Am Ithe only one who thinks this is...
 

...just TOO creepy? I don't think I'd want to bring my child to such a funeral. It's hard enough to get her to go to bed NOW...can you imagine how such a funeral could traumatize a child? Even an older one?

I mean, for an adults-only gathering, yeah, this is kind of a cool idea. I don't see the closure, but if it works for you...*shrug*

Sidhe


Funeral Home Offers 'Beds' for Loved One

The Associated Press

BROOK PARK, Ohio - They take the concept of resting in peace seriously at the Humenik Funeral Chapel.

The chapel offers a bedroom-like setting — a bed and two end tables — instead of where the casket would usually be laid out.

Owner Joe Humenik opened his own funeral home in suburban Cleveland five years ago after spending 10 years in the business. He first tried out the "reposing bed" for someone very close to him — his mother.

He had observed at countless funerals how mourners awkwardly approach the casket, say their goodbyes then retreat to the seating area.

But when his mom was laid out in a reposing bed, people stood nearby throughout the visitation.

"It was a real phenomenon. People took chairs and were sitting around the bed. It was just amazing," he said.

Donna Smith, 55, attended a funeral two years ago in which her neighbor was laid out in a bed.

"It is like walking into their bedroom," Smith said. "It's just lovely. That's the way I want to go."

So what's next? Maybe laying out an individual in a favorite chair or recliner?

"If a family requested it, I would use a recliner," Humenik said.

I think washing, dressing, and laying the body out in your living room room for a few days would have been more traumatic, but apparently the kids got over it back in the day.... :eyebrow:

I don't see why this would be any more or less traumatic for a child than any other funeral that involved a body. I wouldn't take a young child to any kind of funeral with a corpse.

It's all about communication. If you talk to your kids about what's going on and why before you go, allowing them to ask questions in a non-threatening setting, then I'd bet a good amount of $$ they'll be over it before you are.

I'm getting cremated when I die...I'm not giving any motherfucker that couldn't be nice to me while I was alive the satisfaction of being nice to me when I'm dead. :)

The article Sidhe posted reminds me of this one from 2 weeks ago.

I think LabRat is right. Approached properly, most kids will deal just fine. And by talking to them, and thinking about how to explain it to them, it could actually force the parent into a thought process that will help them deal with it better too.

Well Syc, maybe if you were nicer to other folks now, that wouldn't be an issue. :cool:

Yeah, I was reminded of that, too. I pray my dad never sees that article.
:worried: That would be too freakin' creepy.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha. :lol2:

I went to a funeral as a field trip in first grade... don't know why we went, or what was discussed before or after... I just went. The issues I have do not stem from that event.

My 17th birthday party was in a funeral home... my friend's parents owned it, we decided to have a joint party and decided the funeral home was the ideal location. We weren't allowed in the embalming room... but everything else, including the casket showroom was fair game.

So, now that I've probably frightened all of you... I do think this bed thing is weird... along with taking pictures of people in caskets, which my family members are known to do and look through the albums.

After enough years of artificial insemination people will think sex is gross and fucked up (well if it's done right). Ahem

It's just what were used to. Ever been in an old Brooklyn brownstone and wonder what those little naves in the walls of the staircases are for? It so a casket can make the turn on the way out of the house. Funerals in homes were common. Death was common, hell it's popular! It's nationwide.

Waking the dead is important for the living. Labrat is right, the kids will get over it a lot faster than you.

What is creepy is that it is a simulacrum of home, rather than in a real home. What is ironic is that in trying to distance one's self from death, the comfort increases as the distance decreases.

OK, my bad. I just read that link.
WTF do I know?

There's plenty of room in my handbasket for everyone...

I know...it's so hard though b/c being an asshole is so much fun.

From my experience I'd say the kids do get over it very quickly. I have a friend who lost her 8 month old daughter and later lost her 12 yr old son, and I buried my daughter when she was 2 /12. The few kids who did attend Sheena's funeral (my girl) started playing when the service was barely over. which was good for my son who was only 5. They seemed to understand the finality of it and accept it wthout much question. The 12 yr old boy's funeral had tons of kids there - his whole baseball team in uniform and most of his classmates. Kids are so resilient.

OMG! Somebody call Ripley's! Scycamore and I agree on something! :lol: I'm going to be cremated as well, but only because I don't like the idea of rotting...yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm going to be dead, and won't know it, but..just...ew.

My ick factor concerning the article was the whole bed thing. I went to funerals as a young child, and it was no big deal. But that's because it was a closure thing, I think. A bed isn't closure. A coffin is. A bed/coffin is like you're sitting around waiting for the person to die...and I know far too many parents who've told their kids, in an effor to explain death, that the person--or the pet--is "sleeping." These same people subsequently had problems getting their children to go to bed because the kids thought that if they went to sleep that they wouldn't wake up either.

A bed is associated with sleeping and waking. A coffin isn't. If you're having an all-adult funeral, I don't suppose there's a problem. Adults and older children, I would assume, already understand the concept of death. But I've been to funerals attended by young children who don't yet understand the concept, and I think a bed would just confuse and/or scare them. They may indeed think that the person is just sleeping, and when that person doesn't wake up, and is put in the ground, that could be a real freak-out.


Sidhe