How does your family handle death?

[BurnsWhenIPee]

I think funerals and obits should be treated the same as pineapple on pizza or ketchup on a hot dog.

Do what you want. fork everybody else.

 

[Driftwood]

I would rather observe my on funeral than have ketchup on a hot dog.

 

[Liut]

Everybody in the local paper passes away, left this earth, is greeted by Jesus, joins the choir of angels or any other possible euphemism for dying, and I think part of it is being in a small southern town. I always applaud the rare obit where someone admits "John Doe died."

This!

 

[Liut]

@maumann Might have mentioned this before but when I was a high school pup working the weekend at KORN-AM, the general manager told me I needed to sound "more solemn" when I read the obits.
We were already required to play a cart with organ music in the background and I knew enough to not sound excited.
I remember thinking, "What does he want me to do, weep on the air?"

 

[maumann]

@maumann Might have mentioned this before but when I was a high school pup working the weekend at KORN-AM, the general manager told me I needed to sound "more solemn" when I read the obits.
We were already required to play a cart with organ music in the background and I knew enough to not sound excited.
I remember thinking, "What does he want me to do, weep on the air?"

HAHAHA! Oh, I never worked at a station that did the obit hour but have heard them driving across country. Hideous! Especially when it sounds like a terrible soap opera music fill.

I can't imagine trying to keep a straight face while canned funeral music is playing. "Keep calm and be more solemn." I need a T-shirt!

 

[Liut]

HAHAHA! Oh, I never worked at a station that did the obit hour but have heard them driving across country. Hideous! Especially when it sounds like a terrible soap opera music fill.

I can't imagine trying to keep a straight face while canned funeral music is playing. "Keep calm and be more solemn." I need a T-shirt!

LOL!
The freakin' organ music bed was weird! It was big distraction. Don't have any of the old cassettes from those days anymore but when I did, I'd play them for beer drinking buddies and we'd laugh our asses off.
Didn't help that at 17, I sounded like I was talking out of my nose.
We ought to have gotten together and written a screenplay at some point.

 

[Liut]

This might be a good time to point out I hate - loathe to my very core - over the top obits. Give the details of the person's life for the historical record.
I don't care if he was Dale Earnhardt's biggest fan. I don't care if he loved his 1932 John Deere tractor. He wasn't called home, nor is he singing with Jesus.

Tend to agree with you, but also understand others' point about respecting family members' wishes ... and totally with you on that last sentence!
I suppose publishers like those long-winded obits, though.

 

[maumann]

I think the grand slam of small town radio is the morning farm report, swap shop, funeral home announcements and the police blotter. Bonus points for Sunday live church services and a chamber of commerce announcement.

KNBA in Vallejo, California, did "horse race re-creations" from Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows. That's unique in my experiences.

 

[Spartan Squad]

Everybody in the local paper passes away, left this earth, is greeted by Jesus, joins the choir of angels or any other possible euphemism for dying, and I think part of it is being in a small southern town. I always applaud the rare obit where someone admits "John Doe died."

Everybody dies. The end, literally.

I've told Gwen not to spend a nickel on a paid obit, unless she puts "His body is currently being picked apart by vultures." Although we both have opted for cremation, so perhaps "His ashes are currently blowing across portions of I-85" might work.

There was a time when I was doing obits for the paper I wanted mine to be the most ostentatious as possible. I wanted my whole family tree to be my pre-deceased all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Of course, you bring up an interesting idea. In the eyes of loved ones, everyone is going to eternal paradise. We'd like to believe peace than the alternative which must exist if you also believe in heaven. But no one is possibly burning in heck. Certainly some are. The ones who are atheist write around it, passed way, died surrounded by loved ones, etc. but no one is earning eternal damnation.

 

[Liut]

I think the grand slam of small town radio is the morning farm report, swap shop, funeral home announcements and the police blotter. Bonus points for Sunday live church services and a chamber of commerce announcement.

Did them all and since I lived at a big lake ... also did the "fishing report." If nothing else, all that stuff taught me to think on my feet and learn to ad-lib.
I've written my own obituary. Just hope the funeral home doesn't screw it up. But, at the end of the day, don't think I'm going to be in any position to do anything about it.

 

[maumann]

Completely off topic, but I recently read a fascinating article from one of the science blogs about sentience and the idea of an afterlife in a multiverse. The physicist interviewed said if we've already died or weren't even born in parellel universes, how could we expect to still have consciousness after death in this one? However, others have noted that the multiverse theory doesn't necessarily mean the universe we're experiencing now is the only one. There could be ones where entropy doesn't exist -- that time runs backwards or even skips around, or life forms aren't carbon-based.

It's quite possible that each of our brains produces a unique version of what we consider the universe, and our sentience is just an extension of our personal experiences. Because of education, knowledge and social forces, most of us believe the earth is round, the Big Bang happened and the Cubs finally won a World Series. But to someone in a tribe untouched by the modern world, none of those things may exist, except Harry Caray.

There is still the question of why every major society in the world has a creation mythology. I guess we all wonder how we got here and had to make up stories to confirm our existence. Thank goodness for our Judeo-Christian world of angels and Jewish carpenters. Otherwise, the obits would say "John Doe has gone to the Underworld where Charon has ferried his soul across the River Styx."

It's sort of the "man created God in his own image" paradox. However, just to cover all my bases, I'm still going to church! I'm either going to meet Jesus or enjoy enternal nothingness.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

Sign that I'm an old soul, but I can listen to the Swap Shop shows for hours on end. Always could.