My grandmother was buried yesterday

[rene moon]

She (Nana) and my grandfather (Tata) have a duel plot and her casket was placed on top of his :scared: So, yesterday I had no idea that they were going to lower the casket during the service. We didn't do that when Tata died but it was done for her.

I am sitting there, watching this casket get lowered and then I hear it hit Tata's---ugh. Then, we all had to throw roses down the hole. UGH.

I am traumatized, seriously. I didn't go to her wake, nor did I go to Tata's. I think they just so morbid and weird. The morning of Tata's burial, no one told me that there was one last viewing of him before they closed the casket. I walked into the room and there he was, laying there in his military uniform. I got really mad, turned around and walked outside.

For the several years, whenever I thought about him, all I could see was this image. It pissed me off to no end because we were so close. I can still see it sometimes.

It seems no one understands my feelings, like I am in the wrong somehow. Does anyone have similar tales or am I in the minority?

I hope you get the rest you desired, Nana O8)

[curse10]

1. I don't like going to open casket funerals

I don't want that to be my last memory. I also accidently saw my great-grandmother in her casket. That's always how I remember her now. :-(

I'm glad I never saw my grandfather. I only have the good memories.

[redqueen]

2. You're not in the wrong

People seem to expect us all to take these things the same way, and we just don't. I had the same thing happen at my uncles funeral a few months ago. They lowered the casket and I just had to go to the car... couldn't take it.

I'm sorry that image stayed with you. :(

Hope you're feeling better soon... :hug:

[rfranklin]

3. Open caskets are creepy...

but keep in mind that what's left is not the person you knew. I am not religious and have no idea about an afterlife. But the spirit of the person is so much more than the shell that's left when they die. Visualize the person you love and forget about the rituals.

[MoonAndSun]

4. rene moon, I am one person who does not go to viewings of

the dearly departed. I prefer to remember as they were, not as they look after their life force leaves their body.

One of my best friends died earlier this year, and out of all of her friends, I was the only one who did not go see her at the viewing, and almost all of them said they wished they had not seen her that way.

So you are not alone in your feelings about viewing the dead, especially loved ones.

[MrSandman]

5. I avoid wakes at all possible...

At my grandparents' funerals, I avoided the "viewing" as much as possible.

I remember the checker games, the card games, and the late nights of stories and spirits with my grandads and uncles.

It helps that I have several tangible mementos, such as the watch I am now wearing(I know Butch from Pulp Fiction).

Others have the same feelings. My sister and cousins and I went ballistic at what my grandad's second wife tried to slip into the casket which was to be laid beside my grandmother.

[politicat]

6. Agreed.

I'd never seen my great-grandmother, because I didn't make the funeral, it being 1000 miles and too much money away from my grad student's domicile... but last summer, when going through an album of photos of my nephew (very alive!) there's a picture of granny in her coffin!!!

ACK!!!

This is not Victoriana, this is not 1890, when death masks and such were common... this is 2002. WTF.

needless to say, I was shocked and horrified.

It did damage my memories of my grandmother.

(As it happens, however, I had no issues with helping my mother and the hospice nurse move my step-father's corpse onto the gurney after he died, and I have the family collection of death photos from pre-1930. Maybe it has to be someone I know, and has to be that horrid artificiality? :shrug: )

Pcat