HW 48 - Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

Death is something I am still very confused and curious about, due to this I decided to interview two older members of my family. During both interviews I asked questions such as; Do you have plans for when you die?, How do you feel about death?, etc... The lost of the person who is being interviewed grandmother had a big impact on her. She felt as if it was not her time to go, because of this she was sad but ultimately frustrated and upset. The dominant social practices for the care of the dead are usually funerals and burials. During my first Interview I found it interesting that that the person I decided to interview said; “funerals are overrated and people shouldn’t mourn as much as they do” She agreed that there should be funerals but they should not be take up so much of the mourning process. This lead me to another interesting question; Why do most people tend to mourn for a large period of time if majority of those people try there hardest to not think about death as well as avoid it? 

The second interview included my Father and I who is 38 years old. I asked him similar questions to the questions that were included in the first interview. In this interview my father believed that funerals were very significant because mourning is a huge part of the care of the dead. Mourning is significant because mourning helps one get passed the pain that the experienced because of the death. The most fascinating part of this interview was when i asked him; Do you have plans for when you die? He answered; “everything is already planned” this was very interesting to me because at an early age such as 38 years old someone can already have plans on dying. This lead me to the conclusion that people avoid and prolong death as much as they can but everyone knows their expiration date will come sooner then they know it.