Re: Expectations after your patient dies?
I do not like to look at dead bodies, I don't want to go to a viewing, I don't want to go to a memorial service. I prefer to remember people as they were when they were alive, even if they were frail and old. I have been doing private duty for years and I have actually had family members of former patients see me in the store or around town and come up to me and flip out pictures of their dead relative in their casket at the funeral. I believe this is tacky and I am totally put off and offended by this.
I had an elderly neighbor when I was growing up who would not go to funerals, she was in her 90's and all her friends and what was left of her family were dying, she just wouldn't go to the funerals. I never gave much thought to why but I totally understand now.
The way I see it, funerals are a waste and I don't see how it could bring closure or comfort. When my father died I went to the funeral but when it came time for the viewing I stepped outside because I did not want the last image I had of him to be dead in a casket. When I told this to my sister-in-law she said she wished she had done the same thing I did because the image of him in his casket kept haunting her. I remember my mother sobbing that the only thing that looked "right" were his hands. I feel like I would have been better off not even going to that funeral, but I was only 17 yrs. old at the time.
Personally, I want to be cremated with my ashes scattered and no service. There's just no need for it. I don't need to be laid up in a casket with people lying about how good I look and then a preacher making up lies about what a wonderful person I was. Dying doesn't induct a person into sainthood. I wrote a note in the sympathy card talking about the good times we had when I took care of her but she could sure be a stinker, too (no, I didn't mention that she called Adult Protective Services when I had been there 24 hours and was told to go home by my supervisor, and that she had been cancelled from several other staffing agencies because of incessant complaints, that she was known to spread gossip about nurses when they weren't there). I still cared about her, naturally, but people are people, when you're gone, you're gone, we are all going to die one day, and that is all there is to it.
I'm not knocking people who want funerals, but I don't think I should be knocked because I don't go.
Anyway, I guess I got off track a bit. I guess the funeral homes wouldn't like me too much.
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