own grandmother desperately. I was only a little girl and my grandma drowned in her swimming pool while I stood there helpless. That was the last I ever saw of her. In her last moments of terror and struggle and experiencing my own sense of panic for the first time in my life. And that was it. I did not see her in a casket, I never had a moment to say goodbye. I just felt that she was torn from me and it was heartbreaking and confusing and all I was left with were these images of who she was to me and then that tragic day when she disappeared from our lives forever. I cried many, many nights with my father comforting me. It still amazes me to think that such a small child could experience so much grief. Part of me wishes I would have been older so that things would have been different. Well, if I had been older everything WOULD have been different...
It sounds like in your situation you had time and peace and a few precious, quiet moments. I envy you that. Those moments where you held her and cleansed her and said goodbye...
Posted by: Maria at June 24, 2003 09:48 AMMaria,
I appreciate your commentary. Your experience with your grandmother was horrific. Yes, I was given an opportunity to go through a natural process of greif which now, these ten years later, gives a completion to my bond with my aunt.
Where you say "if only I had been older", etc. I hear you loud and clear. That's called 'magical thinking' in the shrink biz.
I found my brother after he had hanged himself in his bedroom. I was only 16 at the time (he only 20) and was never given proper attention or the ability to work it through with professionals until years of trauma and substance abuse. Finally, I availed myself of good professional help. That teamed with an indominable will to survive (no keepin' this guy down!) resulted in the person I am today.
I urge you not to think there was anything personally you could have done that day at the swimming pool. Panic and the inability to control a situation can stay with you forever if not put in proper perspective. Quite simply, you were too young to have done anything and your shock and sense of helplessness at the time of the event were too overwhelming for a child to deal with.
My heart and my sympathy go out to you.
(as and aside: I take great solace even to this day going to my brother's gravesite and verbally... albeit quietly... expressing my love, angst, sense of loss and frustration, etc. at what he left me with. I find it MOST cathartic! Somehow it keeps me "keepin' on" ;-)
Be well and thanks for posting this subject. Many are uncomfortable with this topic. However, it is as inescapably a part of life as childbirth and needs to be addressed with equal consideration.
Posted by: Chosesinconnues at June 24, 2003 04:26 PMOh wow Chose. I'm really sorry about your brother. That is one of my worst fears. I'm sure I don't need to go on by telling you how painful that must have been...I can't even imagine facing that scenario as an adult.
I've had several people who I knew and loved die untimely deaths in the past four years. Tyler died from an accidental morphine overdose, Diana got hit by a truck, Nick shot himself in the local marketplace, Steve died of cancer, Petie jumped off a high bridge into a lake and never came back up, Darren gassed himself, my grandfather passed...well and then there was 9/11 which tore my heart out with a spoon even though I didn't know a single person that was killed personally. The shock and sadness of that situation will always haunt me. I know this is all horribly depressing, but I am an open person and even though these images are forever with me and these heartbreaking and tragic events have taken place, the living continue on. That's all we can do and we have been doing it since the dawn of time so I really don't think people should be afraid to talk about it.
I have been told "you're too young to think about death this much." But I don't consider these thoughts a burden as much as I think of them as me contemplating and reflecting on the reality of death. That may seem morbid to some, but honestly, I am afraid to die. The fact that all of these people near to me or that I knew as aquaintances or that I didn't know at all, have died, is a reminder to me how much life is to be cherished. This is mortality. We have to deal with it and I think it's healthy to discuss it or just to express our feelings about it in whatever way is comfortable. Because it's just about the hardest thing about life. Facing suffering and death. It doesn't make life any less beautiful or worthy of living to the fullest. In fact, just the opposite.
Posted by: Maria at June 24, 2003 06:53 PM