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

They were probably admiring his new nose.

BWAH! They probably were, at that.

Oddly enough, a friend of mine who recently lost her father suddenly *just* stopped by to catch up. One of the things she brought up was how important the open casket was to her whole family (and her dad's girlfriends, but that's another story) even though he'd been dead a week at that point (while on vacation visiting his wife, again, another story.) They were a bit concerned about how the kids, all under 7, would react, but it turned out they took it as a chance to tell their grandpa stories and one had to be restrained from sitting on pop-pop's chest (because that's what he did with his grandpa, see?)

The other stuff we talked about had a lot to do with the other stories...

the idea of a grave sitting untended and unvisited for years on end is somehow awful.

This is an important point in some volunteer work I'm doing for the Congressional Cemetery where John Phillips Souza, Hoover, and a boat load of 18th century senators are buried

I like to visit pioneer cemetaries just to say hello to all those lonely old graves, long forgotten by family and friends.

We had a Revolutionary War cemetery in the town where I grew up, and one that was simply ... old in the town where we lived in Pennsylvania. Strangely enough, Beej, people did walk their dogs there, too. But no one was really tending it -- I suppose someone did at some point, because sometimes there were flags on veterans' graves -- it was usually pretty shaggy and unkempt.

I used to love walking through there, wondering about people who had loved more than a hundred years ago, and what their lives were like them. The saddest thing is that there are always so many children's graves, sometimes in one family.

In a recent committee meeting at Congressional, we learned that a much used path is actually the "Pauper's Walk" where literally thousands of people are buried without stones. (interestingly, there are 16,000 stones-which all have to be weed whacked at each mowing, but more than 60,000 people buried in the 33 acres, with more coming still) I wonder if the people who are bugged by the dogs would be as upset that random visitors walk on innumerable graves just getting around.

AmyLiz, it turns out that we are becoming a benchmark for other facilities. A cemetery in Malaysia got in touch recently to find out how we manage our symbiotic relationship between sanctuary and doglife. As the committee gets going, I'll be writing a manual to distribute...and possibly running training sessions.

I once did an art project where I printed up portions of The Spoon River Anthologies and used rubbings from old tombstones and made a collage of dried flowers. I think some memorials are really beautiful.

I've gone to funerals for old people where there were lots of people around joking and laughing and remembering the deceased in really nice ways. Been to an infants funeral which was tragic and horrible and uncomfortable the entire time. Open caskets don't bother me so much because I don't think of the dressed up/made up body as that person--just a representative that some others might get a little comfort from.

I'm usually fascinated by how people mourn and the riturals surrounding it. When I worked for a florist, I sometimes had to deliver funeral flowers to the local funeral homes. The casket sprays (man, those were HEAVY) always had to be taken in and placed on the caskets. I saw more dead people in that two years than I had ever seen before or since.

DH wants me to dress him up and take a memento mori photo of him and then he wants a viking funeral.

I just want to be cremated. But how the people I leave behind want to mourn is up to them. I don't care if they have a service or not. Whatever makes them feel better is what's best. As long as it's not too expensive.

When my maternal grandmother passed away, we had a wake after the service that was half family reunion, since a lot of the folks in attendance hadn't seen each other in years or decades. Lots of fondly-remembered stories and laughter. Unfortunately, our reverend took away the wrong impression of how relatively joyful the proceedings were, and his funeral service for my grandmother's sister a few months later was practically a stand-up comedy routine. Funny anecdotes might have been fine for a small gathering afterwards, but there were a lot of appalled people in that cemetery.

Huh. I just realized that we had a death in the family last week—an exceedingly elderly cousin of my grandmother's. I think I only met him once back when I was in school.

I was at a British estate some years ago, which has been converted into a conference/festival space in Devon, and was touring it in the off-season just to see what a British estate used to look like. We were wandering the gardens and turned a corner, and whoops! Under a pine tree was the old family plot. The oldest gravestones we could read were from 1745, but there were quite a few we couldn't read.

Do American churches do the get-buried-inside-the-church thing at all? I see it all over Europe (and really enjoy the dotty social history to be garnered when it's done in a small town), but I can't remember having seen it in the US. Did I just not notice, or is that Not Done in the US?

Oh no. Poor minister and poor beloved gathered who were appalled.

You just can't plan for life!

Dennis Miller did a speech at the Software Publisher's Association meeting in Montreal yonks ago. He joked about a particular award and was met by frosty silence.

Him: Hey, it's not like this is a memorial award.
Us: ...
Him: God! At least the guy didn't kill himself...
Us: ...
Him: Please tell me the guy's wife isn't here.
Her: ...

At that point, he looked like a balloon that had been harpooned. He slumped his shoulders, mumbled something about how nobody told him and wandered off the stage. I felt really bad for him. Of course, that was nearly 20 years ago...my feelings about him have changed.

I love cemeteries -- my family often goes for a walk in the fancy old one in Boston. When I was in the Bahamas, running away from the Tourist Attractions, I ran across an old colonial cemetery and it was really cool. The guy mowing the grass thought I was a little odd, though.

My grandmother had a viewing, which I thought was fairly horrific, but I wasn't close to her at all, so it wasn't personally upsetting.

My dad was cremated. We had a short service at the funeral home, played the Brandenburg Concertos, and I thought about punching the minister. But I didn't. My aunt & brother spoke, and probably someone else I've forgotten. After that I guess five of us went to the cemetary briefly, and then people came to our house to help eat the tons of food we'd accumulated.

If I could have skipped the whole thing, I would have. I understand the whole "it's for the survivors" thing in theory, but... for me, all of that was a series of hurdles I had to get over before I was finally allowed to be alone for a while, which was what I'd wanted the whole time.