Posted by Paula Richey on February 1, 2013 at 11:00am
Yesterday, we went to a funeral and got back late, so it looks like today is going to be reassembling order in the household.I am not at all sure that I am ever going to want to subject my loved ones to my own funeral. How about we have a nice family reunion without my dead body being there, okay? And sit wherever you like in the chapel, and close and lock my casket so nobody takes pictures or talks about how natural I look. And don't let the mortuary talk my family into spending too much money on a shiny box that will never again see the light of day.I don't care if my dead body is wrapped in a sheet and buried in the backyard. I won't be inhabiting it.Also, I think it's really cheap and offensive when a character just dies for emotional impact, and oh, there's a funeral, and everyone is solemn and forever changed - except they aren't really.It's just as bad as when there are casualties treated casually and there is no funeral.Sometimes, I think the writers of these scenes have never seen a death and its consequences in their entire lives.In real life, funerals are awkward and absurd. There's a reception afterward. It's protocol to bring flowers and food, and then it's normal to avoid the surviving family because you don't know of a non-awkward way to help and you assume somebody else is taking care of that anyway. In your secret heart of hearts, you wish they could just get over it and get back to normal because that's where you're comfortable.Protocol only goes so far. Without compassion, condolences mean nothing.Sorry, morose thoughts today.
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