HW 48-Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead.

When I interviewed my Mother I asked her numerous questions about the topic of death and how she personally dealt with the topic herself as well. What I decided to share my blog is as follows:
I asked my Mother how she personally deals and/or copes with losing a loved one in our family and she told me she just goes through a process of grieving the loved one that she lost and then I proceeded to ask her more questions on specific loved ones that we have both lost in our family but I chose not to include that part. Another question that I asked her was, why do you think people say the best things about people after they are dead? Where did the new found respect come from? Why do we talk so highly of people after they have passed? I asked questions like this. I got her response, she said that I feel its because that they just aren't around any more so they can't have people talking badly about the person who has died or else what would the scene at the funeral be like? Everyone would be out raged at the people talking badly about the deceased individual and therefore the funeral would be ruined. She also said something interesting that caught my ear and I quote, "What else is there to say then good words?" After the interview I thought about those words  and couldn't help but agree with what my mother was saying. Asking my brother this question the other day and he said some similar things my mother but I noticed that he said the say phrase that my Mother said. I guessed that that is the result of us being family, maybe thats the reason we could have the same mind set on the topic.

The second person I interviewed in my family was my brother. I had a very long conversation with my brother before this unit even started about the topic of death but this as well is something I would rather share in person rather then on my blog. But one question that I could show on this blog was why some people on different sides on my family have different types of funerals? Before I go on different sides of my family have funerals in churches and some have funerals in funeral parlors. There's just so many differences in the care of the dead in the different sides that of my family practices. So when I asked him this he responded in this way, It's all about religion he told me. He said that my specific people in my family just take their religion more to heart then others in our family. For example my Aunt Caren is a Jehovah's Witness and every year she send me a birthday card that say's "I'm glad you were born" , It never says Happy Birthday because in her religion she refuses to celebrate birthdays. So i guess I should be happy she even acknowledges my birthday at all. But to go on with what my brother was saying, its all about religion. People in my family just take things more to heart and include their religion in the ceremonies and some of them decide not to include religion. It all depends on the immediate family of the deceased individual, it's up to them not the entire family even though they are usually all in attendance. Although something that I noticed as me being in attendance of  all of my families funerals I have noticed that regardless of the funeral being at a parlor or a church the words of God and prayers are always spoken at some point in the speeches and conversations at these events as well as blessings at the end of the service. So I guess all of my families funerals are touched by religion in some way even if they aren't at a church.