*Sniff!* The enbalmer did a wonderful job... So lifelike...

[BikeWriter]

Poll question: *Sniff!* The enbalmer did a wonderful job... So lifelike...

Have you ever said or heard this? Inquiring minds want to know!

[WCGreen]

1. I felt like saying if it was life like

Why isn;t he dancing

[BikeWriter]

4. ROFL! I know what you mean!

[TammyLittlenut]

2. Never even thought it!

They made my grandmother look ridiculous with this old lady hairdo that she never would have worn. Irritating.

[BikeWriter]

5. Oh, I've seen some awful things like that, too!

[mike_c]

3. once in an earlier incarnation of my misspent youth...

...I was an undertaker's apprentice. We said stuff like that all the time, along with "god I hope the wax doesn't melt under the lights," "you'd think that was a real nose if you didn't know where to look," and my personal favorite, "slip in there and loosen the screw in his navel to let some gas out before the guests mourners arrive...."

[Wickerman]

6. ugh

thanks for sharing. Never had given it much thought before... :scared:

[mike_c]

8. take it from me-- cremation is the way to go....

Although IIRC some states (many? all?) require embalming prior to cremation, buying a casket, and so on. The funeral lobby is pretty powerful. Or was. My experience was 30 years ago.

[BikeWriter]

7. Aww shit, professional humor is the worst! One of my Friends...

was killed in a wreck on the way to a fire. Another guy who knew him actually told his Daughter when he, uh, plugged up his rearend he half expected him to sit up. His Daughter, being a Nurse, told me all about it!

[CBHagman]

9. I'll Take Careers to Avoid for 200, please, Alex.

I'd heard some of the things that could go wrong at the funeral home (e.g., having services for two deceased people with the same last name and then sending the wrong coffin to the cemetery). The more I hear, the more I'm glad this is not part of my daily life. I know someone has to do it, but eeeeeek...

[BikeWriter]

12. Yep, it does seem like a bad career!

[johnnie]

10. I never said "So lifelike"

But they did put my one friends head back together pretty well after he shot himself at a party. His mother wanted an open casket to shock some of us youngsters straight.
Another friend of mine did the same thing and they had an open casket, but I didn't walk up to it.

[BikeWriter]

14. Dayum, I'm sorry you had such disturbed friends!

[johnnie]

21. The first one I'm not quite sure what happened or why he did it.

The second one was a bit disturbed. Him and his wife were separated for a little while and he ended up calling her on the phone and did it while on the phone. He sounded fine when I talked ot him that same evening. Who knows what people are thinking?

[BikeWriter]

42. Divorce can kill. I've been close to that myself.

[Historic NY]

11. I usually hear oh he looked so good.......

the thing that comes to mind as a reply is, if he looks so good why the hell is he in a casket. Is that suppose to imply he looks better dead than alive. :shrug:

[BikeWriter]

19. No shit!

[LeftyMom]

13. Open casket funerals are the weirdest thing ever

I don't care if I'm buried, cremated or sent to sea on a flaming boat viking style, but if somebody sets my body up for some grusome creep show I promise to haunt them.

[BikeWriter]

44. LOL! I hear you. I probably should add that to my will.

[WCGreen]

15. I just thought of something.....

If you are sniffing, doesn't that mean the embalmer didn't do a good job....

Just sayin'

[tibbir]

16. I've gone to 2 open casket services

I was 9 when my grandfather died and my mother led me up to his casket at the wake. She was the one who said he looked just like he was sleeping. He did not. He looked just like he was dead.

When my grandmother died I refused to go view her in her casket, which really pissed my aunt off. The people who hung around later all went on about her looking so good.

When my ex-husband died last December my 20 year old son was asked if he wanted to view his dad's body. We both immediately declined. No way man.

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

17. I have yet to see work that justifies this remark

then again, I've not been to very many funereals.

[texas1928]

18. The only time I heard that...

They were having to wrestle them to stay in the coffin.

[In_The_Wind]

20. yes

but they were wrong

[Chicken Girl]

22. Blech! Emblaming is a disgusting practice.

At my grandma's wake and funeral, they had her in a slightly nicer dress and slightly nicer hair than she would have worn, that was okay....

But what they did to her FACE!! They stretched her mouth out in this really stern old-lady frown that my grandma would NEVER have produced when she was alive.

When I die I'm going to do the humane thing for everybody: I'm going to be harvested for parts and then cremated.

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. It's the only ethical option, organ donating and cremating

This fascination with keeping the bodies going, and embalming, and all the bullshit money on bullshit caskets, and now so many cemetaries require metal vaults for the caskets - what the fuck?! We're supposed to bury people so that a) they don't stink up the place and cause disease, and b) so their body can be returned to the earth from which it was made, and keep the cycle of life going.

I would love to go around to all casket burial funerals and scream "Earth hater! Unethical!! Stop caving in to the bullshit "if you loved your love on you would do this" from the funeral industry!!! Fuckers!!!!"

Nope, organ harvest, cremation, and throw my ashes to Pele and to the Pacific.

[NNadir]

30. Personally, I prefer excarnation.

You take me to the top of a hill and unceremoniously dump me. Buzzards, ants, flies, rats, dung beetles and coyotes eat me. A year later you come back for the bones, grind 'em up and put 'em on the soil around the roses.

It works for me.

[Rabrrrrrr]

46. That really is the best option, and the one I would prefer

That way, the body truly goes back to the earth.

Sadly, I can't think of any place that would allow it.

Though there are a few places now that allow body burial without a casket and without embalming - I saw one place in SC or NC, someone had a few hundred acres of woodland, and they've turned it into a cemetary. Bodies can be buried sans any crap, a cross or whatever marker can be set up, and the body will then actually have a chance to decompose and go back to the earth like it's fucking supposed to.

It is time to put an end to this culture that fears death!!

Death is part of life. Embrace it, people! And get a fucking clue. (not you, NNadir - I'm talking to the "yous" who don't have a fucking clue about it yet).

Oh, and screw Catholic doctrine that says the body can't be cremated. Assholes.

[Bouncy Ball]

40. Yep, I'm right there with ya.

Organ donation (use as much as you can!!!) and then cremation and please don't keep me in a jar on the mantlepiece.

In fact, at any memorial service, I want there to be a big bowl of my ashes with little ziplock baggies and little plastic spoons and a sign that reads "Take a bit of ________ on your next vacation and sprinkle her around! She always wanted to travel!"

But I found out that state laws forbid a little passing out the ashes situation.

I thought it was a cool idea. :-(

[NNadir]

23. I complemented my mother's mortician on his work.

He managed to make my mother look merely dead.

It was a huge improvement over the way she looked in her last hours.

The most horrible visions I still have of my mother is not of her being dead; the most horrible visions are the visions of her dying. If she had been a dog, we would have put her to sleep.

[Saphire]

35. I'm sorry to hear that. It sounds exactly the way I felt when my mom

died. She looked so bad, we had deceided to have a closed casket, but actually, she looked good enough to have it open. It was the way both mom and dad wanted to have their funerals, although it only convinced me to be creamated. And yes, their last moments are the most haunting memories, aren't they.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

24. I live in Upstate New York

People here are crazy deer hunters.

So yes?

on edit: didn't realize we were talking about funerals/humans! LOL

[Rhiannon12866]

25. I said it while visiting Lenin's Tomb!

They really did an excellent job, especially since he's been lying there since 1924!:wow:

[NNadir]

31. I hear that every decade or so up to the 1990's he used to break into song

He'd sing: "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to...

You would cry too if it happened to you."

[Rhiannon12866]

33. Rumor is that he was poisoned, probably by Stalin

And that Stalin may have been, as well, possibly by Khrushchev. As for the latter, his final resting place is one of dishonor, in a remote cemetery, among nuns.:shrug:

As for Lenin, he's re-embalmed every ten years. like clockwork. And the method is a well-kept secret, passed from father to son.:eyes:

[SeanQuinn]

26. Not heard it..yet. nt

[yellowdogintexas]

28. being blessed (?) with a grandmother who had to go to every

"viewing" of everyone she ever knew, and if she didn't get to go ,the first thing she wanted to know was "did you see the body". Now factor in that she lived to be 102 and outlived practically everybody she knew except her grandchildren, and that is one long string of body visitations.

I just hate it. We closed the casket for our mother. I am going to order cremation, and I am already an organ donor.

enough said.

[bigwillq]

29. My Nonni says that

at every wake/funeral she goes to. It cracks me up.

[kevinam]

32. Yes, I have said it before...well sorta...

Back in May, my Dad passed away from a 3+ year battle with colon cancer. He lay in the hospital for a couple of days before he passed. Seeing him in the hospital was a horrible horrible thing. He looked 20 years older. His skin was drawn and yellowish. He was gasping for every breath. His jaw was just hanging slack to the side. Really awful stuff. It was obviously a very tough time. In the funeral home, I didn't say he looked 'so lifelike', but I did remark that he looked 'at peace' which was more in comparison to how he looked in the hospital. I hope this poll wasn't to ridicule people that are grieving. Saying 'the perfect thing' isn't the most important thing for them.

Kevin.

[greatauntoftriplets]

34. My reaction always is....

but they look dead....

:shrug:

[undeterred]

36. When I was eight I went to my aunt's wake

She weighed around 60lbs after dying from colon cancer. Her corpse was heavily made up, and someone said "She looks as beautiful as the day she was married"... which kinda freaked me out.

[shrike]

37. How 'bout the people who take pictures of the deceased

in his/her casket? I've got an uncle who insists on doing this. My husband and I have promised each other that it will be closed casket on both sides -- NOBODY is taking pictures of our dead bodies. Or giving copies to our loved ones. Some relative who shall remain nameless sent me a picture of Dad in his casket.

[undeterred]

38. My sister took pictures of our father to send to relatives

who could not attend the wake/funeral because they lived so far away and were unable to travel. They asked her to do it, and they appreciated it. I think it helps some people to accept that the person is really gone.

[kevinam]

41. eh...

I agree that it is a little weird, but that is a tough time for people. When you know it is going to be the last time you 'see' someone, odd thoughts go through your mind. In May, my father passed away, and I had weird thoughts like that. You can criticize me, that is fine, but I am just being real. Yea, I have plenty of pictures and memories of him, but the oddity of 'seeing' him for the last time ever does that to a person. Actually, I kinda even joked about it with my Mom. In general, people take 'good bye' pictures, and that is just an extension of it. I do think it is odd, but I do understand it.

Kevin.

[u4ic]

39. I have an aunt

who likes to discuss how good/bad they fix the deceased up. She was very happy with the way my mother looked.

She's also the one who takes photos at every family funeral.

[Wapsie B]

43. I know my sister's heard it many times.

Running a funeral home you'll hear that on occasion.

[Dukkha]

45. my girlfriend said that to me once

except we weren't at a funeral :P