Someone said today, visiting my office, that the photo of the dead man in his casket was probably taken by a person who worked at the funeral home where the man was embalmed.
This person who was in my office, Ray, also said if that was the case they should be more careful with the photo(s) and not let them get out in public. (I found it on the Recycling Center parking lot, where there are two 30-cubic-yard roll-off dumpsters, or 30-yd open tops, as we in the solid waste biz call 'em). Ray also said (he says a lot) that his sisters in fact took photos of their deceased mother in her casket but he didn't want one since he wanted to remember her the way she was when she was alive. Surely I could not agree more. The strangeness of open caskets and viewing of the body. Is it a way to reassure people that the person is really dead?
My own body I plan to give to the nearest medical school, the Univeristy of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock. Then I'd have a memorial marker out at the family plot in Pine Bluff. I might even adopt the epitaph of a neaby marker of someone whose last name was Garner: "Lord, I tried."
This person who was in my office, Ray, also said if that was the case they should be more careful with the photo(s) and not let them get out in public. (I found it on the Recycling Center parking lot, where there are two 30-cubic-yard roll-off dumpsters, or 30-yd open tops, as we in the solid waste biz call 'em). Ray also said (he says a lot) that his sisters in fact took photos of their deceased mother in her casket but he didn't want one since he wanted to remember her the way she was when she was alive. Surely I could not agree more. The strangeness of open caskets and viewing of the body. Is it a way to reassure people that the person is really dead?
My own body I plan to give to the nearest medical school, the Univeristy of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock. Then I'd have a memorial marker out at the family plot in Pine Bluff. I might even adopt the epitaph of a neaby marker of someone whose last name was Garner: "Lord, I tried."
