There was a diary yesterday regarding the Funeral of Michael Jackson, and one thing that horrified the Diarist was the fact that MSNBC was devoting their whole programming day to the service. Not my thing either, I didn't bother with CNN at all yesterday because of it. I haz the power over what channels appear on the little box. We all do, and unless one is tied to a chair with their eyelids propped open, its pointless to complain about the sensational coverage. Just turn it off. Really.
But the thing that made me shake my head was the diarists disgust? (Egads!) That the casket of MJ was going to be on the stage. The diarist seemed convinced it was simply an act of tackiness and promotion by the family. No one does this!
Perhaps it was because of the venue,Staples Center? It was supposed to be a show instead of a remembrance?
A venue that had to be large enough to contain the family and friends and people that had worked with MJ, fans and the TV cameras.
Yesterday, for just that one day, Staples Center was a memorial chapel of sorts.
And the family wanted their traditions to be upheld.
A couple commenters pointed out that this is the way things are done in many communities. Some services are even open casket.
I myself, am in my 40's and have only been to a handful of funerals, mostly relatives.
One funeral I attended was open casket. I just recall the elderly lady who was being honoured as being very frail in life, and more like a painted doll in the casket. She was wearing a wide brimmed hat, and a frilly dress that had probably sat in the back of her closet except for weddings and such.
I admit to being a tad creeped out, but in later years I just shrug and understand it was my own conditioning that made me feel that way.
This squeamishness is quite prevalent in our society I have found.
Funeral homes are bland places in my mind, generic and tasteful. Unless the service is made memorable by the family and friends, one funeral is much the same as another.
My Granny and Grandpa both had catholic services, in a church they never really attended and the Priest didn't know them, and so he had nadda to say on any personal level about them.
But we all followed Grannies edicts.
At Grandpas funeral, one of my Aunt's whispered to me that if Grandpa could, he would stand up and leave. He abhorred the pomp and circumstance. She said the inscence would have made him loony.
A little ditty Grandpa used to sing well out of Grannies earshot:
"Jesus loves me this I know, and into the boxcar I must go".
Grannies funeral brought out the giggles of all of us in the front pew. Dark humour? A Family speciality.
Backtrack a bit: Granny had a stand up freezer which she thought was the best thing since sliced bread. She made everyone lug it through a few moves as she had to downsize her living accommodations a few times. From a massive house, to a condo, to an apartment, to a smaller apartment. Someone observed once that she may ask to be buried in the frigging thing, she never wanted to give it up.
At the funeral, the realization that Grannies casket was roughly the same size as the freezer (The woman was 4'6) made me giggle a bit. Mum asked in a whisper "what was funny?"
The admission. The response from the rest of the family in the pew. Grannies dream of a "respectable" Catholic funeral was only saved by the fact that everyone behind us thought we were all crying.
And we were...Just not for the reasons they assumed.
This may sound cold, but for me that was the best part of the service that day, the family felt some sort of camaraderie for once.
Even in shame. Some people simply would not see how what happened was in fact entirely normal, just a different manifestation.
Then there were gatherings after both services, very staid functions. Coffee and sandwiches, and tiny little cakes and date bars on plates.
When a loved one passes on, Funeral homes gather the body after it is released from the hospital, or it is delivered there from other places. It is prepared by strangers, makeup is applied. The casket is purchased there, and a headstone is ordered from books of samples. The deceased persons best outfit is brought in. Closed casket or not, they are supposed to look good when they are lowered into the ground.
The funeral is held in one of the tastefully decorated "chapels" and the family can make it as impersonal or personal as they desire.
The body is then taken by hearse to the final destination as it were, where a machine lowers it into the ground.
One stop shopping for all your funerary needs. This keeps it far from normal everyday life, and much more sanitized than days past.
It wasn't always this way. The closest relatives prepared the body. The body was placed on the dining room table for the wake, while relatives and friends proceeded to celebrate the life of that person. With booze or without. A social gathering with the intent of remembering that person.
The body was taken to the church for the service, and then pallbearers carried it out to the graveyard, or a hearse delivered it to another cemetery.
Some people even had private graveyards on their own properties, and generations were buried there before this practise was virtually stopped.
Even Headstones are mostly sanitized and impersonalized, name, date of birth and death, maybe a bit of scripture or the persons occupation is listed.
Found in a book of Epitaphs published in 1896:
Here lies the body of Susan Lowder
Who burst while drinking a Sedlit powder.
Called from this world to her heavenly rest
She should have waited till it effervesced.
That one has been said to be a fake, but as the evidence shows, perhaps not.
In parts of the US, there was a custom known as "sitting up with the dead".
The late Barney Seber had a theory as to how the practice of sitting up with the dead began. He said that in the days before funeral homes came into existence, one of the reasons people sat with a deceased person was to keep rodents away. And after doing research for this story, I’ve come to the conclusion that this could very well be true.
During the 1920's and 30's, in the community of Highland Mountain in Overton County, certain individuals could be called on to do services for their neighbors free of charge. If the men in that area needed a hair cut, they knew exactly whose door to knock on for that service. If someone had a toothache and needed a tooth pulled, there was a specific person who did that also. When a loved one passed away, there were two couples who worked together to construct and dress a casket for the funeral service. Those people were W.E. Ledbetter and wife Florence Stout Ledbetter, and Shirley Walker and wife Auda Ledbetter Walker. W.E. Ledbetter and Auda Ledbetter Walker were brother and sister. The men did the building of a casket, and the job of lining and dressing the inside as well as the outside of the casket was done by the women. The material used for the building of a casket, the labor involved, including the sewing, the batting and fabric used, was not something the family of the deceased person paid for. It was all done without any expectation of money exchanging hands. Neighbors helping neighbors was a way of life then.
There are still many other carryovers in other places.
My Husband is from Europe. We were there for a few months, and while looking through family pictures one evening in his sisters house, I picked up one of those little mini photo albums that photo developer places used to give out. Whoa!
Dead guy in a casket.
The tradition is to get a photo of the deceased all laid out in the casket and to give it to loved ones as a final remembrance or to those that could not make the service.
Some people pose in one last picture with the dearly departed. This still happens in the older generations.
Last but not least in this very abbreviated look at funerary practises is the Victorian Death portraits.
Death was an everyday normal occurrence in those days. Sadly, many children passed before their first birthdays, women died in childbirth. Diseases that are now quite curable...Etc.
Deaths also occurred at home, not in a sterile hospital.
Photographs were expensive and not done while the person was living often enough. Some wanted a memento to remember the dearly deceased. I won't post any photos, click if you feel the need. Some people find them poignant. I am not much for looking at them, although the reasoning behind them makes perfect sense to me.
The death portrait, or postmortem photography, or the mourning portrait were typically photos or paintings of the deceased painted as a reminder to the living. When I first learned of the mourning portrait I was rummaging through a box of my Great Grandparent’s old belongings. The first thing I found was a lock of blonde hair in a small manila envelope, on it was the name of a little girl, my great aunt, age 5. My first reaction was that of wonder. Here is a lock of hair from my Great Aunt! That feeling instantly switched to confusion when I realized I had never even heard of this little girl. I continued to flip through the piles of papers and photos. The next thing I found was an old newspaper clipping. The clipping was on the mourning of my Great Grandparents who had lost their 5 year old daughter to Diphtheria.
Instantly that feeling of amazement that I had when I found the clipping of hair turned to dread. I went deeper into the pile of papers and that is where I found a photo of my Great Aunt. She was a beautiful little girl. The picture was posed with her asleep. At the time I did not know she was dead. I closed up the box of photos and papers and have not looked since.
Hair jewellery was also quite popular. This is a fascinating look at Victorian funeral practises, sorry its a PDF. Mourning Booklet with Spiritualism.
Nowadays, photos of the deceased, but in life are placed all over the chapel or room where there is a wake. It is unusual for a family not to have lots of pictures so that they can share memories.
Yesterday's televised funeral was by all the accounts I have seen, very tasteful and reserved. It was only for his family, friends and fans. I highly doubt he cares now.
And that is the common thread here. Funerals are for the survivors, to make them feel better in a time of grief. They are based on the traditions of that community. If MJ's family wanted the casket there, that is not at all unusual. It is just the way different folks do things.
And I kind of like to think granny may have gotten the humour behind the freezer comment. She was a devilish old woman, who I loved with all my heart.