Death Katie Byars

When Augustine`s mother was dying his brother said to her “as if to cheer her up, said something to the effect that he hoped she would be buried not in some foreign land but in her home country.” I am sure that he meant it to make her feel like she would recover and be able to travel home, but that got me thinking about death and how we treat the bodies of the deceased. Funeral parlors put chemicals into the bodies and pretty them up so the family can take one last look at them before buying an expensive wooden box to bury the body. It costs a lot of money to do all of this and when you walk up to the coffin to pay the last respects I at least am reminded that the body is only a shell. There is nothing but a picture of who that person was remaining. I think that funerals are not for the dead but for the ones who continue to live so that they can receive some kind of comfort. For Christians it should be a celebration of how they lived and that they are now in heaven with God. When I go however it may be I will let the ones who remain choose on how they deal with it with planning ahead of time. But I could really care less if I am buried near relatives or cremated because I will be in heaven.

I commented on Michael`s and Owen`s posts.