Aside #10: It appears that death takes 10 years off your life! Margaret, who was born in 1913, was listed as 82 years old in the obituary which was published in the local paper.The first new experience of the day was the viewing. Neither boy had ever seen a dead person up close before. Of course, an embalmed body in a funeral home viewing is quite a bit different from some of the other options. I prepared them by saying that it would look like she was sleeping — except that she wouldn't be drooling. :-)
The second lesson, which really wasn't expected, was to see how people used to deal with funeral processions (and apparently still do in small towns). As we followed the hearse to the cemetery we were preceded by a police car and ignored stop signs and traffic lights (we passed through two of the town's three lights). Other traffic on the street (i.e. going the opposite direction) even stopped and waited until we were all past! In Dallas people get upset when the traffic lights switch to allow a fire truck to zoom by on the way to an emergency! (Heck, any red light makes the majority of big city drivers furious.)
Then, of course there were lots of little things to observe, and I won't bore you further with their details. It was a good experience and there were many good little discussions. I'm glad that my children were able to experience death in such a low stress way and to see how a family handles it.
Now if I can only get them stop running with scissors ...
1 comment:
I remember going to an uncle's funeral in rural Mississippi and saw some of the same things:
1- in that part of the country, it can be a LONG distance from funeral home to gravesite;
2- I was in one of the lead cars, and could see the line of others as far as the eye could see (all with lights on, but the funeral home ran out of the "magnetic funeral flags" after the first few dozen);
3- indeed, cars were stopped in the opposite direction. some got out of their cars and had their hand atop their chest (ala a Pledge of Allegiance) although odds were high they had no idea who was being buried.
Burial was at a small cemetery atop a small hill (much of that area is flat) and when I returned to the gravesite, years later, it didn't look the same (I had trouble finding it).
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