Is it important to see the body of the deceased?

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My father died when I was nine. Although he was cremated, there was a viewing at a funeral home before that. The very last time I saw my dad, was when I saw him dead. Death is a reality that comes to us all. I understand being uncomfortable seeing dead bodies, it should make you uncomfortable , but remember, one day that will be you.
 
Are you a mortician or a medical examiner? A funeral director?
 
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No. My experience in this area stems from a completely different profession from which I am now retired.
 
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.
Yes! My mom had to demand to see/hold the bodies of her stillborn babies. She said it was sooooo healing, but that she had to keep shooing the nurses away whenever they tried to take the bodies away.
 
Now the hospitals have “cuddle cots”, special bassinets that keep the stillborn/infants who died cold so they can stay in the room for as long as family wishes.
 
We have to be careful what we tell children.

When one of our great-uncles died, his nephew was told by his parents that his uncle was in heaven. The casket was supposed to remain closed at his funeral. For some unfathomable reason, the funeral director opened the casket at the very end of the service, and that nephew saw his uncle lying in it. The kid was too young to understand that it was only his uncle’s body, and he was confused and traumatized because he had been told his Uncle was in heaven, yet there he was, right before the kid’s eyes.

What I don’t understand is why so many funeral directors ignore or defy the wishes of families. They charge large sums of money for funerals, but don’t always respect the family’s wishes or obey their instructions. Some even try to dictate to the family what music will be played at their loved one’s funeral. I have found some funeral directors to be very arrogant and condescending, and not very sensitive to what the family wants and doesn’t want. Some of them feel no obligation to listen.
 
There are valid points of view either way, but we have already agreed in our family that there will be no viewings.

For my part, I know too much of what they do, to make a body “look lifelike”, and what happens not that long afterwards, this knowledge gained through research. I think it is better to do nothing at all, other than basic hygiene, and to surrender the body to the elements and to naturally occurring processes, either in a plain wooden coffin or a shroud, as the Jews and Muslims do respectively. However, for the sake of economics and family sensibilities, I have consented to more conventional arrangements.

I have seen many bodies at funeral visitations and it does not bother me to see them. I have seen good embalmings and restorations, and I have seen not-so-good ones. I do not need this kind of thing for “closure”. Some people do.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think viewings were traditionally a Catholic “thing”.

I would only add that the body is not just a “shell”, and that it is “not needed anymore”. It is the body that will be reunited with the soul, and resurrected, on the Last Day. To be sure, it will return to the elements in the meantime, but in a way we cannot comprehend, Almighty God will allow it to be reconstituted in glory (or for eternal punishment, as the case may be, and we pray that we do not end up that way).
 
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That is totally up to you…Viewing the deceased can help bring closure. I had a friend who was killed in a plan crash; I really wish I had been able to view him…
 
Police officers do that because, many times, there are family and friends of the deceased present.
 
That is true, they do not. Joan Rivers had a full-blown funeral, obviously not within 24 hours, and was cremated, and Amy Winehouse was cremated as well. Talented, lovely women. Requiescant in pace.
 
What kinda name is Ake?
I have never heard of it before.
I could only find Åke but not Ake when I google up the name. I guess they just did not use the Å-button on their keyboard like they should.
Please stop with your misspelling of names in serious texts.
 
What kinda name is Ake?
I have never heard of it before.
I could only find Åke but not Ake when I google up the name. I guess they just did not use the Å-button on their keyboard like they should.
Please stop with your misspelling of names in serious texts.
Did you mean to post on a different thread, jesusmademe?

This message doesn’t make any sense to me.
 
Please stop with your misspelling of names in serious texts.
I am not sure what you are talking about. I have reviewed each word I have typed in this thread, the word “Ake” has never been typed by me.

If someone in a linked article made a mistake, then, send your comment to the editor or author of that article.
 
. 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
historically, the wake was quite literal: making sure that he didn’t wake up before you buried him!

Even today, there are rare incidents of “dead” people waking up in the morgues . . .
 
What kinda name is Ake?
I have never heard of it before.
I could only find Åke but not Ake when I google up the name. I guess they just did not use the Å-button on their keyboard like they should.
Please stop with your misspelling of names in serious texts.
Åke is a Swedish name. I don’t know if it has any English equivalent.

English keyboards lack that letter, so sometimes it would be rendered as “Ake”, much as, for instance, the Polish “Lech Wałęsa” is rendered as “Lech Walesa”. (Your trivia bit for today — some say that this is a Polonized version of the Scottish name Wallace.)
 
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