Thursday, July 24, 2014

... an incoherent rant about loathing funeral homes and swollen eyes...



"Sadness is but a wall between two gardens."  ~ Kahlil Gibran

My mother hates this picture of me.
I hate funeral homes. I can’t stand the smell, the décor, the formal attire, the strategically placed tissues, the easels which hold portraits, the drapes, the guest books, the compartmentalized rooms, the air conditioning, the color palette, or (typically) those who greet families and friends.

There is a fine line between the macabre that brings me joy and actual death, especially when the loved one is young and good and should have lived. I have been crying; mourning the loss of an old friend. I actually think the Victorian mourning rituals make more sense than some of our contemporary ones. Dressing a certain way, excluding oneself from social events for a certain period of time... perfectly acceptable to me. This isn’t a post about unfairness of death or customs, this is a post about loathing funeral homes because on Sunday, I’ll be returning to one. And by returning, I’ll note that there are apparently so few funeral homes in the Greater Richmond area that I have dark memories about several… but then, I did bury more friends during my high school years than most bury in their youth… or in their adult lives. My fella hasn’t yet buried a friend. He has buried relatives. He worries about it sometimes. Now 40, burying a friend should be old hat but it never is. Death is sad for the living. We feel loss. There is a distinct difference between burying one’s relatives of a certain age as an adult and being a 15-year-old viewing the guy who used to sit behind you in Business class and poke you in the back citing Echo & The Bunnymen lyrics from one’s t-shirt. It is very different to hold your best friend’s hand, a friend you’ve known since before preschool, at this boy’s funeral and then within a few months bury said best friend who now has put a bullet through his own head even after promising you he would always hold your hand… but who can blame him. He wasn’t even 18.  Now repeat this scenario with different pronouns four more times with car accidents instead of suicide and this pretty much sums up my high school extracurricular activities.  I was thinking today that if we had had Facebook check-in’s, I would have been tagged in nearly a dozen funeral homes. I would have given them 0 stars in their ratings too… but mostly because I was a snarky teen. After high school, I thought it was over... but then my close friend who was more like a sister (since we attended each other's family vacations annually, and celebrated our birthdays together since they were only two weeks apart) drowned in a boating accident. We were not yet 30.

I never mind the standing out in an open cemetery rain or shine. It’s the funeral homes that feel artificial. I even read Caleb Wilde’s Confessions of a Funeral Director, but I do not like funeral homes.

A few years ago, a friend jokingly gave me Demeter’s fragrance, Funeral Home which “is a blend of classic white flowers: lilies, carnations, gladiolus, chrysanthemums with stems and leaves, with a hint of mahogany and oriental carpet”. On the website, the company explains, “This scent actually started out to be Flower Show… When a friend first smelled this one and exclaimed: ‘it smells like my Grandfather's funeral... call it Funeral Home!’, so we did.” I politely smiled and stashed it in my medicine cabinet only later re-gifting it to someone who absolutely adored the scent. To me, it reminded me of sadness. Not because my loved ones have passed, but because it truly did smell like a funeral home.

So, on Sunday, I will go to a funeral home for a memorial of a life snuffed too soon, and I will go through the motions. I think of the funeral home as that wall between the two gardens. Her life was beautiful, and her memory will be lived on in her babies and in those who loved her. In that, we will find beauty.  Everything else is the strange wall we build.

15 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear you've lost so many. That is so hard. I completely agree when you said Victorian mourning customs make more sense. I think so too.

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  2. I know what you mean, it's something those outside the Goth world don't always understand. how we accept death as part of life, a memento mori, how we celebrate the dead and allow ourselves to mourn fully, not have to hide it. But we do not cherish death itself, and every death of those we love is a loss to us. I realised how cruel our society's fear of death was when after losing a grandparent as a teen I was told to be happy they were over their suffering and in a better place. All I wanted to do was lock myself in a room and cry. I was supposed to help hand out cake at the wake. I just wanted to cry. It all seemed so artificial, how were we supposed to move on more quickly Victorian funeral customs definitely make sense, to be able to show you are in mourning, that the loss of a loved one really is a loss. I understand that.

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    1. Oh Laura, handing out cake? That's awful. I was grateful that the adults always left us alone except for one of my favorite teachers who gently came over and moved us away from our friend's casket. He had given himself a tattoo on his hand and the funeral home, most likely at the family's request, had covered it with makeup. We were trying to wipe it off and I suppose now were banging around like teens do. Mr. M. didn't say stop it. He just gently moved us to the seats. We trusted him and as an aside I remember he took off work one day to fly across country with to meet his friends and see Depeche Mode.

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  3. I'm so sorry for you. The feeling of unfairness is overwhelming when it comes to the loss of young ones. I'm not aquainted with the funeral home thing but the description sounds horrific. We often have the funeral in the church and after that, the burial outdoors. By that the church is a place for both happy and sad events.

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    1. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't realized how I prefer churches for funerals. My friend had her funeral in the family church and I sat in the same place I did when I was in her wedding (the row where the bridesmaids were seated) and around the same pew her family always sat in on Sundays when I would go to church with them. Of course it was still sad but it felt right. This was a place where she had been.

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  4. I am so sorry for your loss. I hate funeral homes too. My condolences to you.

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    1. Thanks. When I'm burying a friend it's like I'm burying them all over again.

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  5. Sigh ... As someone who buried my Pop in 2009 and then my Mom, my bestest pal in the world, my heart and soul go out to you. I, too, hate funeral homes. They make my heart pump ... They make me twitchy. Thank Goddess the funeral home guys at the one we had my Mom's wake were real, Staten Island/ Manhattan Italian boys. They knew that I didn't want the pomp of a funeral home. They dropped their professional personas for me. They played Mom Cat Stevens and her other music. They let us have a vodka toast, or three. They were good. So many hugs.

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    1. Okay well that's pretty awesome. It really does matter. I don't understand why everyone doesn't want *realness*. I want to say, "this sucks" and have the officiant respond, "yes, it does". I bet those Italian guys would have joined your family in a vodka toast.

      I guess to be fair, I haven't been responsible for setting up a funeral. Last night I called Dad and when he answered, I said "No funeral homes!" Not hi or how's it going but I immediately went into my rant. I said, "we'll have a pierogi party for you" but he said he's rise from the dead if they were cooked right. He'll have a service in the church anyway. My mother, on the other hand, would haunt me if her service was held in the Catholic Church ;p

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    2. Shhh ... They did join us in the toast. :) when we went to pick out her casket they were very cool. We told them that she was one of those old hippy types and that she was getting cremated. He immediately showed us a casket made out of recycled cardboard and wood that was covered in cotton damask. He said the whole thing went into the crematorium. The kicker: it was a gorgeous blue, my Mom's favorite color. He didn't try to sell us something we didn't need. When we started to look at the caskets for home furniture he joined us in joking around. He said the pillows they use are the most comfortable ever. Apparently that's what's on his bed. It was a relief to be able to joke around when I most needed it.

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    3. I love everything about this... except that your mom had to pass away. That is exactly what I want to experience when my loved ones pass.

      Dad jokes that he wants to be buried in a Studebaker but then also jokes that the Studebaker would be gone in hours since they rust so quickly.

      I know this is an emotional day for you. Thank you for sharing this with me.

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    4. It's actually helping me talk about it. I'm sorry for yet another loss ... They just don't get any easier, do they? Bah.

      Your Pop sounds awesome. A studebaker! Too funny!

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  6. I'm so sorry about your friend... and about all your other friends as well. I've been to more funerals in my life than weddings, although most of mine were for family members. I remember my 15-year-old cousin's funeral. It was horrible and sad, the place was full of her family and all her young friends with their parents. Everyone was crying; at least that was real, no one tried to hush them up. I was less than ten years older, so I could relate to how they were all feeling.

    The only funeral home I've been in that I actually liked was the place that did all the stuff for my grandmother when she died in March. They were very nice, very efficient, didn't try to push anything on us, and the person I spoke with the most was very down-to-earth and awesome. I'm now actually thinking about creating some type of career to help people have the funeral/memorial/burial they and their families really want, including having it at home, if that's their wish.

    I wish you luck on Sunday, and that something pleasant will happen this weekend to help ease you through it all.

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