I was 22 years old the first time I saw a dead body. My friend Lisa’s grandmother had passed away and another friend Mary and I, went to the funeral home to pay our respects.
Mary drove and on the way there she said, “I hope it’s not an open casket, but being as they are Italian, it probably will be”.

What? Open casket?

By the time we got into the line my knees were shaking and the colour had drained from my face. Mary actually held my hand in the line because she was afraid I was going to pass out. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d worked it up to be in my head. Since then I’ve been to more open casket visitations than I can count – my husband being Italian and having a very large extended family – and it really doesn’t faze me anymore. And of course I was holding my mother’s hand when she died, but that’s a completely different ballgame.


One of the first times I went to a visitation with my husband, I was completely and utterly horrified to see little kids there, anywhere from about two years of age and up. And yet as I watched them, they were really not bothered at all by the body lying in the casket off to the side. The more often I witnessed this, the more I came to realize that this is a better way to do things. Death is just another part of life and whitewashing it the way we sometimes do isn’t necessarily a good thing. The fact that I was 22 the first time I went to a funeral home isn’t because no one died in my family until then – I lost four grandparents, two great-grandparents, and a few aunts and uncles. I can actually remember asking my mother to let me go to my Great-Grandmother’s funeral, but she said I was too young. (I was 10). I understand that my mom was trying to shelter me from unpleasantness, but the result was the terror I felt at 22 waiting in that line.

So, I started taking my kids with me when I went. They were about 12 and 14 the first time, and my daughter held tightly to my hand. They were both nervous and unsure of what it would be like to kneel in front of a dead person, but once they realized it wasn’t that scary, they were fine. We always fear what we don’t know, and now they both know that they can go and pay their respects and it’s okay. It’s never pleasant, but like me, they’ve learned that it’s something you just have to do sometimes and they know they can handle it.

That being said….

Monday my husband’s Aunt passed away. I didn’t really know her, but I am acquainted with some of her kids. My stomach immediately clenched at the thought of going to the funeral. Suddenly I was back in that line with Mary and filled with dread.

Since my mother died, I’ve had a really hard time with funerals but it has nothing to do with bodies and everything to do with the fact that it brings back losing my Mom. Especially if, as was the case in the last couple I attended, it is someone else’s mom who has died.

Honestly, I feel like an idiot but I can’t seem to get past it. My husband mentioned his Aunt’s passing at dinner last night and said visitation would be tonight and tomorrow.
I didn’t say anything, but the lack of colour in my face apparently gave me away. I tried to explain how I felt.
My daughter Kaitlin smiled sympathetically and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand”.