This is the best clip from the film I could find. This scene takes place immediately before or after the scene where options like in your OP are displayed. Very funny.

Liberace selling caskets is great too. Enjoy.

and so they posed her with a cigarette? PSA, maybe?

sP

Last edited Sat Jun 21, 2014, 05:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Still needs some audio-animatronics, but I'm sure they're working on it.

P.S. I hadn't yet read the article when I posted that. Honest.

Well I ain't sittin' up with the dead no more since the dead started sitting up too.

Choking with laughter

...from the asshole up!

I find it macabre

our dead relatives got laid out in our parlors or living rooms or kitchens.

Death seems to be pushed away, IYKWIM.

While the coffin was the norm, it was not unusual to have a person on a favorite chair, or chaise.

Until cameras became more common funeral photos were often the only pictures of the deceased that people had.

My paternal grandmother never left her home. She was on ice in a bedroom and was laid out in her living room in a coffin on the day of her funeral. I remember that well.

That said she wasn't sitting up with beer and a cigarette.

Not to mention that, with the huge increase in population density, proper storage and prompt "disposal" of the dead became necessary for sanitary reasons.

standing, arms crossed, and glaring at the people at my funeral.

Actually, when I go I might commission some younger balloon twisters to make my coffin for me out of balloons to highlight a passion in my life. It will probably be easier to cremate than whatever they put you in before shoving you into the fire.

TlalocW

I saw my mother pass and when she was gone, she was gone...her body meant nothing, she wasn't THERE any more...I knew that very deeply...I kissed her forehead and said goodbye again and left...she was taken to the funeral home where, in accordance with her stated wishes, she was cremated. We have a headstone at the family burial plot in Dallas but only her ashes are there...along with my brother who predeceased her by 10 months...

It's over when we die - just burn the corpse and throw my ashes on any beach or river. I think I should pay back the seafood since most of what I eat comes from the sea or river.

I remember her ex-husband saying to me "When do we mourn death anymore?"

Good question.

The answer is: we don't. We celebrate their life. Mourning is expunged from our lives, voila...

I drove with tears streaming down my face from Ithaca to New Haven the day of that family member's service, celebrating her life....I was pretty inconsolable for weeks after...

You know what saved me? Joe Biden. Not long after...I think at Memorial Day services, he said to the attendees of a Memorial Day service, "The day will come when the memory of your loved one will put a smile on your face before it puts a tear in your eye..."

I remembered that and thought "well, he ought to know given what he went through" and I was comforted.

And it was true. I think of this woman in the warmest and loveliest of terms, of the good times...I saw her daughter at a family event last weekend...her mother had died on her birthday and she told me that this was the first time since her mother's death that she had thought of it as her birthday again, instead of the day her mother died...I teared up but stopped and thought of the good times again...

"The day will come when the memory of your loved one will put a smile on your face before it puts a tear in your eye..."

I tell folks that all the time. It is so true - I have great memories of my grandparents, parents aunts, cousins and my youngest sister. I only had one maternal uncle and I hardly remember him since he died when I was a toddler. I remember pushing my baby sister around at Dadeland Mall for her last Christmas with us - that was so much fun and little did we know that it was her last Christmas.
And yet, I have no interest in visiting grave sides or columbariums.

surprise to me...I knew she was sick but I was in denial that she was dying (she had liver cirrhosis). I was in shock when the news of her death came. The day of her service I was in full fledged anger...I was pretty mad at everyone and had it out with my ex-husband at breakfast at the hotel...it was not pretty...and then I just cried and cried. She and I had had our babies at about the same time in our lives...her death was like I was dying.

The thing is that I was actually in mourning for a full year before she died because when I called her on Mother's Day 1993 she told me everything about her health situation and I dropped everything and headed for Denmark (she was virtually living with big sister). I spent three glorious weeks and Denmark in June is gorgeous but I knew that it was the last time I'd see her up and about.

She went to spend time with another sibling New York in June 1994 and attend her wedding, had a fall and died in early July. I was completely at peace because of those three weeks I spent with her the year before.

Mom and I had a very interesting relationship - we were both totally honest with each other which was never easy, but we liked each other and had mutual respect. Telling her goodbye in Denmark was the hardest day of my life. I cried before she died because I knew she didn't have time on her side, and I cried for two days when she died but after that I was fine. Dad's death was harder, but then he died eleven years before and he died three days before I got there - I had booked my ticket.

I was going through other shocks at work at the time my brother died and my mother went into decline. And I had a new grandchild on the way...

I remember the day I returned from my brother's funeral (and having to tell my mother of his death, the hardest thing of all). I got back to my office and had a note to see the Human Resources Director who advised me that I was still on probation for something I really had no idea what (except that I was of a "certain age" and all the women of that age and beyond were being systematically let go...). It was the most heartless moment I have ever felt. Can you imagine...

in such a short space of time.

That must have been a very rough time in your life.

thought about it.

It is what it is. Age discrimination is what it is. I had consulted an attorney but I decided I didn't want to be around those people any longer. My mother left me enough money to get by pretty well and I could take my social security and would have medicare...so it wasn't a big loss.

I had secured a part time job that I really enjoyed with a great organization and was still volunteering as an ESOL tutor (I still do volunteer there). It worked out well for me in the long run. My mother lived to be 94 and had a great life. I am happy about that.

I'm glad I took that route.

Thank you for being so caring, Malaise. I am fine now...

to be late for calling hours.

Always on time or early for most things so being late for my funeral would be great.

Of course it is always fun to realize I will have come full circle. Started life in the back of a funeral home and will leave, more or less, from a funeral home.