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Puttng the "Fun" Back In Funeral |
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i'll visit
then we
will
Our office staff is filled with terrible, insensitive people. You see, our computer guy just suffered a sad loss: his mother died. Of course this sucks. Despite the fact that he is a condescending prick, I feel for the guy, you know? It must be excruciatingly painful to lose a parent; thank god I don’t have any first hand experience with that yet. The funeral is this morning and all of our high honchos (Ralph, Candy and Dave) are at the funeral. ACG and his wife, Maritza, have not been in all week. This leaves myself and Joan as the most senior members of the remaining staff and therefore, “in charge” of everyone. Joan and I decided that the responsible thing to do, befitting the sad occasion, was to send a couple of people out for bagels and iced mochas and have a breakfast party. So our receptionist and billing clerk collected money and orders, took off for half an hour, and brought back the goodies. We all stood around talking, eating and drinking, generally exploiting the fact that someone died today. Actually, we were celebrating the lack of authority figures. We are never, ever left unsupervised; you’d think this was a Montessori pre-school, except we don’t get nap time or crayons. So this morning was a whole lot of fun. Some shameless person even went so far as to toast the dead person, thanking them for dying at such an opportune time. And it wasn’t even me.
My grandfather died fifteen years ago. (For a less flip meditation on his death, see this entry.) I realized something strange about his death just a few weeks ago. Here’s the background. Charlotte‘s maternal grandmother died last month and she went to San Diego for the funeral. Charlotte’s brother, who is married to Danielle’s mom, also went. Danielle reported back to me that Hoss (Charlotte’s mom’s boyfriend, in case you are following this at all) was taking pictures at the funeral. Danielle was appalled at the tackiness of taking pictures at a funeral. I guess as the wife of a serviceman, being buried in a military cemetery, the deceased received a military funeral. I can kind of understand wanting to take pictures of a military funeral, as long as no pictures of the bereaved were taken. It’s also possible that Charlotte’s mom requested the pictures, and I think the grieving daughter should be allowed to deal with it in any way she sees fit. Suddenly, I remembered that when my grandfather died, my mother took pictures. I don’t mean that she took pictures of the funeral—she actually took pictures of my grandfather’s dead body in the casket. Then she showed them to me—I distinctly remember being shown these pictures of my grandfather’s corpse, looking waxen and serene. I hadn’t thought about this in fifteen years and suddenly, for the first time in my life, it struck me as a little odd that my mother had done this. I had been given the choice of going to the funeral or not, and had decided not to go. Was she trying to make sure it sunk in that Grandpa was dead? Did I ask to see them? And what ever happened to those pictures, I wonder. Did she put them in a photo album somewhere? I have a vague recollection that she might have. So I guess
my question is this: do normal people take pictures of corpses? Or
is it just my mother?
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I will not open my shipment from Amazon. I will not open my shipment from Amazon. I will not....  pale pinkJournal Quote of the Day: “except to tell you that right now, willard scott is in my shower.Random Tidbit: Happy birthday to Bruce!Work Days Left: 60Days Left Including Weekends and Cruises: 100 |
