Funerals are for the living

I think funerals are very important because they serve as a memorial to a life well spent and a healing center for the bereaved.Also that, people react to loss a different way and undergo different processes to celebrate a loved one life. Therefore, I think there is no wrong way to have a funeral as long it has a sense of community and aligns with the dead person.A belief that Caitlin Doughty cosigns in her book “From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death’’ where she looks at different burial rituals in honor of the dead. Each culture heavily involves the dead family members in the funeral process; whether is them watching their loved ones burn on an open pyre or taking their remains away with chopsticks. We are taking them care of them in their death to thank them for their love when they were alive and also to prepare them for the next stage of their life. Which I think is crucial for the healing process because it gives us the feeling that we did the best of our loved ones.I also think that when we care for the death in sure an intimate manner with other we reinforce our memories of the deceased and their importance in our lives. The main message of this book is that death is a reality in which people have to come terms with in their own unique way. Death is sure a life changing event that the last thing the bereaved family needs is a judgement call from outsiders.

Comments

  1. HarrisonJanuary 27, 2019 at 10:55 AM

    With lots of different cultures doing funerals differently, most of them seem to have something in common and that is the fact that they seem to interact with their dead more than us in the United States. I think that can pose the question that maybe we are pushing away death still and not as accepting of it. Other counties and cultures are more accepting of death than us. They all seem to have ways of interacting with the dead, whether it is having family members pick up the skull fragments and put them in a urn or watching them burn, they are more closely involved.

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  2. Ashley SarkodeeJanuary 30, 2019 at 6:25 PM

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  3. Ashley SarkodeeJanuary 30, 2019 at 6:49 PM

    The main purpose of Caitlin Doughty writing "From to Here to Eternity" was to convince us to become more involved and intimate with death. For example, in Indonesia the children sleep with their dead loved ones. This interaction influences adolescents how to interact with death. It also allows the the family to reconnect with the dead.The grieving process is quite grueling on the body mentally and physically. Intimacy with death helps with the grieving process. Being intimate with death removes the fear of death.

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  4. Macey BuchananFebruary 14, 2019 at 10:26 AM

    Your blog post brought up a unique way to look upon funerals. We tend to focus on the perspective that funerals are for the dead by the way we plan it and how they would prefer their burial. When you begin to speak about how there is really no wrong way to get over death other than everyone unique way is in my opinion true. I believe that since everyone is truly different and their cultures are so different that it affects how everyone grieves.

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