Going to a wake is always unpleasant. For one thing the departed, once embalmed, always looks like a stranger. Thus, the corkboard display of photos of the deceased as a baby, and as a teen, can only emphasize that he is now utterly a fossil. To make things worse, a wake usually comes in one of two ill-fitting sizes. The first is the intimate service. This wake makes you stay longer than you had wanted, because you feel obligated to shore up the forlorn little flock guarding the casket. In the other, plus-sized wake the mourners line up down the hall and outside to the street. In this case, it may take an hour to reach the “viewing.” When you finally arrive the family will say something like, “Thanks for coming” because they are too tired to say anything else. In either case, a wake means huddling over a casket with other mourners who mutter things like “He looks so natural, doesn’t she?” Such inane comments are preordained. A wake drags people who feel little connection with each other into an hour of clumsy intercourse. Therefore, the bereaved need clichés like “He’s at peace now” in order to create a simulacrum of conviviality while they awkwardly look over a corpse, who may not even have liked them while he was alive.
Thus, as a social gathering, the wake is numb business right from the start. So, on your way to the mortuary, while you contemplate the inevitable musty prayers and strained faces, a paralyzing torpor will descend upon your mind. Your feelings will suddenly congeal, and you will think, “Oh, God! It’s all so unnatural. Why don’t people just cremate?” Then you’ll think, “I’ll just send flowers. Flowers and a card. Money to a fund for sick children. That should be enough.”
However, the call of the traditional wake, followed by a Mass and burial, is stronger than you know. Because, despite your neurotic apprehensions, you don’t send flowers. You go. To the wake. You almost always decide to go to the wake. Why?
You go because you know there’s this thing that happens once you get there.
In Praise of Wakes
What say ye ?
The linked article has some funny stuff . Ex:The regimen begins when you force yourself out of your car donning your rarely worn black suit. It continues as you scrape across the parking lot in your too-tight black shoes and willfully pretend not to notice that the funeral parlor’s exterior looks exactly like the portico of a nouveau riche country club. Secondly, you must choose not to react to the irony that at any mortuary door, at any hour, you will find a brace of chain smokers busily preparing themselves for their own caskets. Finally, you must steadfastly un-observe the number of men dressed in what looks like golf attire, or the number of young women dressed in black cocktail dresses.
Thus, as a social gathering, the wake is numb business right from the start. So, on your way to the mortuary, while you contemplate the inevitable musty prayers and strained faces, a paralyzing torpor will descend upon your mind. Your feelings will suddenly congeal, and you will think, “Oh, God! It’s all so unnatural. Why don’t people just cremate?” Then you’ll think, “I’ll just send flowers. Flowers and a card. Money to a fund for sick children. That should be enough.”
However, the call of the traditional wake, followed by a Mass and burial, is stronger than you know. Because, despite your neurotic apprehensions, you don’t send flowers. You go. To the wake. You almost always decide to go to the wake. Why?
You go because you know there’s this thing that happens once you get there.
In Praise of Wakes
What say ye ?
The linked article has some funny stuff . Ex:The regimen begins when you force yourself out of your car donning your rarely worn black suit. It continues as you scrape across the parking lot in your too-tight black shoes and willfully pretend not to notice that the funeral parlor’s exterior looks exactly like the portico of a nouveau riche country club. Secondly, you must choose not to react to the irony that at any mortuary door, at any hour, you will find a brace of chain smokers busily preparing themselves for their own caskets. Finally, you must steadfastly un-observe the number of men dressed in what looks like golf attire, or the number of young women dressed in black cocktail dresses.
