Selling emotions is good business

“This, sir is an ideal box for a beloved relative. Feel this material; it is genuine satin. There is heavy padding underneath it; the padding, let me remind you, is made of special foam; your relative will be lying on a cloud. And the wood is polished with built in veneer. This, sir, is the best that money can buy; it is the ultimate in respect for a departed loved one.”

The man was dressed in a dark suit. The place was quiet and very somber, as befitting a funeral parlor—an expensive one at that. Solicitous, grave, and very respectful, he talked to my friend John like a butler of bye gone days. I had accompanied John after many protests, for funeral parlors give me the creeps, but I came with him for moral support. Before setting forth to the parlor, John had looked me in the eye and said, “By no means are you going to say anything that might be construed as humorous, clear.”

I was very clear. I had no intentions of being witty or sarcastic; this, after all, was not the place for humor, and I could relate to the time and place, but this bag-of-wind was just getting to me. The final straw was when he told John that the casket had pneumatic holes in the casket.

“What are they for,” I asked.
“So that enough air can circulate through the casket,” he said rather sententiously.
“But the man is dead. Isn’t he?”

Both gave me dirty stares as if to say, “Spare him Lord, for he is a heretic.”

Why must we go to all the expense of taking a dead body; dressing it up in the finest of clothes—clothes that the person might never have worn in their lives—not even in their dreams? Are we honoring the departed or expatiating our own sins? Maybe, I am crazy, but the last time I checked, all revealed religions having father Abraham as an ancestor emphasize the temporal nature of the flesh. The soul is immortal and goes on into the afterlife. “Ashes to ashes; dust to dust……” So what is with all this over-hype in dressing the body up as if it is on the way to a big old party in the sky? How is this any different from the pagan rites of placing a sword in a warrior’s hand; slaughtering his war steed, and placing him by his side; and putting all his jewelry on him to help in the other world?”

When did we get away from the simple pine box and the solemnity of real grief? When was this replaced by the sheer hypocrisy of what passes on for grief?

I was relating the above anecdote to my friend Ike recently, and he shook his head, “Man, you are naïve. We had to change the entire cloth of a casket because the shade of the cloth was off by.001 percent.” “What”, he went on, “will the dead person open his eyes; look at the cloth, and say the dye is off color?”

I mean, am I crazy or is the world wacky? Talk to me!!

Riaz Sahibzada