candystripper
Posts: 3486
Joined: 11/1/2005
Status: offline
|
You guys are much deeper thinkers than I. I am still stuck back at the gate, wondering what is death? A process? That just makes no sense to me. If lividity isn't setting in, that person is 'alive'.
I think when we blur the line, we do it partially because we could be kept alive past the point when we had much brain activity (as if anyone knows). But even assuming we were in a vegetative state, I am not sure how 'we' would care. Perhaps those who love us, but not 'we', who are past knowing.
I am personally not afraid of death; it will come when it comes. As it does for every one. I have a couple of friends who are obsessed with 'living a long life' to a point I do not understand, taking vitamins and minerals and herbs, etc.
I care that I'm not in peristent and unremitting pain before I die. May it please be swift. No feeding tubes, no 'heroic measures'.
As to what lies beyond the pale, if anything...it seems like it'd be pretty crowded by now. I suspect that much of what we were taught or came to believe about an after-life is just a way of dealing with our anxiety.
What do you guys think about funerals? Do you have strong feelings about how your remains are disposed of? Do you have religious beliefs about the 'right way' to dispose of remains? Do you draw comfort from knowing there will a ceremony in your honor after you're gone?
I'd like the people who love me to gather together and celebrate my life, but I don't see that having my remains in the house of worship, etc. would add value. I have a dear friend who just lost his mom, and was aghast to learn the priest charged $250 to celebrate the funeral Mass. Good grief.
I also want to go next. I don't want to spend any more time the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Selfish, I suppose, but I just don't want to lose anyone else I love. This is a very real issue for us 'baby boomers'. It's no longer just a matter of losing our parents. We are beginning to die as well. One of the guys from my study group, back in the day, just passed away. (I wish to Gawd someone had called me, so I couldv'e gone back down south for the funeral.)
I think funerals s'times put too much stress on folks. I have seen waaaay too much acting out at death, the funeral and the reading of the will.
I am accustommed to attending a wake (3 to 5 days) and then a funeral Mass, with the casket in the center alise, then a graveyard service. At the Mass I'd get a 'Mass card' to keep, to remember the person who had died.
What's been your experience?
candystripper 
< Message edited by candystripper -- 11/11/2008 4:17:54 AM >
|
RE: What is Death? - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread