Is it important to see the body of the deceased?

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jesusmademe

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Is it important to see the body of the deceased?
Does it help if you see the corpse?
Has it helped you? I have never seen a dead person.
 
I suspect that you are referring to the corpse of a loved one and may I say that if so, you ask a very important question which I think many people in the modern world ponder at some time.

Questions such as yours touch on an area which is often treated with fear and dread in our modern world as it illustrates an aspect in ourselves that many shun. That is, that despite our so called mastery of the world, we all will physically die. Our society has shunted this unpalatable fact into hospital wards and and funeral homes and away from where it was faced and recognised for countless generations i.e. the home. Familiarity with death at home (as our ancestors experienced) created a more realistic and healthy understanding of physical death I believe. I think our lack of such experiences is where our dread and curiosity stems from. Most of our ancestors saw a dead relative even when children. I myself had not seen a corpse until I joined the profession that I did ,and after doing so, I saw many bodies in a variety of states and circumstances. The one thing that impacted me and enabled me to deal with such a variety of situations professionally, was the recognition that a corpse is little more than a shell. The soul was never apparent to me in any deceased person I encountered. I saw before my eyes that it had left and was elsewhere. This greatly helped me face the death of my mother and when I went to see her body for the last time and to kiss her, I realised that it was not my mother before me. She had left the body! Her soul was elsewhere! I was able to grieve my loss, but also to fully understand and realise that she had gone to meet God. My previous experiences had prepared me for my personal epiphany and made my grieving bearable. So I will say that for me it helped greatly and I would encourage most people (certainly above the age of reason) to see the body of a deceased loved one (assuming that the condition of the corpse is not trauma inducing) as it will help in the grieving process and spiritually strengthen the bond with the deceased loved one.
 
Is it worth it to spend $500 on a plane flight when one is almost broke?
Is this the question?
I would say don’t commit financial suicide, but go if you can.
 
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Isn’t there a big difference between seeing a dead person as a professional and as a grieving person?
I watch Death in paradise and the cops look at a corpse without any specific emotions whatsoever. Just another day at work.
 
I think it is cultural. For example in Jewish traditions is considered disrespectful for the deceased to have a wake in which the body of the deceased is showed to the public. In southern Europe, at least when I was a kid many years ago, for Catholics was pretty common to have the body of the deceased at home with the family for 2-3 days and the door was open during the day hours for everybody to enter and see the deceased (unless the deceased died in a way that s/he looked bad, in that case the corpse was kept at home in a closed coffin).
 
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I’m the olden days, if a woman had a stillborn baby the hospital staff would take him away so Mom couldn’t see.

They meant well. They thought they were “sparing” the mom.

Then they came to realize that women are able to process the experience better when given the chance to hold the baby.
 
I think it’s generally good for final goodbyes to have a physical body. When something happens that a body is lost or almost completely destroyed it seems to add an extra sting to the loss.
 
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jesusmademe said:
Is it important to see the body of the deceased?
Does it help if you see the corpse?
Has it helped you? I have never seen a dead person.
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Yes. In today’s world of a make believe reality, death is a stark reminder of our own mortality, and a good reminder of the four last things (Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven).

The impact of watching a corpse is greater, if one is especially close to the person. If you haven’t seen a dead person, do not be afraid. Modern techniques in embalming have minimized the impact (stench, body texture) quite a bit. The corpse appears still, and you might think the person was sleeping.

Aches and tears are necessary part of grieving and healing. Good spiritual counseling and reading during these times, helps one to re-evaluate things that matter, and is a reminder and encouragement to live a holy life.

Pray for the deceased soul, and offering month’s mind masses, and support to the bereaving family strengthens bonds of charity and unity.
 
jesusmademe said:
Isn’t there a big difference between seeing a dead person as a professional and as a grieving person?
I watch Death in paradise and the cops look at a corpse without any specific emotions whatsoever. Just another day at work.
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That’s just a tv show, a good one but just a show with actors!
 
I understand exactly where you are coming from here, yet I personally believe that the body once housed an immortal soul and that placed it above any other dead creature. Consequently, I believed that special respect was due to the body even when the eyes of the world were no longer on it or me.
 
jesusmademe said:
Is it important to see the body of the deceased?
Does it help if you see the corpse?
Has it helped you? I have never seen a dead person.
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I think it helps you come to terms with the fact that the person has died. I think it is healthy that the person’s death is not ‘shuffled away’ as something to be hidden. In Ireland the body often stays in the house in the coffin from the time the person dies until they are buried (usually about 3 days). It helped me when my dad died to be able to spend time with him just sitting near him as he lay there.

Personally, I think it is not healthy for a culture to hide away all signs of death. Death is a normal thing which will happen to us all one day. I think we should accept it, talk about it, and see it, rather than hide it away as something that should not be spoken about or seen.
 
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I would say “it depends” and it is really a personal matter. For some people and in some situations, it might help one process the death. For other people and in other situations, it might just be unnecessary, awful, or not matter one way or the other.

I have seen a number of corpses in my life and sometimes it was helpful and desirable, and other times I could have done without it to be honest. My main issue with seeing people’s bodies is that by the time I saw them they were at the funeral home and sometimes bore little resemblance to the real person when they were alive.

I do agree that our culture should not be rushing to hide away signs of death. We also should be sensitive to the feelings of others because not everybody feels the same way about looking at a corpse. Some people can get very traumatized if it is insisted that they look.
 
Each person is different.

I was holding my husband’s hand when he died, and I stayed with him for about an hour. That was a precious time to me, but, I was then done. He and I had discussed our wishes, and he did not want “a viewing” of his corpse.

Seeing a dead person is a wide range of things, one is seeing someone who has just died, seeing someone who has been dead for some time, and seeing an embalmed body. Embalmed bodies look very fake and to me very jarring.

There is an interesting YouTube called “Ask A Mortician”. You may find educating yourself about the death process helpful.
 
TheLittleLady said:
He and I had discussed our wishes, and he did not want “a viewing” of his corpse.

Seeing a dead person is a wide range of things, one is seeing someone who has just died, seeing someone who has been dead for some time, and seeing an embalmed body. Embalmed bodies look very fake and to me very jarring.
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Exactly, whay do we mean? A we talking about a lit de parade or something else?
I guess I don’t really know.
The reason why I asked this is because of a news I heard. A person had, the police guessed, lied dead in an apartment for three years. The rent was paid by direct debit untill one day. Then they went looking for him. Sounds weird.
Some people see dead people as a part of a work eg a policemen or a paramedic.

I saw a tv show with a person who went down by ladder in a digged grave. It really moved her. It was a bit scary I think.
I do think that we nowadays like to make ourselves immortal. No matter what we do we will die. Better form a good conscience and live a good life rather than trying to make ourselves God.
 
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If we got emotional over dead bodies we’d wind up having mental breakdowns. I probably see 10 dead bodies a month.
 
How do you mean?

“Isn’t there a big difference between seeing a dead person as a professional and as a grieving person?”

How can you refer to a fictitious tv show with actors to answer such a question?
 
I can’t really say. I didn’t want to see my mother’s body at the funeral home. I almost fainted when I saw her. I knew she was gone, after it was all over in the hospital, I laid down in bed with her. So, it should not have been a shock to me. But, I can’t get the image of her in a coffin out of my mind.
 
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funeral home
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Do they have corpses there? If funeral home is the same as the Swedish begravningsbyrå then I am confused. It is just a place where you do the business.
I am not sure if there is a home for dead people.
I did see a funeral home on Columbo (ashes to ashes) but I am not sure if we have such a thing here. A crematotium would probably have dead bodies…but I am not going to such a olace in order to see dead bodies.
 
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According to this article, the funeral practices in Sweden differ greatly than US/Canada/UK customs.

Here, the funeral us usually done within a week of the death. Many people have a public viewing of the dead that happens the day/evening prior to the funeral where the family of the deceased receives friends and family.

Then, there is a Funeral service (Mass for Catholics, service at the Church or funeral home “chapel” for others). For Catholics the coffin is closed, for non-Catholics it is not uncommon to have the casket open during the funeral.

Following the funeral is a burial service. After that is a meal.

 
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