What is something you have always wanted to know about the "behind the scenes" aspect of funerals and burials?

With my dad dying this year, I’m not so curious. There is something I want to know, but I won’t ask, right now.

@cak Totally understand! My sincerest condolences . . .

@Kayak8 thank you

I learned everything I’m likely to ever want to know by watching every single season of
“Six Feet Under”.

My partner in Human Anatomy, in my earlier college years, was a mortician. The things she did with our dead cat, without even wincing…I just felt it’s so emotionless.
I don’t want to know anything about it :(

@susanc I loved “Six Feet Under”

I wonder if a person requests to be fully waxed before they are buried would they do it?
teehee

I’ve always wondered what is going through the minds of the people who apply the makeup and do the hair. And then I wonder why some relative or friend always has to say, “she looks so lifelike,” when she does not look lifelike, and in fact how creepy it would be if she did look lifelike. And then I wonder why we cling to this morbid tradition of viewing the body anyway. She’s not in there. At the very least, it is unnecessary. At worst, it is upsetting, and not the way I want to remember her.

Someone told me recently that they shave people’s faces, so when they put the makeup on, you don’t see the little hairs so it’s ore “lifelike”. Creepy.

I thought about going to mortician’s school (or whatever they call it) for awhile. I am fascinated by the whole process, but somehow, I don’t think it would be a good career move for me. It’s sort of like the fact that I am a carnivore, and have hunted, trapped and fished in my life, and i don’t have a problem with eating meat but that working the kill floor in a slaughterhouse just isn’t the job for me.

I do know that I am putting in my will that I do NOT want to be buried in the usual way, i.e. pumped full of chemicals and put on display in an expensive wooden box and then stuffed into a concrete vault, nor do I wish to be cremated. I’d prefer a ‘green’ funeral.

Yep, my husband and I have agreed we both want green burials. Stick us in the ground, genuflect, say a prayer, plant a tree and move on. Depending on the state you live in, this may have to be done within a day or two following your death… the funeral homes have a very strong lobby in most states to ensure the laws make it difficult to avoid embalming.

@calvinette
Apparently there are only five states that absolutely mandate funeral director involvement in end of life plans. The other 45 are more open but the green funeral industry is not well regulated yet. There are cool bamboo and banana woven caskets that will degrade quickly and the tree thing is marvelous!