HW 51 - Second Third of COTD Book

It should now be evident that if one wishes to have a professional arrange their after care process there is a premeditated way things will occur. Especially if the finances haven’t been taken care of, the experience with Ms. G is a clear example of how when simplified funerals are all about getting paid. While we are alive we are under the impression that we have control of most of the things we relate ourselves to but death disproves this falsity. Along with being forced to think about our control there is also grief which is the real reason funerals seem so awkward, no one wants to be confronted with it. This is also why objects of the deceased so easily tend to cause unplanned emotional eruptions. Cremation opposed to burial creates an illusion that the costumer has complete power over the loved ones death care. Regardless of what path is chosen the services should be an experience that reaches all senses, just how good Broadway show would accomplish. Showbiz is a very valuable aspect of death care because it provides an outlet for both the family and guests to distract themselves with. More frequently than in the past people are pre-paying and planning for their funerals this takes the burden off any relatives and most importantly makes everyone feel as if they have immense control over their death care.

“… The undertakers role is to protect the public.” Pg 90

“… The widow is left on her own to go through her husband’s clothes, cancel his credit cards, and stare at the door waiting for him to magically reappear. But none of that is our business” –pg 107

“what made Ray Brent Marsh different from his neighbors was not that he was insane, but that he’d lost all reverence for and fear of the dead” –pg 131

According to Tom Jokinens there is nothing that we are currently changing about the way we handle death care that is giving us depth into why we have strong emotion around it. New practices could be coming along but I have little faith that they will help us progress as a society, if anything they will push us deeper into denial. I am curious to why most of us are very willing and boastful about donating their organs when we are repulsed about handling anything that was touched by the dead or connected to a dead body.