I wrote this after I watched a talk that Kate Braestrup (pictured above during her talk “The House Of Mourning”) gave a few months ago. Link to that at the bottom of the page.
Advertisements Share this:I love this so, so much. The things that she speaks about here are so important to me, things that I have told friends and family many times. Seemingly now more than ever, adults want to shield themselves, and even more so, their children from death and from viewing the body of a loved one to say goodbye. To almost everyone, death is terrifying, and it hurts more than anything when it happens to someone we love, and in most cases, I believe that is why we shield ourselves from it. Only a few of us are able to face it head on. Which is a little funny to me, because death happens to 100% of us, 100% of the time. As she says in the video, “now a days, we are persuaded that it’s the presence of the body, not it’s absence, that is most distressing; people are far, far more likely to regret not having seen the body, than they are to wish they hadn’t done it”. One of the first people close to me that I remember losing as a child was my maternal grandmother. She was cremated. We had a Mass, and at the front of the church there was a tiny urn containing her cremains. As a child, that didn’t make sense to me. For me personally, it felt as though she wasn’t there. My grandfather passed when I was even younger, I was about 4. I have no memory of that. He was also cremated. I remember at some point in my life that my mom told me that my grandmother had wanted it that way, because “viewing a body is too hard on the family”. And yes, is it hard on the family, but the death of someone we love is supposed to be hard. I think I will always wish that I had been able to see them, and I wonder if that would have made a difference in my memories of their passings. When I was 24, my best friend died. He was laid out for nearly 48 hours prior to his funeral service and burial. On the morning of his service, the directors allowed me to come a few hours early, and I sat with him alone for over an hour, talking to him, looking at him, soaking in those precious last few minutes I would ever have. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, it was hard, it hurt. It was heartbreaking. But even five and a half years later, I remember those last special moments perfectly. I am and always will be so grateful that I had that with him. I had an extremely hard time dealing with his death. But I can absolutely not imagine how much worse it would have been had I not seen him at all. About a year later, my paternal grandmother died, and when she died, her children decided rather quickly to have her cremated. I talked with my aunt about it for a long time, and then we fought for her to instead have a viewing and funeral. Again, it was sad, it was hard, but still today, I feel at peace that I was able to see her that one last time. In this video, she speaks about a five year old little girl who desperately wanted to see her little cousin that had died. Her parents wanted to protect her. She told this little girls parents “I believe it would not hurt her more to see him”. She saw him, she spent time with him, she talked to him, and I believe that she will always remember that. Seeing him and saying goodbye didn’t hurt her anymore than the initial loss did, but more likely, it probably helped her. I have a very strong belief that no child should be completely shielded from death. Death is as common as birth, and that shouldn’t be a scary secret that we keep from our children. That is certainly not to say that they need to know all of the unnecessary details, but they should be able to make the choice to say goodbye. I also very strongly believe that as adults, viewing your deceased loved one one last time is very important. Important for closure, and important for the grieving process. Yes, of course there are unfortunate situations where that is not possible. Yes, I know that it is not for everyone, and yes, I know that some people want to be cremated and that’s that. But know that you can have a viewing and also be cremated. Know that if you’re considering cremation for yourself or a loved one that it may be important for family and friends to see you/them one last time. Know that children are stronger and more resilient and understand more than we think. Know that if you have the option to view a loved one but you don’t think you want to, you may regret it more than if you do.
#deathpositive
https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsZinc/videos/1580552755345405/
