One of the strangest customs the Western world (and some others) has is the wake/viewing. I've never really thought about it before these past couple of days, but it is really bizarre to stand in front of a deceased body and accept sympathies of people you know and don't know, especially when the thing lasts for four hours and you're irritated to the point where you kind of forget your grief for awhile.
The funeral business is tacky. Here we have the most difficult struggle in human existence - death - and we've got people trying to make money by selling memorial videos, whole room funerals, half rooms, charging extra for hair dye, cheesy organ music, driving the shiny white hearse...the whole thing would be a circus if it weren't so damn sad. Maybe they're trying to get your mind off the reason why you go to funerals. Maybe they think it's better if you don't have time to reflect and contemplate death. But they probably are just so desensitized to death that they don't remember that grieving is real.
When a relative dies, you think about these things. It reminds you that life is too short for petty arguments and malicious behavior towards others. At least, it should, if you have a soul and a moral conscience. I attended only the fourth funeral of my life today, and as sad as it was that my grandmother passed on, it was even sadder to think about what her son and daughter are going through, losing their last parent and becoming 50 year old orphans. She had a lengthy procession and was surrounded by so many friends and family that it made me realize what a great life she must have had to be loved like that. I hope when it's my time my family has to order the large room instead of the half room - I think that is all you can ask for in life.
Please, go out and celebrate life today. You don't get much of it.
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