Memento Mori

An open casket wake. Deceased in his eighties. Slow unfolding dementia. Minor stroke. And peace a few days later with his family by his bedside.

He wanted the casket open. His wife would have it preferred closed but she kept his dying wishes. There at the end of the hall, I can see his long nose peaking out over the mahogany.

I never saw my father after he passed. That was an image I chose not to have. My mother and brother gave me that choice; they went to the hospital to take care of the details. As awful as he looked the last days of his life, there was still blood circulating in his veins.

At this gentleman’s funeral, I am seeing a dead body for the first time. I understand now why people say that the dead look waxy. It is not a cliche, there seems to be no other way to describe it. A carved stone. A fake dried up skin ornament. A rubber caricature. All the features are elongated, the angles accentuated. The head is propped improbably while the chest disappears under sateen. I wonder why a man would want the world to see this abandoned vessel. I’ve heard it brings closure, it helps solidify the grieving process, heals the wounds faster. Perhaps it was a custom he brought from his past. Perhaps there was some hubris too in opening his own corpse for display, a final morbid joke, a memento mori that forced us to witness our own mortality as we looked upon the remnants of his corporeal placeholder.