I've been to quite a few funerals, the most recent of which was my older sister's funeral in early November not even two months ago. They're awful, it's true. And they're disturbing. But you get through them. If you're not close family, you endure attending them out of respect and love for the survivors and the deceased. If you're close family, you just endure them because you have to. I wanted to run screaming from the room when the visitation and funeral for my sister were happening, but now I'm glad I was there even though it was awful. The funerals for my grandparents were easier, but I think that's because they passed after they'd had long, long lives.

The thing about seeing people in their coffins, assuming there's an open casket, is that that image does stay with you for a time. But in the case of my sister, so does the image of her wasted, pale body, suffering in pain, terminally ill with cancer before she died. In some ways, the image of her at peace and out of pain is the preferable one. And I'm already finding that I'm increasingly imagining her in my memory as the lively, healthy person she was before she became ill. Those healthy, alive images are the ones that'll eventually stay with me instead of the image in her coffin.

I don't really care if people come to my funeral or not or see me after I pass. If they do come to my funeral, I hope they'll be doing that to show support to my survivors. What I really hope is that when my time comes, my family will anoint my 110-year-old body with clarified butter, flowers, spices, incense, and flowers, place me on a floating funeral pyre, light that fire, and let me float off down the Ganges River. That's my idea of a nifty way to go!
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . another post made me do it (it's about death, so if you're sensitive about it...yeah) ok, so i was responding to another post, and i just want to see how everyone feels about this subject, what do you feel about funerals, have you ever been to one, and what did you feel while at it (or if you haven't been to one, what DO you feel about them) ....... my relevant post is: i don't want my last thought of anyone i care about to be that ghostly white, lifeless body laying in a coffin, i want my last thought to be of them happy, and when they were alive.... i want my last thought Rating: 5