The funeral of Michael Jackson is a perfect example of this. The average person's funeral, though on a much smaller scale, is no different. This is a repost of an earlier editorial:
Those words are from the funeral home brochure.
Fact of the matter is, the funeral homes started this morbid tradition. The absolute cheapest "deal" on a funeral is $5000! That's a lot of money, two or three times a week or more for even the smallest funeral parlors! As long as they can keep packing people in and around coffins, and "the respects" crowd keeps coming, they keep making money. In order to keep making money, they'll keep leading you to believe that you are "paying your respects" for the family, even though it makes the families' grief all that much more to endure.
Did it ever make you feel better about your loved one's death to stand next to their body in the coffin while other people parade by? No. You do it so that the visitors can "pay their respects". It makes you feel worse than a quiet, private burial, followed by letters and cards of support from the ones that would have otherwise made you endure "their respects". Above all else, putting your deceased loved one in their final resting place should be as inexpensive as possible to ease the financial burden on your family. With the modern tradition of providing the body for everyone to see and pay their respects, an inexpensive burial is impossible.
For many people expressing their grief and pain, the benefit is less for the victim's family than themselves. Emotions of this sort hardly count as feelings at all; they're a form of participation. They're like screams at a pop concert, which don't signify love or even admiration but just exuberance at being part of the show.
- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill
No comments:
Post a Comment