The first time I saw this phenomenon (on Facebook of course), I did not know what to think of it.
The Marin funeral home in San Juan Puerto Rico did a spectacular job of fulfilling 23 year old boxer, Christopher Rivera’s wish that should he die, he wanted to be remembered as a boxer. What better way to do this than to dress him in his boxing gear and pose him in a boxing ring. The funeral home has done this type of viewing before, posing David Morales Colón on his motorcycle.
Comments under the news articles are mixed, as were reactions on FB. They range from horrified,
I think this is appalling. Reminiscent of circus side shows. And cameras taking pictures like the wax museum. Why not bring him home and sleep with him one more time too.”
to thoughtful,
I am thinking that this can make death a lot more tolerable. As our lives change and the world changes so do points of view.”
but mostly people seemed to be creeped out. As if seeing make-up covered dead people lying in satin-lined caskets isn’t creepy anyway.
I have already told my husband that when I die, I don’t want an open casket. I know I won’t care what people see or think after I am dead, but I care now and that’s that. So the last time you see me will really be the last time you see me. I am thinking though that maybe, just maybe I could go for being posed. (Maybe I should reconsider my open-casket aversion. As a forty-something year old, lying in a casket could be me posed as if I were snoring away on my satin sheets at home.)
The first poses that come to mind are those that represent what my life seems to be made up of these days: me standing in front of a sink holding a sudsy dish, or me carrying a laundry basket of folded clothes—smiling of course because I am ready to put them away, or me at the stove gripping my pressure cooker. But really, how would I want to seen, rather than how do I exist on a day to day basis? Maybe I could be propped on a couch with a book in one hand and a fancy drink in the other, with my feet up on an ottoman, freshly pedicured toes fanned out. Or maybe they could sit me next to a crib filled with doll replicas of my children when they were babies. I would be gazing lovingly at them. Imagine that: choosing the one pose that encapsulates your life. What would your pose be?
I hope the posing thing catches on. Seeing people laid out, looking like they are dead always makes me feel so sad. It is as if in death they have become unreal, disconnected, and empty. Some might say that is the way it really is, and so why try to make it seem otherwise? But my preference would be to see the person for a final time as they were in some moment of their life. After all, laying people out prone in a box is just our left over practice from a time when that was really the only option.
I’m not sure what I think of this posing. When my first husband was killed in a car accident, we didn’t do a viewing. A couple of his close friends chose to say goodbye to him, but I didn’t. Like you said, I didn’t want to remember him laying there, gone. I guess this gives you a way to remember people like they were in life, but I prefer the real memories to the manufactured ones after the fact.