I think I understand the open casket notion, in terms of closure, but I've never felt 'better', if you will, for having seen the body.

The notion that people get more closure from an open casket was actually something promoted by the funeral industry. Not based on any psychological study.

Personally I found my mother's taxidermied body to be very freaky and alienating in the coffin. Not in the least comforting. Closure was not an issue since she was at home when she died.

What struck me at my granddad's pre-funeral open-casket viewing (the most recent one I've attended) was how many people, after wandering up to the coffin, said "He looks *great,* doesn't he?"

And I wanted to say to every one of them, "No; he looks DEAD." It didn't look like him sleeping -- there was nothing left there to animate what was in the coffin. Big difference.

The notion that people get more closure from an open casket was actually something promoted by the funeral industry. Not based on any psychological study.

I can believe that. And I say that having an uncle who has worked in the funeral industry since he was in high school, and is one of the nicest, gentlest people ever. (He's very good at what he does, too, in that he's very comforting and understanding.)

That said, I do think it's weird. And often very upsetting. Ben was almost eight when Stephen's mother died, and he was okay (she'd been ill, strokes, etc.) until we went to the viewing. He took one look at her in the casket and completely lost it.

I don't want to be buried. Even my FiL, who doesn't believe in cremation, is upset that he buried my MiL way up here, because he knows that once he's gone, no one will be left in this area to visit the graves. He never even visited his own parents' graves, or so he's said. And that makes me sad, even though logically I know it *shouldn't* -- the person you've lost isn't actually lying there in the ground, but the idea of a grave sitting untended and unvisited for years on end is somehow awful.

The notion that people get more closure from an open casket was actually something promoted by the funeral industry. Not based on any psychological study.

This I totally believe.

Fortunately, when my great aunt died in my house, I woke up...right then, I believe...and she was still warm when I found her. So much so, I was a bit confused for a minute. The fact that (whitefonted for the possible squick factor) she'd stopped breathing, swallowed her tongue and had no heart beat just didn't register right away. Still, I knew the second that I woke up that she was gone.

Rather than being freaked out, I was just so, incredibly glad for her that the suffering was over. I laid my head on her shoulder and, just for a moment, got a whiff of that wonderful combination of Oil of Olay and starch that always characterizes her in my mind. It was like the effects of the various cancers had just floated away, in an opposite direction from her soul.

That moment was all I needed...knowing that the man who loved her for 60 years died on the same morning, in a neighboring state...I'm so glad we didn't have a funeral.

"He looks *great,* doesn't he?"

They were probably admiring his new nose.

My folks is cremation folks. My grandfather is actually scattered in the bushes. With my mother's cat. My grandmother wanted her ashes buried at sea, so they got the Navy to do it.

seemed so unnecessary to be SO upset over such a thing. I can't imagine that, even if my grandmother's spirit was still around, that she'd have cared much.

Not the most rational time, though, is it? Funerals are not about the dead people. They're about what the survivors have to do to make surviving easier.

The notion that people get more closure from an open casket was actually something promoted by the funeral industry. Not based on any psychological study.

My first two funerals were closed casket. I had a head-buzzing "why are we all here?" feeling until I saw both corpses. I would have hated for them to look just like cousin Marlon or uncle W lay down and napped. I wanted them to look different, dead, distorted so it hammered home how not coming back they were.

Worked like a charm.

With Marni's funeral I also had a gasping disbelief that lasted until the second shovel of dirt. And then it was all loss and concern for her family and other loved ones. I'm not saying that there's no moment if you don't shovel dirt into the grave or view the corpse--just that both those moments were almost an audible click as my mindset shifted settings.

I don't know if it's relevant, but I never imagined seeing my uncle or cousin anywhere after their funerals. Not even slightly. But every short brunette woman around my age seems to have a fleeting resemblance to Marni.

Y'all don't really have to put me on a pool table. But that was one of the most moving TV funerals I ever saw. The producer really died, so the grief was for real.

I wanted them to look different, dead, distorted so it hammered home how not coming back they were.

Yes. At the same time, my grandfather's body with makeup did look "better" than my sick grandfather, in a certain way, so we did all do the "he looks so good!" thing.

My cousin was cremated, and I hadn't seen him for close to a year before he died. It was very strange not to be able to see him one last time, because I still have moments where I forget that he's gone.

Of course, he chose cremation because he was an organ donor (he had been a recipient as well), and he helped a lot of people, for which I have a lot of respect.

Apropos of nothing, a nifty article by a college student who interned on the Colbert Report: [link]