What did you think of the funeral industry before reading the selection? Have your views of death and the funeral industry changed after reading it? Were your views influenced at all by the graphic description in the essay?
My views on the funeral industry were that they worked to respect the dead. They were there to help those who had suffered the loss of a loved one. I have had two of my grandparents pass away and then had funerals. I remember my grandpa looking very fake in his casket, but he looked restful enough. The funeral homes reminded me of churches with their lobbies with couches and chairs, and quiet, reverent atmosphere. I also had the daughter of a funeral home director in my psychology class in high school. Her house was attached to the funeral home and my teacher took full advantage of the slightly morbid and rather hilarious jokes.
What I didn’t think about was that it really is a business industry, and a large one at that. Oh, boy, this article gave me a reality check. I had never thought about what they must have had to do to a corpse keep it from looking so… dead. Some of the things they talked about doing to the dead body were a little disgusting to think about. It wasn’t the language they used (they were actually very tactful in their word choice) but the process itself. It was a very intriguing and enlightening article, and I know the knowledge and insight you must have to be a mortician is impressive, but sometimes I’d rather just think that my grandparents were buried without alterations… *Sigh* Yeah, I think I’ll try to keep it that way.
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