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Thinking About the End Game
In a traditional “viewing,” a largely Southern custom these days, the 
family of the deceased rents a room, often within a church, and then invites the relatives and friends of the deceased to socialize and, if they wish, say a few words to the embalmed corpse.
I know, I know, it seems a little weird and macabre, but many of our funeral customs are a little weird and macabre.
At the few viewings I attended, I would pour a cup of coffee and talk to old friends and family… but my mind was always on the corpse lying in an open casket off to the side. Now disconnected from the living, formaldehyde in his veins, the corpse seemed a part of another world, a world of utter stillness and quietude in contrast to the murmurs and movement in the rest of the viewing room.
At some point, I would excuse myself from the little group I was visiting with, walk over to the casket, and look down at the face of death. The sight was always unsettling and profound. I always came away from these viewings in a reflective mood.
It might be said that death is a blessing. Life is precious only because death, its companion but mirror opposite, waits for us down the road apiece.
I’ve long been fascinated by death. In fact, when I was a young man, a colleague and I put together a rhetoric/reader for college composition classes, one chapter of which was on the controversy, triggered by Jessica Mitford, on the excesses of the American way of death.
And through the years (I’m now 80) I keep returning to the subject. I just think it’s weird, really weird, that my consciousness will, not too long from now (according to actuary tables, I have seven more years), disappear from the universe forever. As a hippy might say, “Like wow, man, that’s heavy!”
I’ve always thought that one ought to give his end days serious and unblinkered consideration.
One matter that concerns most old people is becoming a burden on loved ones, or a “driv’ler and a show.” (Samuel Johnson’s comment on Jonathan Swift’s humiliating last days after his stroke).
Unfortunately, science now has the tools to keep us alive long past our expiration dates, living an empty and shriveled existence in hospice care, sometimes with tubes in our noses, machines to breath for us, and piling up medical bills. And there we are, consuming resources that should go to the living. The dying, I believe, have an obligation to the living. That’s why I have a copy of Derek Humphry’s Final Exit, a guidebook for those who want to end life on their own terms.
But even with the best of intentions, you may still end up in that dreadful state without knowing it, probably because the decline of your mental facilities was so gradual that you pass the point of no return without really knowing it. Then your brain no longer functions well enough to make a rational decision. Or perhaps you are debilitated so badly that you lack the ability to end your life.
Or you might discover that, from a distance, it was easy to say that you would put an end to life when the time was right, but then as the end approaches, you cling to life like a drowning swimmer clings to a floating log. On his deathbed, Goethe cried out, “Mehr Licht! Mehr Licht!” (More light!)
Keeping all this in mind, I believe, is better than avoiding thinking about it. Forethought is forearmed.
I’ve asked my daughter, a funeral director, to cremate me. (She’s promised to wait until I’m dead.) I have this little walnut box I made a while back for my ashes, right next to two fancy boxes I had previously made that contain my mom and dad’s ashes. Marie will keep care of us all for a while, and then she will join us on the fireplace mantle. Four neat little boxes of the Forresters. We’ll all be sittin’ in the catbird seat.
Postscript: Bob the dog will probably outlive Marie and me, so he will be left behind. I know he’s going to miss us dreadfully. I will make sure he’s cared for.
Published in General
Ralphie, as I grow old, I find myself repeating some of my dad’s expressions. Here are a few that have appeared out of nowhere, twenty-five years after my dad died.
“Not worth a hill of beans.”
“That guy is such a sissy that he probably squats to pee.” (I reserve that one for special occasions.)
“Now that’s something a little different.”
And probably more that I can’t come up with right now.
And people tell me that the older I get, the more I look like my dad.
Jim, you make a strong point. On odd days of the week, I agree with you completely.
My wife and I recently made a Living Trust. The attorney suggested and we agreed that a specific sum be paid over to anyone accepting the pet. That makes it so that taking the pet is not a financial burden whatever else may be involved.
This “viewing” is part of the culture of my upbringing, too, in the Rocky Mountain West (aka Mormon-land). It is kind of soothing, to me. Some of my earliest memories are from this gathering before the funeral. As little kids, we knew we were supposed to be somewhat calm, and you could go in and out of the room, as needed. And no one made me go over and look in the coffin, ever. But, we were all very strong in our beliefs about Christ’s Resurrection, and the eternal nature of our souls, so death was just another phase of The Plan. (I still have this testimony.)
Some funerals were a situation where that belief was the only thing that got us through: a young father of three accidentally shot while elk hunting; a 16 year old boy killed in a motorcycle accident; my brother’s only little son, born too early to survive; my sister’s 19 year son after two years of battling cancer; my uncle, the jet pilot (who’d just been accepted into astronaut training) in an experimental flight failure. Death is not always as blessed as it was for my dear old grandfather, who had to revise his funeral plans repeatedly, because the people he’d choose to eulogize him kept dying before he finally got to go at age 93.
My husband and I have our plans: he wants cremation, and then we are to make fireworks with his ashes, to be shot into the sky during the wake. I wish to be buried in the hometown plot in Wyoming…however…if I die in the winter, my family is to put my casket in a storage locker until June because I do not wish to inflict a miserable grave-side service on my relatives when it might be -10 degrees outside.
Within the past 15 months I had two extended family members die. One battled cancer for 4 years and one accepted minimal care for cancer over the period of 1 year.
The latter enjoyed a higher quality of life. Truth be told, the latter was older and had other health issues that limited options in any event. Within the last two weeks of that person’s life his children elected to take some extraordinary measures and, in my opinion, significantly increased his discomfort and suffering. I think at least one of his daughters realized and regretted the impact of that decision.
The former stated shortly after the diagnosis that he would not accept treatment, but then decided to do so. He was younger by a few years than the latter but not by a lot. Death at his age was not unexpected whatever the cause. By the end of the battle he had suffered enormously and I had to ask myself: To what end?
In contrast, within the last year a young mother of my acquaintance died of brain cancer. Her battle lasted for about 2 years from diagnosis. She was motivated to accept great discomfort for two reasons: (1) to spend as much time with her young twins as possible, and (2) to take on whatever treatments that were being tested so that more would be learned about her disease. That was both a noble and rational decision. I dearly hope that her suffering does pay off for someone in the future. Meanwhile her children will always know she wanted to stay with them regardless the cost.
Heck, I was just at a “viewing” in La Crosse on Friday. I’m used to them being at a funeral home, and depending on the situations, they’re often friendly times for chatting and visiting prior to the solemn funeral.
I never thought of it as regional.
Drew, I was taking a guess. I personally attended “viewings” in the South, but I’ve never come across one in Oregon or Maine, two other places I’ve lived in. I guess I wasn’t in the right circles.
Evening again Kent,
Looking at general trends, we are decoupling ourselves from obligations. Take care of mom, no “there’s a place for mom”. We are hiring out the things, that used to be our personal obligations, to take care of the aged, and because we live in this time of plenty, we think that those obligations are a form of injustice. The push of the Western world is to invite the aged to hurry up an die with dignity, and if you end up in a state where we can call you vegetative then we will help you die with dignity, you should thank us.
This interpretation of mine may come from 2018, my wife who had had radiation therapy, and brain surgery, had a stroke on Palm Sunday. Nothing horrible, we have mostly recovered, but enough to get your attention. In September my mom, at 97, died, like all death, tough, leaving one shaking their head, but nothing again exceptional. It may be that my resistance to view intentional death in a positive way is that, my experiences have shaped my thoughts. My uncle killed himself after he acquired a prognosis that he could not accept. He died in such a way that, the child who he thought would be the best able to understand and deal with his suicide would find him. She did not get over that discovery, and although it may have solved his fears, it did not improve the life of his daughter.
I can understand not wanting to be a burden to those you love, I just have not seen intentional death work in such a way that leaves me assured that can achieve what one hopes.
I guess most people here refer to it as “visitation.” But I’ve also heard the term “viewing.”
Visitation, viewing, wake, sitting up with the dead: all the same thing, really.
I’m from the South and I have always heard “visitation.” I think that term covers visiting the family and/or the departed. And no one ever has to go up to the casket, but most adults usually did, at least for a few moments.