Via Scott Pack at The Friday Project (my UK publisher), I was alerted to this blog entry from another Irishman (or of Irish descent living in London) John Lenahan who writes extremely movingly about the death of his wife four years ago and thought I'd link to it. He empowers the piece with the use of imagery incorporating banshees and the shrieks of copulating foxes--a sound that's as otherworldly and eerie in Pennsylvania as it is in Ireland.
Having recently had a friend who died during the Christmas period, I related to what he described, and it brought back memories and sounds of the long night that my paternal grandmother Catherine died when I was an uncomprehending eleven-year-old silently watching from outside the bedroom.
Death is not something a great many Americans feel comfortable talking about, I have discovered, in comparison to Europeans--one sign thereof being their abundant use of euphemisms such as 'passed on' or 'passed' rather than the proper word 'died.' And to be honest, I never fully understood the importance of a funeral until I attended my best friend's in London where, as I sat alternately staring at the glossy coffin and watching the ceremony and listening to the words, it was revealed as in an epiphany. In one surging moment of intensity I comprehended fully. It wasn't about religion. It wasn't about ritual. It was about goodbye, a beautiful goodbye.
Anyway, Mr.Lenahan describes precisely how loved ones truly experience and seldom reveal.
Showing posts with label funerals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funerals. Show all posts
Thursday
Wednesday
Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here to...
Latest growing fad in the US is funerals for pets.
By funerals, I mean embalming, coffins, flowers, casket viewings at a funeral home, and burial with hearse and funeral directors in attendance, if desired. One entrepreneur in the Mid-West is now in the process of setting up parlors as franchise opportunities.
And it's not just some pet lovers who've decided to make a business out of it. Regular funeral homes always looking for opportunities to wring a few more green backs from tears are getting into the business. Apparently, they've seen there's mega bucks to be made--the average pet funeral costs $500. So they've begun offering portions of their establishments to wake the deceased pet. It used to be done after hours, but irate pet owners stated it wasn't dignified and their pets were family members (latter part, I agree with) and deserved respect.
So, technically, a group of mourners can be at the funeral home sniffing and talking good or bad about Aunt Rosie and another group next door can be wailing about Clarence, the Great Dane. (One establishment has already performed the funeral of a beloved pack mule who took people on treks of the Grand Canyon.)
I'm sure there will come a day at one of these establishments when family members are sitting grieving in front of a closed casket for the entire visiting period, only to discover on the day of the funeral or later that their loved one is interred in a pet cemetery and the funeral Mass was for an old donkey.
Great plot line for Six Feet Under if it was still around.
By funerals, I mean embalming, coffins, flowers, casket viewings at a funeral home, and burial with hearse and funeral directors in attendance, if desired. One entrepreneur in the Mid-West is now in the process of setting up parlors as franchise opportunities.
And it's not just some pet lovers who've decided to make a business out of it. Regular funeral homes always looking for opportunities to wring a few more green backs from tears are getting into the business. Apparently, they've seen there's mega bucks to be made--the average pet funeral costs $500. So they've begun offering portions of their establishments to wake the deceased pet. It used to be done after hours, but irate pet owners stated it wasn't dignified and their pets were family members (latter part, I agree with) and deserved respect.
So, technically, a group of mourners can be at the funeral home sniffing and talking good or bad about Aunt Rosie and another group next door can be wailing about Clarence, the Great Dane. (One establishment has already performed the funeral of a beloved pack mule who took people on treks of the Grand Canyon.)
I'm sure there will come a day at one of these establishments when family members are sitting grieving in front of a closed casket for the entire visiting period, only to discover on the day of the funeral or later that their loved one is interred in a pet cemetery and the funeral Mass was for an old donkey.
Great plot line for Six Feet Under if it was still around.
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