Quote of the day

Charles 4 Comments
Charles

 

When we walked into the funeral home, there was my mother laid out in a pretty blue dress with townspeople milling around, smiling, greeting me, speaking of old times. Happy talk.

My wife, ashen, asked, “Why is she wearing glasses?” 

Michael Pulley

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4 Comments

  1. Charles

    It just shows how divorced we are from the practical side of death these days; how little we know. There is great knowlege in the modern world but little wisdom I find.

    I lent the GFG to a friend recently – she recoiled and was truly shocked by the laying out and preserving processes described. But it is only forty years or so since people were laying out their dead in their front rooms. TV should be filling these gaps now surely? As our primary medium of information they have a huge privilege and responsibility which they only occasionally pay lip service to.

    But please make sure I have some high heels on when I go. It’ll be the first time I’ve been able to wear them!!

  2. Charles

    Oh, the process of separation!

    Any body-carer who had any sort of engagement would have a convo with the specs-bearing bereaved about how to manage them. Take a moment. Think about resourcing the dead. Think about what that means. Think about the meaning and value of grave goods. Review the possibilities: place them in the coffin, place them in the hands, and/or donate them to a charity that recycles specs for the less materially resourced, etc.

    Sigh.

  3. Charles

    Resourcing the dead. I like that. The Chinese do this to the max, of course – and all with paper.

    QG, I think you’ll find most of em leave the shoes off. You’ll need to make this very clear.

    More seriously, I’ve taken calls from a number of tv production companies this year. Almost all are interested to know what egregious scandals are erupting just now. They go right off the boil when I suggest that, in the absence of any such, they explore and demystify the everyday stuff of death, and inform people about what they’re too afraid to ask. No further interest, m’lud. Their responsibility is to their viewing figures, I guess. The media is being very, very slow to engage with death and deal with it thoughtfully and in proper depth. Such a shame, isn’t it?

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