Death

We talked a little bit about death today in my family processes class and I just had some thoughts I wanted to share.

First off, my uncle taught me an important lesson when his third sister died, he told me, "Funerals are just merely a way to mark time". It is true. We have birthday parties to celebrate a new year of living and New Years to bring in a new, exciting year. So truly, funerals just mark time. They show us that this person's mortal life has ended and that something new awaits them.
But funerals are also a way to give family and friends a sense of closure. We mourn with one another, we send gifts and cards of condolence. We celebrate the life that person lived. They are rituals. Rituals are events or chains of events full of emotion and symbols. They happen within your family and have significance to you. The things you do for Thanksgiving are rituals. It would be strange if you didn't do turkey or if your crazy uncle Tim and cousin Bob didn't pull the wish bone, you know weird stuff like that. But it has meaning to you and you would feel incomplete without them.
So funerals are rituals. That's my point. But thinking about it, and the way funerals are now has made me realize something about our culture and the way we have evolved. There used to be things called funeral parlors in every home. When a family member died, those who came to pay their respects would come to the home, where the viewing would take place. They wouldn't go to a funeral home, where the crazy curtains and strangely patterned rugs were. The family members would carefully dress the body themselves and it was a ritual. A way to grieve and to let that person go. Now we let the professionals do everything. We have turf at the cemetery and we hardly ever see the casket enter the ground. Why is this?

I commented in class (and I never comment in this class) that it is not only because we are afraid as human beings of death but that we are also afraid of emotion. We are afraid that if we are grieving or even if we aren't grieving the way others think we should, that we are strange. Emotion is a sign of weakness isn't it? If men cry, they're babies. If we think something in life is hard, and show it to others, we aren't superwoman and we can't handle things. WRONG. Emotion is human. It is beautiful and it is real. We experience emotions to taste life. The happy times and more importantly the bad times. "Men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25) but "there must needs be opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11). We are given the ability to feel differing emotions to help us learn and I am grateful for it.

So back to funerals (this is kind of a strange topic, isn't it?). Why aren't we allowed to see the casket buried? Is it because it makes us feel something? We let the professionals take care of things because we're afraid that it will hurt too much. Rather than letting us have a cathartic experience, we "bury" our own emotions. Hiding away what we are really feeling. Isn't this the case with everything?

Let yourself be emotional. Experience joy and experience pain. Let yourself grieve in the way YOU need to grieve. Don't feel bad if you aren't crying over something, but don't feel bad if you are. And especially if you have recently lost someone or experienced change in life, let yourself feel things. Do not hide it. This doesn't mean that you should become ungrateful and blame others. Those are emotions that have evolved. They are not pure and they are not justified. But instead, realize that you are human and you have a great power when you acknowledge the growth that can occur when you feel things.