Due to my grandparent’s catholic upbringing and the amount of suffering in the world they both believe that there is a heaven and hell, and that cremation and burial are acceptable ways to dispose of a body. Due to an experience of a death of a close friend my grandma has distaste for cremations, she said “I felt as if I was jipped, and by choosing cremation they took away my chance to see her for one last time.” We also talked about how open caskets give the family and friends a chance to see the person at rest and no longer suffering or struggling with their illness or old age. The story of my great grandma’s death and funeral was spoken about and a strong thought was that she didn’t want to be underground, always on top, so even when my great grandpa died my grandma made the cemetery move my great grandmothers remains above my great grandfathers.
I don’t know exactly what the dominant social practices are of the care of the dead or that anything is actually nightmare-ish about them, shouldn’t people be at liberty to deal with death in their own ways, does judgment and analysis always need to be involved with every area of life?
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteLiked the phrasing of your last paragraph (a period rather than a comma would have been better after "them" and "ways" and the word "does" might have been better replaced by "do").
Good questions. If you think about it, and hopefully you will, you're now analyzing analysis and judging judgment. What domains of life do you think might be better left unreflected upon, simply experienced?