You would be wrong. I suppose you think funerals in funeral parlors have always been the case. That would be wrong. Funerals for the deceased have historically been held in the home. I am betting you are one of those that walks into a funeral home, takes a 1 second look, and scatters like a rat back to your home. I am also betting that as a young boy or girl, nobody that loved you said it was ok to touch the hand of a favored aunt or uncle or even mother/father/brother sister in the coffin did they. You are in the minority buddy and probably the saddest minority. I am betting you have yet to lose a single loved one.
Anyone who has seen the film “Gone with the Wind” remembers the terrible scene where Scarlett goes into the parlor to see her mother laid out. Thankfully, I grew up with the balls (you should pardon the expression) to look at death squarely in the face. When my father died 3 years ago, I tucked a love letter into his pocket in the funeral parlor. There is NOTHING to fear from the dead.
“Funerals for the deceased have historically been held in the home.”
Yes. My mom lives in the house on our family homestead, which was built in 1830. There are two front doors. The one leading to the old “parlor” is wider than the other to accommodate caskets. Over generations, people born in that house died in that house, and were “laid out” there as well. It was normal.
Agreed.
What do these people see as the preferred procedure? Toss the child’s body into a trash can? Request that a mortician “take care of this thing”?
As it happens the scumbag Holmes’ reference to “playing with” the dead child was a despicable smear. The family, as Santorum himself has pointed out, brought the child to their residence for an at-home funeral, in part to acknowledge and commemorate that a loved one was lost, and that this child WAS loved and would always be a part of them all.
This seems to me to be healthy, dignified and blessedly affectionate.