HW 48 - Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

Both of my parents would like to be cremated. My mother emphasized that she didn’t want to take up space on the earth for her remains. Both of them didn’t feel as though religion played a role into their deaths. Watching their parents cared for after they died didn’t raise any red flags or questions as to why they decided to pursue a certain ceremony. It was what they wanted and so how they thought it should have played out wasn’t going to make a difference. My father at first was hesitant to talk about the subject of how he wanted to be cared for; he didn’t want to think about it. This made me wonder why there is such a strong desire to plan out the moments after we are no longer breathing. Shouldn’t we trust the ones we are close to, to bring together something we would of liked? Why does the ceremony make such a difference to us, considering we are the guest who is not really invited?

After experiencing a number of deaths in the past year, I have come to understand the cliché of life after death. It involves a structure of religion, and a cemetery. My mother on the other hand wants nothing of that matter. “I don’t think I am going to plan for a ceremony, maybe a circle in the park. I don’t want anything crazy or big.” She didn’t even seem to worry about the subject at all; she went on to talk about how if people who knew her wanted to come they would be more than welcome, yet she didn’t want people to feel obligated. She talked about how her friend’s friend had just passed away and how there was a huge mass with hundreds of people. Although she felt as though that was a way of honoring the woman who had passed she didn’t find the crowd to be necessary. I began to wonder if the reason why religion is such a common trend in death is merely because people find comfort in it. They feel as though if they listen to g** then everything will work its way out. How can we be so sure?

Yet with practically so many religious holidays there is a catch, the Easter bunny, Santa Clause. What do either of those symbols have to do with the core of what the holiday is actually celebrating? When it comes down to it, nothing. My father began to discuss how death has a money sign on it that is pretty hard to avoid. “There is a whole culture of how people are cared for, everything from the commercialization of it to how it’s a big business, unfortunately. Yet also the ritual aspects and how they have developed, however, in this country it has become a business that is not always an honest business.” This made me wonder about those that are involved in the business of death. Is it something they have dreamed about since they were little? When in kindergarten when everyone else wanted to be an astronaut or the president, they were saying I want to care for the dead! Are they playing their cards safe, knowing that the business will never suffer?

Neither of my parents felt as though their parent’s deaths had inspired them to want to be cremated. My father said, “I think I wanted to be cremated before my parents had even died. I think it’s a more natural way to be buried, rather than have a body be put into a box and lowered into the ground. I would rather have a ceremony of joy and appreciation.” This made me wonder if being put into a box is like trapping the soul and the body. There is something about cremation that has an almost poetic meaning, one is truly moving on verse being stuck and still. Instead of no movement the ashes of a person continue moving through a different form. Hopefully the movement becomes parallel to something that brought joy to the person while they were alive and maybe through this movement, the soul will never truly die. I think people maybe feel as though if they decide to be cremated a part of them will be lost and that people will forget about them, since there is no stone with their name carved. Yet maybe becoming part of something bigger and greater than any person makes their memory even more lucid, and instead of becoming forgotten they will truly never leave the motion of all of the living creatures.