Friday, March 16, 2007
Funeral Business
The funeral industry is often attacked for allegedly charging too much for services we don't need. Jessica Mittford's "The American Way of Death" seriously skewered the friendly neighborhood Digger O'Dell. (For the young pups out there, that's a reference to the undertaker on an old time radio sitcom.) Do we need embalming to make it look like our loved one is just sleeping in a beautiful enclosure? Do we need a drive-through viewing station so we can pay our respects and be on our way? How about a professionally produced audio visual presentation of the departed one's life story? Do we need a ten thousand dollar bill from the mortuary when it's all over? Well maybe we do. I can't seriously fault the mortician who says he's just giving us what we want. Ours is a materialistic society. We feel like we loved our departed one ten times more than the cheapskate who negotiated a thousand dollar cremation. Yes, prices are negotiable. But you must get past the guilt over haggling about the root of all evil at such an emotional time. Are there funeral people who will play on that guilt to extract more money from the grieving family? Of course. But the good ones won't.
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Clif,
ReplyDeleteThis is not directly related to your comment on materialism, but you did remind me of a presentation I saw from a local mortician this past semester about loss and grieving. (He had just lost his own wife of many years to cancer and talked a bit about hospice and losing her, and broke down while he did)
But he said, almost matter-of-factly, that it is "common for families to be self-centered" and postpone services for a loved one until the family has taken that planned cruise or jaunt to Disneyworld.
I don't know about anyone else, but I thought that was a jaw-dropper.
What will you do when you croak? I am now leaning toward "toast & toss." Or maybe, if I don't feel like polluting, "burn & urn."
Would rather spare people all the blather and not have a funeral. All two of my loved ones could go out, eat a steak and reminisce about what a crabby old buzzard I was, maybe.
I don't think I will write any more about death. Too personal, too emotional. I agree that many funeral customs are blather. But that very statement is a terrible stab in the heart to many who have a great need for traditional ways of dealing with death. I suspect that one of the hardest parts of the mortician's job is dealing with squabbling families who can't agree on what's good, right and appropriate.
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