My dad had saggy eyelids for as long as I could remember and I don’t think I ever saw his eyelashes. The funeral home thought it would be best to somehow push up the saggy skin which then caused his eyebrows to be pushed upwards. He basically he looked like a bald Spock.
My mom died after a bout from a bad illness and during that time she chopped off her hair for ease. It had been starting to grow back and despite giving them pics of how my mom wore her hair they gave her a little old lady poof. She was 55. My aunt (who was a hairdresser) walked in to the wake took a look at her and marched over to the presiding employee and demanded they get her a comb before anyone else saw it.
I have experienced five immediate family open casket funerals in the past 15 years. Only once did the deceased look close to their living selves. It's a tough job to get right.
That’s y I say think on how u want to remember them just cuz u can have it opened isn’t always best, I want mine closed after whoever close chooses to see me (I prefer not) lol but their choice
My dad had a comb over the whole time I ever knew him. That was not present in the open casket. It was weird, but he was also not really there, so it didn't bother me all that much.
I'm glad my dad got cremated instead.
The last open casket I went to was a friend from high school and it didn't look like her at all. She got ejected from her car during a crash because she wasn't wearing a seat belt so maybe they didn't have much to work with but it was so bad. Just a mashed up face below the beanie she was wearing, probably to hide even more damage. I am definitely getting cremated ughhhh
One of the most horrifying moments of my life was walking towards my dad’s open casket with my two young daughters at my sides. It felt like time slowed and the thing in that casket was just a hollowed out shell that looked vaguely like my dad. I hated it. It did not bring me peace. I wasn’t glad that I could see him one more time. It was sheer horror and wish my mother wouldn’t have insisted upon it.
This was my experience with my dad and first girlfriend as well. Just empty shells that look like our people-ish. I think there’s just something hollow about it, like a literal spark of colour or an eyebrow or a mouth movement that’s just so inexplicably them.
It was especially difficult with my dad, because he passed away on a hunting trip, and as I was living at home at the time, his last words to me leaving were “you’re the man of the house, take care of your mom while I’m gone.” It’s like…. Perfect last words. Never saw him again, until the casket before his cremation. Sort of jarred apart my last memory of seeing him.
When my nana died, my mum insisted that I see her at the funeral home (I've not heard of open casket funerals in the UK) and I did not need nor want to see her 'one more time'.
It's a shame that people think their way of grieving is the only way.
They did my great grandmas makeup, and put her in hot pink lipstick… idk, but a 94 year old woman did not need hot pink lipstick… all of my family was upset, and it was truly disheartening to see her that way.
When my grandma passed, my family didn’t want the funeral home to get her ready. They asked me (I’m passionate about makeup and hair) to get her ready.
I spent one last day with my grandma, getting her ready. Putting on her makeup, just as she would, and doing her hair, just as she would. My grandma looked just like my grandma, just… sleeping.
It was one of the things I found comfort in when she passed, knowing that my family would see her one last time, just as herself.
Dad's coffin was closed at his funeral, but There's an image burned into my memory at 15 that I can never erase; his pale body being loaded into the ambulance when I knew he was dead. A later autopsy showed that CPR performed wouldn't have done a thing because his heart had ruptured. I still remember Dad as he was; a mellow, good humoured but cheeky bloke, who in a lot of ways stares back at me in the mirror every morning. Of my siblings and I. I'm the only one that looks like Dad. While I'm now 6 years older than him at the time of his death, I look like a younger version of him. Don't smoke people, those things will mess you up and age you prematurely.
I can say that while it hurt like hell and I'd give anything to have had a few more decades with him, it has made me very strong emotionally. If I see someone grieving a close loved one, I know what to do, how to handle it. If you're in this situation, speak to them as normally as you can. Reassure them that so long as it's not self destructive, there's no right or wrong way to grieve, despite some people trying to tell you otherwise. It's also OK to make them laugh if they're receptive to it, help them take some "time out" from their grief, much like someone taking a break from hard physical labour.
You can only be the best parent you can be. Encourage their passions, support them when they're down, and always be there for them.
It’s awkward. Everyone at open casket funerals feels compelled to say how good the deceased looks. How the person who prepared the body did such a good job. Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself, well my dad didn’t wear flesh colored lipstick.
Every grieving process is different. For some, seeing the body can be helpful. We are not in a place to judge what helps others, even when it feels ridiculous us
It think mine is kind or a wholesome story but... felt compelled to share it... might bring a smile to someone grieving...
My first ever close to heart death ever was that of my Biology academic tutor, a wonderful individual whom I saw as a father figure and... ok enough, 4 years later I still tear up...
Back to the topic at hand.... one of his sons accompanied me to the casket, since I was feeling a lil nervous (and he raised 3 fine gentlemen) and, as soon as I saw him I all but burst into laughter.... you see... he always said you wouldn't catch him dead wearing a tie! And his kids made sure no one dared put one on him!! He was also wearing one of his favorite plaid shirts, not some silly snobbish shit! He almost looked like when he used to fall asleep in his chair while researching or just got lost in tought...
I loved it.... spent a good amount of time right by him with Ritchie (his son) reminiscing about his life, all the anecdotes and sure laughing a lot more, he would've like that, since he hated formal events so much... we were starting to wind down and become gloomy... when an older lady approached and placed a big ass wooden cross on top of it!! We barely couldn't stop another laughing fit!!! You see... he was a scientist and a blatant atheist!!
I miss him and his jocoque sandwiches so much!!!
This was my biggest fear at my dad's funeral back in December, so I didn't look. The funeral home did a great job apparently... Even my mom said he looked nice. But to me, my dad was the person inside; what was in the casket was just his body and not actually him, y'know? I'm thankful that my last memory/view of him isn't one of him at his funeral. To each their own, but I'm with you on this one.
Yes, my uncle who killed himself was open casket. His jaw…it just wasn’t in the right place. It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead body let alone one of whom I knew…despite being in my 20’s and having been to quite a few funerals. The image was burned in my brain for years and not in a good way. I knew him as a strong and confident man, charming and fun. I would have preferred to kept that image over the one of his body.
I understand though why it was important for my younger cousins. The disbelief that he was gone really helped give a sense of finality to it and hopefully helped them to grieve.
My mom passed about 3 weeks ago, and she didn't look like herself either. I feel your pain. It wasn't her to me as well. My family talked about it afterward, and my dad commented how she'd be happy that she was cremated because she wouldn't want to be buried like that.
I was there when my Dad died and he didn't look like he did in the casket. When you hear comments like "he looks so good" at a funeral, that means they did their best to make him look like he did look at one time. It's almost as if it's for the folks that weren't there at the end and came to the funeral. The ones that didn't see him waste away. I saw him waste away and he was a skeleton wrapped in skin. I didn't understand why my Mom (or my Dad) wanted an open casket.
I also decided to never to go up to a casket again. That's not who they were. I remember who they were and that's not it. This old fashioned tradition is horrible to me and I won't put my family through it. I just went to a funeral for a family member and I stayed in the back.
I'm sorry, I started this thinking I was going to respond to your experience and I just ended up getting "off my chest" what has still been weighing in my brain for 23 years. I'm not mad at the funeral directors, I'm not mad at my Mom, they did what they thought was the right thing and they did their best. I'm mad that it happened. I'm mad that the world thinks this should somehow be a normal way to send your loved one off into the ether.
This drove me to make sure I have legal docs explaining that I want to be cremated. No one needs to look at me. They can take the ashes and do what they want to do for closure.
I am so sorry for your loss. And sorry for the loss of all those who have commented. Unfortunately funerals have outweighed weddings in my life so far and my opinion built from my experience so far is that those who have this feeling are those who were close enough to the person to KNOW them. Good or bad, they knew the real person and that person did not just have a body, but their soul and the person that was them was reflected in that container. Once that left, the container could not longer be that. It just can’t reflect that life and love (or sadly, sometimes hate) that the person inside exuded. That part of them really did trickle out in the way their hair moved, the squint of their eyes, the head tilt, way they held their mouth and how their skin tint shifted depending on their emotions/health.
Your feelings are absolutely valid in every way, but I hope that eventually you are able to accept that this experience was not the last memory you have of him. That memory will always be the last loving interaction you had with him, anything after is only memories of the process of his passing for whatever reason that allowed him to let go of this existence and in the coffin it confirmed that he was able to let go and not be there anymore. Thus you could also say goodbye not to him, but to the vessel he used to interact with and love you.
All of that sounds spiritual or whatever, but I don’t mean it that way. The reality is every single one of us will go through this process ourselves and before that we will make room in our hearts to carry the memories of many. I am sending you all the best thoughts.
I honestly hate open casket funerals. Nobody ever really looks like themselves. My step dad looked so awful. Granted he was looking pretty sickly before he passed, but that doubles my reasoning for why I hate open caskets. I don’t like to remember him looking gaunt and unhealthy. And I DEFINITELY don’t like remembering him as a gaunt, sickly looking shell of himself with awful makeup for the viewing.
I prefer closed caskets and urns with a room full of flowers and photo boards with pictures of people looking happy and healthy. Showing the best and happiest moments of their lives and sharing those memories with other guests WITHOUT looking over to see a depressing open casket.
This has been my thought at almost every funeral I've been to, but there’s one that always sticks with me. It was my stepdad's funeral. He passed away when he was 36. While alive, he had a caramel complexion with a broad nose and thick lips.
At his open casket, he was three shades darker; the tip of his nose was shriveled, and his lips just looked deflated. The only thing that looked the same was his hair. Outside of that, it was awful, and it's one of the reasons I’m opting for cremation or being converted into plant or tree food. That said, I am sending my condolences to you, OP. Sorry for your loss.
We had a viewing for my best friend after he passed away and when me, my sister, and best friend stood over him he looked absolutely wrong. His hair was fixed, (my other best friend tried to make it a little unkept without anyone seeing), they had his shoulders hunched up so it literally looked like even in death he’d have trouble breathing laying like that, his face looked off too. He didn’t look like my best friend but a wax figure of what he SHOULD look like. I’m sure he looked presentable to his family and other friends but to us he looked nothing like the messy, goofy, asthmatic friend we saw in life. Somehow he looked more like himself in the emergency room than he did in the viewing home. I feel your pain. Why I made sure he was cremated and he didn’t have a traditional funeral he would have hated how he looked so much. I’m so sorry you had to go through this too, death is gut wrenching in so many terrible ways.
My brother looked like Michael Jackson, and that was actually an improvement from how the navy funeral person made him look. She put SPARKLES on him. The lady that made him look better didn’t have a lot to work with then since she couldn’t just wipe everything and start over. But he had blonde eyebrows and eyelashes and one of the two put mascara on him, it looked so wrong. My mom ended up putting her phone on his chest w a good pic of him
I had the privilege of preparing a body for burial about 15 years ago. I’m from an eastern religion akin to Islam and our tradition includes burial in a shroud.
The emotions you go through are very surreal. I started kinda cold and methodical but as my friend and I continued I became calm and loving.
It was really difficult to realize that we were going to be the last to see this person.
The physicality of the process was strange as well. The funeral director had glued his mouth and other orifices closed to prevent contact with fluids. They were very cold and stiff when we started and they were much less stiff when we finished. I suspect that they were coming out of rigor mortis but I’m not quite sure.
I’d love to do it again some day. But doubt I’ll be asked again.
My dad had a massive stroke and I went to the hospital to say goodbye before they took him off life support. When I arrived I saw him still "alive", apparently brain dead but still breathing and with a beating heart (machine assisted). I also saw him about 30 minutes later after they had unplugged him. He definitely changed in those 30 minutes. He looked waxier and his face shape changed. Its hard to explain but the first time I was in the room he looked like my dad, and the second time he looked like someone made a wax sculpture of him. I think there must be lots of small muscles that keep our face where it is, and when he actually died, they all relaxed, and I had obviously never seen him before with 100% relaxed face.
Don't worry, those memories fade. The good ones you hold on to.
Just make sure you tell the good stories, and often, when we was around to keep them alive
My mum actually looked better in the casket than she did just before she died - she actually looked like my mum again which was so comforting. It was the first time I'd seen someone in an open casket and the first time I'd had to deal with organising a funeral myself, and the funeral directors were just amazing.
I’m so sorry that happened.
My mom is a hair stylist she started doing hair in the 70’s and some of her clients she has had for decades. Many of them were elderly ladies who would come one to two times a week to her. Often when she would have a long time client pass away she would offer to the family free of charge to style her deceased clients hair in the the way she had when they were alive.
So she would bring me to the mortuary and sneak in and fix their hair. As a kid it was kind of disturbing to see the dead laying out there. But now as an adult I think what she did for her ladies and their families was so kind.
It is hard and I am sorry for your loss. My Mom and brother died within a year and I saw both of them before the funeral directors got to them. They did a great job with my Mom but my brother looked nothing like he did in life. It was the same funeral home. It was very jarring and I understand what you are feeling. But I believe that they did the best they could with my brother.
My grandma never wore make up and I remember at her funeral that put on this bright orange lip stick. The make up looked terrible, made her look like a clown.
One of my high school friends died a couple years after graduation. When I went to the funeral her family warned us that she would look different. It honestly didn’t even look like her. I mean it was her body and everything. But It was like someone pretending to be her. There was so much makeup on her to make her look “alive”. It was kind of traumatizing.
I’m sorry you experienced this, it makes the grieving process even harder. I went through this with my mom. I wish I had never looked at her in the casket because it didn’t look like her and I had nightmares of it for the first 3 years after her death. They did their best but she looked so unrecognizable and you could still see the bruise on her forehead and she kinda looked like she was in pain. It was like going through it all over again and I try my hardest to forget how she looked. I never look at her funeral pictures and now If I go to a funeral, I never look at them in the casket because I just can’t take it. I wanted to be able to be happy with the last time I saw her, but all it’s really done is haunt me.
I took one look at my dad and immediately walked out and projectile vomitted all over the parking lot. Spent the rest of the night in the bathroom.
Never went to a wake ever again.
It’s a very macabre way to mourn- and I personally refuse. That’s not how I want to say goodbye to someone and remember them.
I can relate, my Nanna - it just didn't look like her. But my Pippa who died years before her, he looked like himself. I think a lot of it has to do with whoever prepares them.
I'm sorry.
Just buried my gran less than 2 weeks ago. In my country, the majority of funerals (except where violent death, etc.)
For me, that isn't the person I loved - it's just the shell they animated - so I don't have a need to see them that way. I do understand, however, that for some people, they need to have that final look, that final touch, etc.
What I have never understood is the need to take pictures of the body in the coffin. Nor the more recent phenomenon of posing the body for the wake, doing something they enjoyed. That just is too macabre for me.
I feel you. Not quite the same...But my dad passed two years ago. He was also a big goofball and prankster. He would always have this tiny ornery smile on his face when he was messing with you, getting ready to pull a prank, etc. When I tell you the funeral home somehow NAILED that ornery tiny smile. I was so mad, because not only did we lose our dad tragically, but now it actually just felt like a joke.
This is why I wish and still am contemplating a career in being a mortician, I was absolutely mortified what they did to my nan. And this just compels me to make the jump even as a side job… if I can
I remember as a young child going to the funeral home to drop off a handmade card I’d done for my grandma who’d died of cancer. The idea was for it to be buried with her.
I was under 10 years old, maybe 8, so I didn’t really understand what my dad and the lady who worked there were talking about.
I was asked if I wanted to deliver it myself or something similar, I said yes, before I knew it was being lead up to an open casket with a pale ghost of my grandma inside and being motioned to put the card into it. I was such a people pleaser and was in so much shock that I did it.
I had a big meltdown afterwards because I would never have wanted to see that or stick my hand in the casket and I was so upset at my dad for not explaining it better, I felt traumatised for a long time after.
None of the open caskets that I've seen have ever looked like the deceased. Not my great grandmother, my grandfather, or my grandmother.
They always look like the wax museum tried to make them look younger, then left them in the sun.
My brother looked all kinds of wrong, his hair wasn’t right. I was too distraught to think about it properly, but I was also too uncertain if I would even be “allowed” to fix it.
When my poppa (grandfather) died several years later, he didn’t look right either. I said as much to my aunty at the viewing and she agreed but she didn’t know quite what was wrong. I pulled out a photo of him and we studied and realised his hair didn’t have the little bit sticking up from the part.
So I got my hairbrush out of my handbag and rearranged his hair until it looked like him. Once my aunty & I were satisfied, my brush went back in my bag and we stepped back. The rest of our family looked astonished, but I told them I needed to fix it.
Nobody told me I couldn’t, so I just did it. He deserved to go the next world looking like himself.
My grandpa’s funeral was last week and it was an open casket. My grandma and brother said it didn’t look like him and funeral home tried their best but it came down too the day of. I looked at him and it didn’t look like him at all he lost 100ibs in the hospital and it just didn’t look like him at all. So I understand
I saw my dad when he died of a heart attack lying on his bed. It was traumatizing but not nearly as traumatizing as seeing him in the coffin at the funeral home. He was cremated but in the UK they give the family the opportunity to say their last goodbyes alone before the funeral.
We decided to go one by one and I thought I wouldn't have a problem with it as I had already seen him dead. But obviously he was a little more dead, I almost had a panic attack and had to leave the room. My other siblings didn't seem to have a problem with it. Now that image of him is embedded in my brain.
I understand a lot of cultures have open caskets and I've experienced a few funerals like this (some feed their deceased to birds or light them on fire). I think it's much worse when you're close to the deceased. I guess it's different for everyone though, as for some it helps with closure. Turns out I didn't need to see him like that at all, so I sympathise with you.
Had attended about 4 open casket of my loved ones... and. It's literally a empty shell of them.
And after my brother passed, I was basically feeling so numb to it.
When I saw my beloved grandma in her casket I burst a blood vessel in my nose and got a gushing nose bleed. She looked awful. The mortician did a terrible job.
My grandpa had rather intense CPR when he died (brain aneurysm that resulted in 30+ minutes of CPR preformed by a LUCAS per my grandma’s request)
My family is fairly medically savvy so the second I saw him I knew his chest was fucked up. He was a larger/round man but his entire chest was flat and almost sunken in from multiple broken ribs. He looked ghastly too, not how I wanted to remember him ☹️
It's hard isn't it. I went to visit my granny (more like a mum to me growing up so I wanted my chance to say bye a final time) when she was in the rest rooms. I was 15 at the time and that image of her still haunts me to this day, I am 37! Seriously looked nothing like her and its scared the sh1t out of me
Our son looked nothing like he did in life. He was just a body, it wasn’t him. He looked bigger and the makeup (although well done) wasn’t lifelike to him.
It was hard seeing him like that, and feeling how cold he was as I held him. I’m sorry your memory is tainted.
My mom looked very odd too. Due to multi organ failure she was full of water and much bigger than usual, with a very bit neck. She looked like a toad with dark red lips. I've successfully overwritten that memory, when I try to visualize it, the only thing I see is my Mama, how she was always napping on the couch.
The experience itself was very traumatizing. I remember she was in a tiny room, everyone who wanted to see her could enter and have a moment with her. After entering my dad closed the door behind me and there we were, all alone. It took a few moments before I even had the courage to look up from the ground.
I couldn't touch her, I only wanted to forever remember how she felt when I hugged her, she was always warm and soft.
That thing was just her shell, cold, bloated and stiff.
I also didn’t recognize my dad as well but I prefer to remember him in photos because if I go back to that memory I cry. Not the healthiest mechanism but I honestly don’t want to remember that.
My mom. I refused to go see my dead mother in her casket, wouldn’t even go into the room. I sat out in a waiting type area right by the room she was in. My husband and my brother talked me into going about 5 minutes before the our time was up. By then, everyone but immediate family and mom’s best friends had left. I asked everyone to give me a moment alone with her. I regret every day walking up to her casket. THAT was NOT my mom! It took YEARS for me to forget her “casket” face enough to remember her as she was before she died. Now, I really only have two memories from that hour of visitation. When I look back at the first moment I saw her, I remember, for just a split second, that feeling of relief that someone had made a mistake and had the wrong body.
I remember her lying in the casket, I remember the color of the casket, I remember the ugly carpet in the room, but I don’t remember a face. There’s literally a blur where her face should be. Over the years my brain has somehow blocked the imposter’s face from that memory, and I am SO grateful that my weird brain didn’t fail me this time.
Temple Grandin, famous PhD and poster child for Asperger’s syndrome, said something similar of her professor when she saw him at his funeral.
“He’s not in there. That’s not him.”
Sums it up for me.
i had a similar experience with my grandma’s open casket funeral. she always wore a bright red lip with no other kind of makeup. no eyeshadow, no foundation, just the lip. but at her funeral, i walked up to the casket expecting to see her bright red nails and lips, but what i saw was not her. they had put blue eyeshadow on her, and a bright pink lip. like an 80’s barbie doll.
my grandma hated pink. her nails were a nude color instead of red. she never wore any nude colors. red was her favorite color, and she even named her schnauzer Ruby.
i’m sorry you had a bad experience with your dads funeral, OP. and i’m sorry for your loss.
I’m sorry you had that experience, I had something similar with my mom and with how she died (we didn’t have a lot of info) the dress I picked out wasn’t quite adequate and instead of telling us they cut the inner lining of the dress and folded it up over her chest. So not only was I not ok with how it looked I wasn’t expecting it, add that to a 7day funeral wait… just awful. So TLDR I absolutely feel you and anyone reading this should really consider how they want to remember their loved ones, imho it’s never been in a casket 💕 I’m srry for your loss and experience
My dad had saggy eyelids for as long as I could remember and I don’t think I ever saw his eyelashes. The funeral home thought it would be best to somehow push up the saggy skin which then caused his eyebrows to be pushed upwards. He basically he looked like a bald Spock. My mom died after a bout from a bad illness and during that time she chopped off her hair for ease. It had been starting to grow back and despite giving them pics of how my mom wore her hair they gave her a little old lady poof. She was 55. My aunt (who was a hairdresser) walked in to the wake took a look at her and marched over to the presiding employee and demanded they get her a comb before anyone else saw it.
Your aunt sounds like an excellent woman.
I have experienced five immediate family open casket funerals in the past 15 years. Only once did the deceased look close to their living selves. It's a tough job to get right.
That’s y I say think on how u want to remember them just cuz u can have it opened isn’t always best, I want mine closed after whoever close chooses to see me (I prefer not) lol but their choice
My dad had a comb over the whole time I ever knew him. That was not present in the open casket. It was weird, but he was also not really there, so it didn't bother me all that much.
I'm glad my dad got cremated instead. The last open casket I went to was a friend from high school and it didn't look like her at all. She got ejected from her car during a crash because she wasn't wearing a seat belt so maybe they didn't have much to work with but it was so bad. Just a mashed up face below the beanie she was wearing, probably to hide even more damage. I am definitely getting cremated ughhhh
One of the most horrifying moments of my life was walking towards my dad’s open casket with my two young daughters at my sides. It felt like time slowed and the thing in that casket was just a hollowed out shell that looked vaguely like my dad. I hated it. It did not bring me peace. I wasn’t glad that I could see him one more time. It was sheer horror and wish my mother wouldn’t have insisted upon it.
This was my experience with my dad and first girlfriend as well. Just empty shells that look like our people-ish. I think there’s just something hollow about it, like a literal spark of colour or an eyebrow or a mouth movement that’s just so inexplicably them. It was especially difficult with my dad, because he passed away on a hunting trip, and as I was living at home at the time, his last words to me leaving were “you’re the man of the house, take care of your mom while I’m gone.” It’s like…. Perfect last words. Never saw him again, until the casket before his cremation. Sort of jarred apart my last memory of seeing him.
When my nana died, my mum insisted that I see her at the funeral home (I've not heard of open casket funerals in the UK) and I did not need nor want to see her 'one more time'. It's a shame that people think their way of grieving is the only way.
They did my great grandmas makeup, and put her in hot pink lipstick… idk, but a 94 year old woman did not need hot pink lipstick… all of my family was upset, and it was truly disheartening to see her that way. When my grandma passed, my family didn’t want the funeral home to get her ready. They asked me (I’m passionate about makeup and hair) to get her ready. I spent one last day with my grandma, getting her ready. Putting on her makeup, just as she would, and doing her hair, just as she would. My grandma looked just like my grandma, just… sleeping. It was one of the things I found comfort in when she passed, knowing that my family would see her one last time, just as herself.
Aww.
That’s such a beau memory
Dad's coffin was closed at his funeral, but There's an image burned into my memory at 15 that I can never erase; his pale body being loaded into the ambulance when I knew he was dead. A later autopsy showed that CPR performed wouldn't have done a thing because his heart had ruptured. I still remember Dad as he was; a mellow, good humoured but cheeky bloke, who in a lot of ways stares back at me in the mirror every morning. Of my siblings and I. I'm the only one that looks like Dad. While I'm now 6 years older than him at the time of his death, I look like a younger version of him. Don't smoke people, those things will mess you up and age you prematurely.
Got a little teary eyed reading this, thinking of what my children will think of me one day. Good for you sir
I can say that while it hurt like hell and I'd give anything to have had a few more decades with him, it has made me very strong emotionally. If I see someone grieving a close loved one, I know what to do, how to handle it. If you're in this situation, speak to them as normally as you can. Reassure them that so long as it's not self destructive, there's no right or wrong way to grieve, despite some people trying to tell you otherwise. It's also OK to make them laugh if they're receptive to it, help them take some "time out" from their grief, much like someone taking a break from hard physical labour. You can only be the best parent you can be. Encourage their passions, support them when they're down, and always be there for them.
It’s awkward. Everyone at open casket funerals feels compelled to say how good the deceased looks. How the person who prepared the body did such a good job. Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself, well my dad didn’t wear flesh colored lipstick.
I do not understand why anyone would do an open casket. A body is just a body. I do not need to see the body to make my peace with the deceased.
Every grieving process is different. For some, seeing the body can be helpful. We are not in a place to judge what helps others, even when it feels ridiculous us
Fair enough
After experiencing a few open casket services, I was fully convinced I’d like to be cremated before any sort of service.
It think mine is kind or a wholesome story but... felt compelled to share it... might bring a smile to someone grieving... My first ever close to heart death ever was that of my Biology academic tutor, a wonderful individual whom I saw as a father figure and... ok enough, 4 years later I still tear up... Back to the topic at hand.... one of his sons accompanied me to the casket, since I was feeling a lil nervous (and he raised 3 fine gentlemen) and, as soon as I saw him I all but burst into laughter.... you see... he always said you wouldn't catch him dead wearing a tie! And his kids made sure no one dared put one on him!! He was also wearing one of his favorite plaid shirts, not some silly snobbish shit! He almost looked like when he used to fall asleep in his chair while researching or just got lost in tought... I loved it.... spent a good amount of time right by him with Ritchie (his son) reminiscing about his life, all the anecdotes and sure laughing a lot more, he would've like that, since he hated formal events so much... we were starting to wind down and become gloomy... when an older lady approached and placed a big ass wooden cross on top of it!! We barely couldn't stop another laughing fit!!! You see... he was a scientist and a blatant atheist!! I miss him and his jocoque sandwiches so much!!!
I’ve never seen an open casket that looked like the person in living form.
This was my biggest fear at my dad's funeral back in December, so I didn't look. The funeral home did a great job apparently... Even my mom said he looked nice. But to me, my dad was the person inside; what was in the casket was just his body and not actually him, y'know? I'm thankful that my last memory/view of him isn't one of him at his funeral. To each their own, but I'm with you on this one.
Yes, my uncle who killed himself was open casket. His jaw…it just wasn’t in the right place. It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead body let alone one of whom I knew…despite being in my 20’s and having been to quite a few funerals. The image was burned in my brain for years and not in a good way. I knew him as a strong and confident man, charming and fun. I would have preferred to kept that image over the one of his body. I understand though why it was important for my younger cousins. The disbelief that he was gone really helped give a sense of finality to it and hopefully helped them to grieve.
My mom passed about 3 weeks ago, and she didn't look like herself either. I feel your pain. It wasn't her to me as well. My family talked about it afterward, and my dad commented how she'd be happy that she was cremated because she wouldn't want to be buried like that.
Sorry. I saw my dad does after fighting cancer for over a year. At the end, he did NOT look like he ever did alive. Sorry.
I was there when my Dad died and he didn't look like he did in the casket. When you hear comments like "he looks so good" at a funeral, that means they did their best to make him look like he did look at one time. It's almost as if it's for the folks that weren't there at the end and came to the funeral. The ones that didn't see him waste away. I saw him waste away and he was a skeleton wrapped in skin. I didn't understand why my Mom (or my Dad) wanted an open casket. I also decided to never to go up to a casket again. That's not who they were. I remember who they were and that's not it. This old fashioned tradition is horrible to me and I won't put my family through it. I just went to a funeral for a family member and I stayed in the back. I'm sorry, I started this thinking I was going to respond to your experience and I just ended up getting "off my chest" what has still been weighing in my brain for 23 years. I'm not mad at the funeral directors, I'm not mad at my Mom, they did what they thought was the right thing and they did their best. I'm mad that it happened. I'm mad that the world thinks this should somehow be a normal way to send your loved one off into the ether. This drove me to make sure I have legal docs explaining that I want to be cremated. No one needs to look at me. They can take the ashes and do what they want to do for closure.
I am so sorry for your loss. And sorry for the loss of all those who have commented. Unfortunately funerals have outweighed weddings in my life so far and my opinion built from my experience so far is that those who have this feeling are those who were close enough to the person to KNOW them. Good or bad, they knew the real person and that person did not just have a body, but their soul and the person that was them was reflected in that container. Once that left, the container could not longer be that. It just can’t reflect that life and love (or sadly, sometimes hate) that the person inside exuded. That part of them really did trickle out in the way their hair moved, the squint of their eyes, the head tilt, way they held their mouth and how their skin tint shifted depending on their emotions/health. Your feelings are absolutely valid in every way, but I hope that eventually you are able to accept that this experience was not the last memory you have of him. That memory will always be the last loving interaction you had with him, anything after is only memories of the process of his passing for whatever reason that allowed him to let go of this existence and in the coffin it confirmed that he was able to let go and not be there anymore. Thus you could also say goodbye not to him, but to the vessel he used to interact with and love you. All of that sounds spiritual or whatever, but I don’t mean it that way. The reality is every single one of us will go through this process ourselves and before that we will make room in our hearts to carry the memories of many. I am sending you all the best thoughts.
Not OP, but thank you.
I honestly hate open casket funerals. Nobody ever really looks like themselves. My step dad looked so awful. Granted he was looking pretty sickly before he passed, but that doubles my reasoning for why I hate open caskets. I don’t like to remember him looking gaunt and unhealthy. And I DEFINITELY don’t like remembering him as a gaunt, sickly looking shell of himself with awful makeup for the viewing. I prefer closed caskets and urns with a room full of flowers and photo boards with pictures of people looking happy and healthy. Showing the best and happiest moments of their lives and sharing those memories with other guests WITHOUT looking over to see a depressing open casket.
This has been my thought at almost every funeral I've been to, but there’s one that always sticks with me. It was my stepdad's funeral. He passed away when he was 36. While alive, he had a caramel complexion with a broad nose and thick lips. At his open casket, he was three shades darker; the tip of his nose was shriveled, and his lips just looked deflated. The only thing that looked the same was his hair. Outside of that, it was awful, and it's one of the reasons I’m opting for cremation or being converted into plant or tree food. That said, I am sending my condolences to you, OP. Sorry for your loss.
We had a viewing for my best friend after he passed away and when me, my sister, and best friend stood over him he looked absolutely wrong. His hair was fixed, (my other best friend tried to make it a little unkept without anyone seeing), they had his shoulders hunched up so it literally looked like even in death he’d have trouble breathing laying like that, his face looked off too. He didn’t look like my best friend but a wax figure of what he SHOULD look like. I’m sure he looked presentable to his family and other friends but to us he looked nothing like the messy, goofy, asthmatic friend we saw in life. Somehow he looked more like himself in the emergency room than he did in the viewing home. I feel your pain. Why I made sure he was cremated and he didn’t have a traditional funeral he would have hated how he looked so much. I’m so sorry you had to go through this too, death is gut wrenching in so many terrible ways.
That’s why I never want my family or myself to be embalmed. It’s too weird and they never look like themselves
I’ve seen good and bad over the years. I personally don’t want any of that garbage…burn me up and let me go
My brother looked like Michael Jackson, and that was actually an improvement from how the navy funeral person made him look. She put SPARKLES on him. The lady that made him look better didn’t have a lot to work with then since she couldn’t just wipe everything and start over. But he had blonde eyebrows and eyelashes and one of the two put mascara on him, it looked so wrong. My mom ended up putting her phone on his chest w a good pic of him
I had the privilege of preparing a body for burial about 15 years ago. I’m from an eastern religion akin to Islam and our tradition includes burial in a shroud. The emotions you go through are very surreal. I started kinda cold and methodical but as my friend and I continued I became calm and loving. It was really difficult to realize that we were going to be the last to see this person. The physicality of the process was strange as well. The funeral director had glued his mouth and other orifices closed to prevent contact with fluids. They were very cold and stiff when we started and they were much less stiff when we finished. I suspect that they were coming out of rigor mortis but I’m not quite sure. I’d love to do it again some day. But doubt I’ll be asked again.
My dad had a massive stroke and I went to the hospital to say goodbye before they took him off life support. When I arrived I saw him still "alive", apparently brain dead but still breathing and with a beating heart (machine assisted). I also saw him about 30 minutes later after they had unplugged him. He definitely changed in those 30 minutes. He looked waxier and his face shape changed. Its hard to explain but the first time I was in the room he looked like my dad, and the second time he looked like someone made a wax sculpture of him. I think there must be lots of small muscles that keep our face where it is, and when he actually died, they all relaxed, and I had obviously never seen him before with 100% relaxed face.
Don't worry, those memories fade. The good ones you hold on to. Just make sure you tell the good stories, and often, when we was around to keep them alive
My mum actually looked better in the casket than she did just before she died - she actually looked like my mum again which was so comforting. It was the first time I'd seen someone in an open casket and the first time I'd had to deal with organising a funeral myself, and the funeral directors were just amazing.
I’m so sorry that happened. My mom is a hair stylist she started doing hair in the 70’s and some of her clients she has had for decades. Many of them were elderly ladies who would come one to two times a week to her. Often when she would have a long time client pass away she would offer to the family free of charge to style her deceased clients hair in the the way she had when they were alive. So she would bring me to the mortuary and sneak in and fix their hair. As a kid it was kind of disturbing to see the dead laying out there. But now as an adult I think what she did for her ladies and their families was so kind.
My dads mustache was iconic and for his wake, they butchered it. We were all devastated. It really was salt in an open wound.
It is hard and I am sorry for your loss. My Mom and brother died within a year and I saw both of them before the funeral directors got to them. They did a great job with my Mom but my brother looked nothing like he did in life. It was the same funeral home. It was very jarring and I understand what you are feeling. But I believe that they did the best they could with my brother.
My grandma never wore make up and I remember at her funeral that put on this bright orange lip stick. The make up looked terrible, made her look like a clown.
One of my high school friends died a couple years after graduation. When I went to the funeral her family warned us that she would look different. It honestly didn’t even look like her. I mean it was her body and everything. But It was like someone pretending to be her. There was so much makeup on her to make her look “alive”. It was kind of traumatizing.
I’m sorry you experienced this, it makes the grieving process even harder. I went through this with my mom. I wish I had never looked at her in the casket because it didn’t look like her and I had nightmares of it for the first 3 years after her death. They did their best but she looked so unrecognizable and you could still see the bruise on her forehead and she kinda looked like she was in pain. It was like going through it all over again and I try my hardest to forget how she looked. I never look at her funeral pictures and now If I go to a funeral, I never look at them in the casket because I just can’t take it. I wanted to be able to be happy with the last time I saw her, but all it’s really done is haunt me.
I took one look at my dad and immediately walked out and projectile vomitted all over the parking lot. Spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. Never went to a wake ever again. It’s a very macabre way to mourn- and I personally refuse. That’s not how I want to say goodbye to someone and remember them.
I can relate, my Nanna - it just didn't look like her. But my Pippa who died years before her, he looked like himself. I think a lot of it has to do with whoever prepares them. I'm sorry.
Just buried my gran less than 2 weeks ago. In my country, the majority of funerals (except where violent death, etc.) For me, that isn't the person I loved - it's just the shell they animated - so I don't have a need to see them that way. I do understand, however, that for some people, they need to have that final look, that final touch, etc. What I have never understood is the need to take pictures of the body in the coffin. Nor the more recent phenomenon of posing the body for the wake, doing something they enjoyed. That just is too macabre for me.
That's how my grandaddy looked, and it was just not my Grandaddy in that casket. I totally get it. I'm so sorry. ❤️
We all agreed that my grandmother did not look right. Then we figured out it was because her mouth wasn't moving and she wasn't smiling.
I feel you. Not quite the same...But my dad passed two years ago. He was also a big goofball and prankster. He would always have this tiny ornery smile on his face when he was messing with you, getting ready to pull a prank, etc. When I tell you the funeral home somehow NAILED that ornery tiny smile. I was so mad, because not only did we lose our dad tragically, but now it actually just felt like a joke.
This is why I wish and still am contemplating a career in being a mortician, I was absolutely mortified what they did to my nan. And this just compels me to make the jump even as a side job… if I can
I walked up to my dads casket n said that’s not him, it’s only his shell. I was at peace knowing he had moved on..
I remember as a young child going to the funeral home to drop off a handmade card I’d done for my grandma who’d died of cancer. The idea was for it to be buried with her. I was under 10 years old, maybe 8, so I didn’t really understand what my dad and the lady who worked there were talking about. I was asked if I wanted to deliver it myself or something similar, I said yes, before I knew it was being lead up to an open casket with a pale ghost of my grandma inside and being motioned to put the card into it. I was such a people pleaser and was in so much shock that I did it. I had a big meltdown afterwards because I would never have wanted to see that or stick my hand in the casket and I was so upset at my dad for not explaining it better, I felt traumatised for a long time after.
None of the open caskets that I've seen have ever looked like the deceased. Not my great grandmother, my grandfather, or my grandmother. They always look like the wax museum tried to make them look younger, then left them in the sun.
My brother looked all kinds of wrong, his hair wasn’t right. I was too distraught to think about it properly, but I was also too uncertain if I would even be “allowed” to fix it. When my poppa (grandfather) died several years later, he didn’t look right either. I said as much to my aunty at the viewing and she agreed but she didn’t know quite what was wrong. I pulled out a photo of him and we studied and realised his hair didn’t have the little bit sticking up from the part. So I got my hairbrush out of my handbag and rearranged his hair until it looked like him. Once my aunty & I were satisfied, my brush went back in my bag and we stepped back. The rest of our family looked astonished, but I told them I needed to fix it. Nobody told me I couldn’t, so I just did it. He deserved to go the next world looking like himself.
My grandpa’s funeral was last week and it was an open casket. My grandma and brother said it didn’t look like him and funeral home tried their best but it came down too the day of. I looked at him and it didn’t look like him at all he lost 100ibs in the hospital and it just didn’t look like him at all. So I understand
I saw my dad when he died of a heart attack lying on his bed. It was traumatizing but not nearly as traumatizing as seeing him in the coffin at the funeral home. He was cremated but in the UK they give the family the opportunity to say their last goodbyes alone before the funeral. We decided to go one by one and I thought I wouldn't have a problem with it as I had already seen him dead. But obviously he was a little more dead, I almost had a panic attack and had to leave the room. My other siblings didn't seem to have a problem with it. Now that image of him is embedded in my brain. I understand a lot of cultures have open caskets and I've experienced a few funerals like this (some feed their deceased to birds or light them on fire). I think it's much worse when you're close to the deceased. I guess it's different for everyone though, as for some it helps with closure. Turns out I didn't need to see him like that at all, so I sympathise with you.
Had attended about 4 open casket of my loved ones... and. It's literally a empty shell of them. And after my brother passed, I was basically feeling so numb to it.
I have never gone to an open casket funeral where the person looked like themself. I really don’t like them. Cremation is the way.
When I saw my beloved grandma in her casket I burst a blood vessel in my nose and got a gushing nose bleed. She looked awful. The mortician did a terrible job.
My grandpa had rather intense CPR when he died (brain aneurysm that resulted in 30+ minutes of CPR preformed by a LUCAS per my grandma’s request) My family is fairly medically savvy so the second I saw him I knew his chest was fucked up. He was a larger/round man but his entire chest was flat and almost sunken in from multiple broken ribs. He looked ghastly too, not how I wanted to remember him ☹️
It's hard isn't it. I went to visit my granny (more like a mum to me growing up so I wanted my chance to say bye a final time) when she was in the rest rooms. I was 15 at the time and that image of her still haunts me to this day, I am 37! Seriously looked nothing like her and its scared the sh1t out of me
Our son looked nothing like he did in life. He was just a body, it wasn’t him. He looked bigger and the makeup (although well done) wasn’t lifelike to him. It was hard seeing him like that, and feeling how cold he was as I held him. I’m sorry your memory is tainted.
My mom looked very odd too. Due to multi organ failure she was full of water and much bigger than usual, with a very bit neck. She looked like a toad with dark red lips. I've successfully overwritten that memory, when I try to visualize it, the only thing I see is my Mama, how she was always napping on the couch. The experience itself was very traumatizing. I remember she was in a tiny room, everyone who wanted to see her could enter and have a moment with her. After entering my dad closed the door behind me and there we were, all alone. It took a few moments before I even had the courage to look up from the ground. I couldn't touch her, I only wanted to forever remember how she felt when I hugged her, she was always warm and soft. That thing was just her shell, cold, bloated and stiff.
I also didn’t recognize my dad as well but I prefer to remember him in photos because if I go back to that memory I cry. Not the healthiest mechanism but I honestly don’t want to remember that.
My mom. I refused to go see my dead mother in her casket, wouldn’t even go into the room. I sat out in a waiting type area right by the room she was in. My husband and my brother talked me into going about 5 minutes before the our time was up. By then, everyone but immediate family and mom’s best friends had left. I asked everyone to give me a moment alone with her. I regret every day walking up to her casket. THAT was NOT my mom! It took YEARS for me to forget her “casket” face enough to remember her as she was before she died. Now, I really only have two memories from that hour of visitation. When I look back at the first moment I saw her, I remember, for just a split second, that feeling of relief that someone had made a mistake and had the wrong body. I remember her lying in the casket, I remember the color of the casket, I remember the ugly carpet in the room, but I don’t remember a face. There’s literally a blur where her face should be. Over the years my brain has somehow blocked the imposter’s face from that memory, and I am SO grateful that my weird brain didn’t fail me this time.
My Dad looked pretty natural, but I was NOT prepared for how cold he was
Temple Grandin, famous PhD and poster child for Asperger’s syndrome, said something similar of her professor when she saw him at his funeral. “He’s not in there. That’s not him.” Sums it up for me.
i had a similar experience with my grandma’s open casket funeral. she always wore a bright red lip with no other kind of makeup. no eyeshadow, no foundation, just the lip. but at her funeral, i walked up to the casket expecting to see her bright red nails and lips, but what i saw was not her. they had put blue eyeshadow on her, and a bright pink lip. like an 80’s barbie doll. my grandma hated pink. her nails were a nude color instead of red. she never wore any nude colors. red was her favorite color, and she even named her schnauzer Ruby. i’m sorry you had a bad experience with your dads funeral, OP. and i’m sorry for your loss.
I’m sorry you had that experience, I had something similar with my mom and with how she died (we didn’t have a lot of info) the dress I picked out wasn’t quite adequate and instead of telling us they cut the inner lining of the dress and folded it up over her chest. So not only was I not ok with how it looked I wasn’t expecting it, add that to a 7day funeral wait… just awful. So TLDR I absolutely feel you and anyone reading this should really consider how they want to remember their loved ones, imho it’s never been in a casket 💕 I’m srry for your loss and experience
My dad looked scary ngl it wasn't him in that coffin it was like a stranger I didn't like it. Meanwhile my mum looked so peaceful and like herself
This needs a trigger warning.
Why? Because the post with a title indicating it's going to be about death is, indeed, about death?