Am Ithe only one who thinks this is...
 

...just TOO creepy? I don't think I'd want to bring my child to such a funeral. It's hard enough to get her to go to bed NOW...can you imagine how such a funeral could traumatize a child? Even an older one?

I mean, for an adults-only gathering, yeah, this is kind of a cool idea. I don't see the closure, but if it works for you...*shrug*

Sidhe


Funeral Home Offers 'Beds' for Loved One

The Associated Press

BROOK PARK, Ohio - They take the concept of resting in peace seriously at the Humenik Funeral Chapel.

The chapel offers a bedroom-like setting — a bed and two end tables — instead of where the casket would usually be laid out.

Owner Joe Humenik opened his own funeral home in suburban Cleveland five years ago after spending 10 years in the business. He first tried out the "reposing bed" for someone very close to him — his mother.

He had observed at countless funerals how mourners awkwardly approach the casket, say their goodbyes then retreat to the seating area.

But when his mom was laid out in a reposing bed, people stood nearby throughout the visitation.

"It was a real phenomenon. People took chairs and were sitting around the bed. It was just amazing," he said.

Donna Smith, 55, attended a funeral two years ago in which her neighbor was laid out in a bed.

"It is like walking into their bedroom," Smith said. "It's just lovely. That's the way I want to go."

So what's next? Maybe laying out an individual in a favorite chair or recliner?

"If a family requested it, I would use a recliner," Humenik said.

I think washing, dressing, and laying the body out in your living room room for a few days would have been more traumatic, but apparently the kids got over it back in the day.... :eyebrow:

I don't see why this would be any more or less traumatic for a child than any other funeral that involved a body. I wouldn't take a young child to any kind of funeral with a corpse.

It's all about communication. If you talk to your kids about what's going on and why before you go, allowing them to ask questions in a non-threatening setting, then I'd bet a good amount of $$ they'll be over it before you are.

I'm getting cremated when I die...I'm not giving any motherfucker that couldn't be nice to me while I was alive the satisfaction of being nice to me when I'm dead. :)

The article Sidhe posted reminds me of this one from 2 weeks ago.

I think LabRat is right. Approached properly, most kids will deal just fine. And by talking to them, and thinking about how to explain it to them, it could actually force the parent into a thought process that will help them deal with it better too.

Well Syc, maybe if you were nicer to other folks now, that wouldn't be an issue. :cool:

Yeah, I was reminded of that, too. I pray my dad never sees that article.
:worried: That would be too freakin' creepy.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha. :lol2:

I went to a funeral as a field trip in first grade... don't know why we went, or what was discussed before or after... I just went. The issues I have do not stem from that event.

My 17th birthday party was in a funeral home... my friend's parents owned it, we decided to have a joint party and decided the funeral home was the ideal location. We weren't allowed in the embalming room... but everything else, including the casket showroom was fair game.

So, now that I've probably frightened all of you... I do think this bed thing is weird... along with taking pictures of people in caskets, which my family members are known to do and look through the albums.

After enough years of artificial insemination people will think sex is gross and fucked up (well if it's done right). Ahem

It's just what were used to. Ever been in an old Brooklyn brownstone and wonder what those little naves in the walls of the staircases are for? It so a casket can make the turn on the way out of the house. Funerals in homes were common. Death was common, hell it's popular! It's nationwide.

Waking the dead is important for the living. Labrat is right, the kids will get over it a lot faster than you.

What is creepy is that it is a simulacrum of home, rather than in a real home. What is ironic is that in trying to distance one's self from death, the comfort increases as the distance decreases.

OK, my bad. I just read that link.
WTF do I know?

There's plenty of room in my handbasket for everyone...

I know...it's so hard though b/c being an asshole is so much fun.

From my experience I'd say the kids do get over it very quickly. I have a friend who lost her 8 month old daughter and later lost her 12 yr old son, and I buried my daughter when she was 2 /12. The few kids who did attend Sheena's funeral (my girl) started playing when the service was barely over. which was good for my son who was only 5. They seemed to understand the finality of it and accept it wthout much question. The 12 yr old boy's funeral had tons of kids there - his whole baseball team in uniform and most of his classmates. Kids are so resilient.

OMG! Somebody call Ripley's! Scycamore and I agree on something! :lol: I'm going to be cremated as well, but only because I don't like the idea of rotting...yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm going to be dead, and won't know it, but..just...ew.

My ick factor concerning the article was the whole bed thing. I went to funerals as a young child, and it was no big deal. But that's because it was a closure thing, I think. A bed isn't closure. A coffin is. A bed/coffin is like you're sitting around waiting for the person to die...and I know far too many parents who've told their kids, in an effor to explain death, that the person--or the pet--is "sleeping." These same people subsequently had problems getting their children to go to bed because the kids thought that if they went to sleep that they wouldn't wake up either.

A bed is associated with sleeping and waking. A coffin isn't. If you're having an all-adult funeral, I don't suppose there's a problem. Adults and older children, I would assume, already understand the concept of death. But I've been to funerals attended by young children who don't yet understand the concept, and I think a bed would just confuse and/or scare them. They may indeed think that the person is just sleeping, and when that person doesn't wake up, and is put in the ground, that could be a real freak-out.


Sidhe

At my great-grandmother's funeral, there was an open casket. My sister who was about 5 at the time kept touching the body. It was creepy.

I was tempted a couple of times to touch a dead body at a funeral, but never did. Though I have touched a dead body once...when I kissed my grandmother good-bye shortly after she died at a hospital in 1997.

death doesn't freak me out. let's face it, we are all dieing right now. part of my training in the military had me working in the trauma units in San Antonio - gunshot wounds galore. that was interesting. i also worked in the morgue - they aren't as creepy IRL as they are in the movies. i also worked in the autopsy room as well - that is creepy. seeing a person dismantled completely while talking about which bar you are going to when the shift is over is just a little too surreal.

due to family medical history i spent a VERY large part of my youth sleeping in ICU chairs waiting for news.

these experiences, among others, have removed the "freak factor" from death. my trust documents give explicit orders to throw my bones into the cheapest wood box available and burn my ass. no bedside moment or lazy boy viewing for me.

My dying wish is to have my unembalmed corpse be sent one-way Fedex to the doorstep of somebody I hate.

better than that is when the day comes that you feel the end is near sneak over to their house and hide in their trunk. noone will notice until the smell is horrid and imagine your enemies surprise when they are arrested for your murder! oh yeah, you got Punk'd!

:lol:

My dad died of a heart attack before I was able to get to the hospital. Once there, I asked for a few minutes alone with him and I said my goodbyes ending with a hug and kiss. His body was only a few hours dead, so he did look like he was just sleeping. He smelled like my dad too...whatever he used in his hair will always remind me of him.

Anyway, at the funeral, he was the wrong color, his hair was done way wrong, and his expression was off. He was an organ donor, and his corneas went to someone (we got a card later saying so) so his eyes were not quite right bulgewise either. I decided right then and there that there would be none of this open casket business for me. Just lots of pictures of me when I was alive, and food. LOTS of food :)

This was confirmed when I went to both of my grandparents funerals, they just don't even look like THEM, so why have the damn thing there anyway?? All I have now is this memory of their dead body. I didn't want to look, but I figured everyone else would see it as a sign of disrespect if I didn't walk by the casket with everyone. Now, I am old enough to know I can just say "no thanks, I prefer to remember X as they were". Screw 'em if they think I'm being rude. :p

here is the thing - the funeral is supposed to be for the survivors. that is why i don't go. i don't need closure, and it sickens me to look around a roomful of teary eyed people who didn't care all that much about the person when they were alive.

my grandfather's last brother passed away a few months ago. some of the extended family got pissed because i refused to take part in a big memorial that they had planned. i spent the last ten years writing letters back and forth to him, recording stories of his youth, WWII, life afterwards, and all that jazz. the man was fascinating. they wanted me to bring the recordings and journals and read some of the letters. i told them all to piss off. i had invited most of them at various times to be included in these events while he was still alive, but they were too busy. screw 'em. if they really cared or were interested they would have been interested while he was alive. i don't have the time or the inclination to teach them who he was now that he is gone. and i think he felt the same way. i had asked him for many years if i could take a video of some of his WWII experiences for the DDAy museum archives in new orleans and he had always refused. about a month before he died he traveled across the country, and handed me a tape. he said it was the only one in existence and he wasn't going to tell anyone else about it. after his death i made one copy for my uncle who was also very close to him, and that is it.

all that to say this - pay attention to them while they are alive, the funeral isn't that important.

One of my coworkers was given an open casket service ... but it was kinda cool in a way, because the funeral home did stuff that I've not seen before ... yeah, he looked too damn pink, but that's always a problem ... but, he was buried in his black jeans, his Flyers jersey (and the pall bearers all wore jerseys as well ... none of the suit and tie nonsense), and rather than the hands folded in peaceful repose pose ... his right hand was stuck into his jeans pocket the way he always did it, with his pinkie curled back ... and well, he looked like he always did just prior to kicking someone's ass.

:blush: not sure if I'm going to get haunted for this, but my dad was buried in his tighty whities only, the way he was most comfortable, and usually seen around the house ( --used to embarass the hell out of me when friends would come over :lol: ). It was my mom's idea, and I thought it was a good one. He only had the top half of a suit on whole time of the viewing... ;)

When my Grandmother passed in January - we got the opportunity to sit with her a body and wait for the arrival of the cremation folks. It was tough, knowing she wasn't there, and feeling her body get cold...pretty quickly too.

But having the ability to sit with her, say goodbye, and have that closure was extremely helpful in the grieving process.

We're a 'no funeral' family. I think it's better that way.

Kellie

Agreed. :thumb:

I still want Patrick to do my eulogy.

I find funerals to be off-putting, in general. Memorial services, sure. Wakes, great. But the idea of slapping some clay and makeup on a corpse to display it in a church for a bunch of crying people is just weird. Embalming is weird. The amount of money spent on caskets is weird.

That said, I understand the need for closure and all that, so I'll let my family do what they want with my carcass when I'm gone. But for me, when my grandpa died (I was 16) and I literally felt his soul leave the room, I had more closure than any amount of pre-burial pomp could've provided.

Oddly, when my nana died in 2003, the sense of her presence (and her departure) weren't nearly as strong. In the intervening years I had made a conscious effort to squelch my awareness of things psychic. Good for not being bothered by ghosts, bad for general awareness.

/weird

I know exactly what you mean, noodle. I grew up 'knowing things" and I've had precog dreams all my life. That's why when people want to pin me down about my beliefs, I give the ultimate confusing answer.. Literalist Creationist Christian Wiccan.

Or something like that ;)

Precog dreams lead to choices that make them self fulfilling. ;)

I call that "Vuja De".

I went to my grampa's funeral when I was 10. Scared the living crap out of me! I would never put a child through that unless they were older and fully briefed on what to expect. I for one don't like funerals. Give me a memorail service, celebration, fiesta! whatever. Show pictures, run videos, Power Point presentation. I do not intend to make an appearance. It may be rude but who cares...I'm dead. Sue me!

In January I helped plan the memorial service for one of my best friends (suicide at 32). Planning the service and putting together the power point presentation were very helpful in the healing process. The actual service felt like it was staged for a bunch of people who hardly knew him, except when my friend the piper played Amazing Grace at the end. Couldn't get the projector to work during the service so we set it up on a loop at the wake which was way better - people could look and remember fondly at their leisure. The best was when an intimate group took the boat out and scattered his ashes at sea. Total closure.
Great. Now I got tears in my keyboard. I miss him.

funerals make me a little nervous because i know someone will make what they consider to be an important gesture and it will go horribly horribly wrong. flubbed eulogy is one thing. one of the best friends who agreed to play a song on his guitar finishing up by repeatedly smashing the guitar over the coffin is another. yes it really happened. out in Hobbs' neck of the woods.

I have both attended and officiated at funerals. The nicest one I went to was a Quaker Meeting for Memorial. I also thought the Conservative Jewish funeral I went to was well presented.

Catholic funerals are very difficult, IMHO.

good luck. I'll tell you a story sometime.