When a Funeral Becomes Tragedy Porn

First off, it seems I have to define the term "tragedy porn." I told friends of mine that I'm finally finished with it & 2 of them were confused; one actually though I'd done porn! I also had another friend who thought my husband had died instead of my sister in law. I'll have to send her a private message later since I've got a lot to tell her but first, let me define this term. I hope I gave an explanation that really did it justice for those friends but in case I didn't let's define it.

You know when there's a tragedy the media will cover it excessively? For instance, when 9/11 happened you couldn't watch anything on television b/c of all the footage of the World Trade Center towers. Not just on news channels but EVERYWHERE. They had no news to report at the time but it was happening for days & days on a loop.

After a while, people felt like enough was enough. That is how I felt about this whole recent death thing.

If you've read prior entries, you know I'm no stranger to the death of close family members. I've been to quite a few funerals & recently had to help in the planning of my father's funeral. I know a thing or two about them & what's customary vs. overkill.

I had no beef with my sister in law. She was like my father in some ways. Unfortunately, she was like him in the sense of having addictions & not being a functional human being to quite a few people. I felt bad for her family since boy do I know what it's like to live with someone who has an addictive personality & addiction problems. She also didn't want to get help for herself, resulting in my husband not being able to have a close relationship with her. Nor did she seem to want to have a close relationship with him. Maybe them being from 2 different generations also didn't help matters (10+ years age difference) though you could never have called my sister in law unhip. I'm also sure she had to be a far better mother to her kids than my mom was to me since she actually had hard times in her youth, knew all the tricks & that teenagers are going to rebel. She didn't go around trying to fight that fact or damning her kids for all eternity.

She struck me as the type of mom who could handle any problem her kids might have without being a judgmental jerkwad, resenting them for being successful or harping on some issue for the rest of their lives. I never heard her being judgmental about or toward anyone & she actually argued with her mother with positions I'd take myself.

Plus, she appreciated my fashion sense & always made me feel welcome in the family.

My most memorable story of her was when she came to see our apartment with her kids & husband. She told us that our street was where she used to go score drugs. I always saw her as a hip older sister; perhaps had I been able to have a closer relationship, she could have been the hip older sister I never had.

We had the wakes yesterday & the funeral today. Here's where it becomes tragedy porn:

1. I had to go to BOTH wakes since my ride chose to do this. One wake was bad enough; I cried some in that one. You couldn't help it since you saw her in the casket & the slide show had recognizable music (including "Angel" by Sarah MacLachlan, the song most known for being played in those mistreated animal commercials). I will also never be able to hear the song "Always" by Atlantic Starr in the same way, though I thought it was sweet for the slideshow & fitting for my sister in law. After all, she had decent taste in music. She's the one who exposed my husband to great classic rap I didn't get to listen to until much later.

At least one relative told us the music included was just too sad for things.

Also, no one I have ever heard of a funeral for had 2 wakes. You got one wake; that was it. We had one wake for my father & my mother didn't even want that. In fact, my mother in law outright said she didn't want one when she's dead since she hates the fake concern from people who never bothered reaching out or contacting the deceased when (s)he was alive. She makes a very good point.

2. At the second wake, we had to be subjected to a pastor trying to proselytize to us. One prayer is one thing; it's another to be telling people they have to put their hope in God or bad things will happen (or imply it).

Newsflash, Christians!!! Not everyone plays on the God Squad or wants to.

Why should atheists, agnostics, Pagans & others who don't follow YOUR beliefs have to feel attacked and alienated when they go to pay their respects to a loved one? Particularly a loved one who probably wouldn't have wanted these people to be subjected to a sermon. I don't recall my husband being subjected to harassment from his sister on religious matters when she felt religious at a given moment. You don't hear about atheists or agnostics trying to shove their faith down believers' throat at their loved ones' funerals or using their speakers to deliver sermons & "save souls."

3. We were all sitting in rows of chairs in there while the body was out & with the comfy seats in front for the family. My husband was in a fuzzy situation since he was the brother but my husband's parents were in the front and, of course, you had my brother in law & their kids. My husband didn't want to be in front anyway so we opted to talk to other relatives and let them know we should be getting together under more pleasant circumstances & in less formal settings.

This is not something I've ever seen in the South & only with my husband's family (those are the only funerals I've been to up here). Again, I've been to a LOT of funerals. Our wake was in a large room, no chairs except comfy ones on the side. They also had comfy seats in the hallway so you didn't have to stay in the cold viewing rooms if you didn't want to be in there anymore.

Here you had the downstairs lounge near the office or had to stand in the hallway. There was also the option of going outside (which was also available at my father's wake).

I really hate that setup. It feels like you should see a speaker or a performance. If you're not, everyone just sits in dead silence, watches the slideshow a thousand trillion times and is encouraged to just sit like we're in some church sermon. At least in an open room, conversation will happen & people won't feel awkward about engaging in it. Plus, you know to keep your stuff with you or can put it in a comfy seat where no one is likely to steal it from you.

There's only so many times you can sit and view a slideshow that way before you feel like enough is enough.

4. This morning, we had to ride in rush hour traffic from our house about an hour away to then sit ANOTHER hour watching yet another slide show in the same room with the same seating setup. I was like "This is no longer a funeral!! It's tragedy porn! I have to get out of here."

I'm not sure whose grand idea it was to tell everyone to come in at 9:30 & then not bother doing ANYTHING until more than an hour later. That person should be forced to give me a free glass of pulpy orange juice & pay our gas costs for sitting in the crap we had to sit in to travel 2 counties away.

Not to mention my stomach was growling during all this while I'd eaten breakfast before I came (no orange juice so I was also sleepy & POed from getting up at the crack of dawn, at least in The Angry Redheaded Lawyer's world). When I get paid to get up at 7 in the morning, we'll talk about the early/lateness of the hour. Until I do, I'm sleeping in & you can keep your sob stories to yourself. Oh, and as a rule entertainment people generally keep later hours than everyone else when they get to make that choice.

5. We also had to take side detours to the homes in the town where the deceased lived. One of them wasn't even a residence my husband remembered & he couldn't tell you which one was her old home. As he pointed out, what is the good in that? The people who wanted to do that could do it on their own time instead of dragging the full procession there. Who were we burying, my sister in law or JFK? I'm shocked no one tried to have the full town closed. Who doesn't think that's self-indulgent?

No funeral I have been to in history EVER did this. My father's did not include a drive by of homes where nobody knew where they were or why it was the least bit significant. We had the good sense not to drag people to bad neighborhoods to wheel his corpse all over town.

We went straight to the cemetery & that was that. The nostalgia tours (which are totally for the living, not the dead) were not inflicted on our funeral attendees. Not to mention people have lives aside from funerals on a weekday. They have jobs, rush hour traffic & plenty of other things to contend with.

6. The funeral home staff seemed determined to drag this out for as long as humanly possible. We sat in our car for what felt like eternity before the tour of homes began. It was ridiculous & showed poor planning. We sure didn't have a long ass wait when we were burying my father; we got that show on the road.

I also don't remember our driver going slowly like this one did; my father would have been pissed if that happened anyway since he (as well as the rest of my family) was known for being a lead foot & someone who complained about slow drivers. We've all got some road rage & don't deny it.

7. Finally, there were about a trillion "final goodbyes" to the deceased. We had more prayers, put our flowers on the casket and you'd think we'd be done. The word "final" didn't have the conventional meaning here.

One big thing about every other funeral I've been to: you DO NOT get to hang around & watch the cemetery staff put your loved one in the ground or the drawer. No one ever hung around for it & we felt it was done, time to move on. The dead person isn't at that cemetery; they are gone.

Not this time. My husband & the other family members go over to the drawer to watch them load the casket in. I did not. Instead I sat on benches & looked at the dates of life and death for people in this cemetery. I noticed that a lot of people with Italian last names lived for far longer than most of my relatives, leading me to think longevity is apparently good if you're an Italian living in Long Island. Saw very few plaques for people who died younger. That made me mad since my family's longevity is not even close to 80s-90s; try 60s.

I was also done by that point. A person can't be around death & all that tragedy all the time, non-stop for days on end like that. You say your goodbyes & get the show on the road. Dragging it out like this was just picking at scabs & giving the wound no chance of healing.

I put my flower down on the casket, I went through before the first wake to say goodbyes, the end of the second wake & before we left for the procession. I did all my goodbye saying at the start; I didn't need multiple times for that. Sister in law also isn't a high rank on all this in my book. I wasn't even acknowledged in the obituary or to half the people who paid their respects.

At what point did this become tragedy porn for me? The second wake long before the pastor arrived & sitting around over an hour this morning like we were in church to watch the second slideshow.

So if you're planning a funeral, a few things to consider:

1. Respect for others. The world doesn't revolve around YOU. Think about what the deceased would have wanted. Would (s)he want the people who came to mourn him/her feel unwelcome at the service? Would the deceased want you wheeling his/her corpse all over town? Would the deceased want you to drag out the entire process & dwell on things, Catholic guilt or not? Most of us aren't self-centered, self-indulgent jerks who think everyone else should hang around the rest of the decade & watch the same tributes ad nauseam. How about some appreciation & respect for people who are taking time off their jobs, not watching their kids, getting up at the crack of dawn, braving rush hour, whatever to show up?

2. Demand your funeral staff to be efficient. We could have been told to show up an hour later & I could have gotten more sleep. Perhaps we'd have also avoided the traffic we hit to get there. Make sure they have their shit together & organize things beforehand so they're not running around for things or encouraging people who took time away from work & their own lives to attend.

3. If you must have a wake, don't do that seating thing unless you're bringing in a stand-up comic or others are going to get up & speak about the deceased most of the time. Don't force people to sit there for 30 minutes+ on end with the tribute on loop & zero access to food (since NY law supposedly forbids anyone bringing food or drink to a funeral home; what if they're toting a young child, I wonder?) or loud conversation with others. You could also be forgiven if you're bringing in a dancer, preferably burlesque. The people with kids should also appreciate this since however much we hate that mess, they have to hate it more since that's just cruel.

Imagine my autistic nephew having to do that; he'd lose his shit very quickly. In fact, his screaming would be a welcome relief from the somber, depressing atmosphere. Watching these younger kids interact made me feel a little better at the cemetery. Life affirming stuff, maybe? I don't know.

Younger children at funerals just make it feel better to me since they're not bound by the rules of decorum adults are & generally get to be their rambunctious, crazy selves without too many adults getting pissy about it. As long as they're not being bratty like pulling people's hair or knocking flowers down, they should be around to bring levity to the proceedings if the family refuses to have a celebration of life & insists on imposing the law of tragedy porn.

My husband had the nerve to tell me earlier I didn't know what it was like to have someone die & have unfinished business with them. I had to remind him he was wrong. I hope he'll take the advice he gave me before.

Also, I know I'm not a goth or like Harold of Harold & Maude. Maybe going to a funeral is okay if you don't know the person but if you do? It just sucks & it's worse when it gets into tragedy porn territory. I already told my husband I'm not going to any more wakes or funerals unless it's for immediate family or a very close friend (as in, someone I've bared my soul to who didn't run for the hills when I did). I can't do The Death Channel; some people seem to want to live in it but I can't. I like to live in today & have no regrets about doing a modeling gig on Saturday. I don't want to feel like my career & plans are being halted and derailed because of all this shit. I already felt like I lost the month of June with my family stuff; I don't want to lose this month or next as well.

If you're wondering if this changes my general feelings on family, it doesn't. I never signed up for sainthood & would never tell you I'm perfect. I also think it's extremely hypocritical to say "Family is who is there for you & what you create, not blood" while telling someone they shouldn't disown their parents b/c "They're your PARENTS!!!" When you feel about a family member the way Thelma Harper felt about her mother, I think it's time to move on (Mama's Family reference; she felt her mother was a critical shrew who never had a kind word for her & disparaged everything about her, her husband and her family--you also saw this play out in flashbacks). I can't wait to get the full show in October & probably relate to parts of it way too much. Mama's Family is not far off from Southern families I've seen (though it takes place in the Midwest, not the South), especially if the family isn't rich.