Eva hung the phone back onto the receiver, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She slumped against the kitchen wall, trying to convince herself she was not dreaming. Her son was dead. He had been walking through the high school parking lot on the way to baseball practice when another student in a hurry to get his after-school job sped around the corner. The student saw him at the last second, but the inexperienced driver did not have the reflexes to stop the car in time. Nothing anyone did could save him. Her son was gone; she would never see him again.
At that moment, her husband Adam walked in through the front door. The meeting must have ended early. She had to tell him, but how could she? It did not seem real, not yet. Today must be a dream. Adam scuffled into the kitchen and dropped his heavy briefcase on the counter with a thud. He turned around and his eyes found Eva. A concerned look immediately covered his face. She started talking, unaware of exactly what words were pouring out of her mouth. Eva worried about how she would go on without her beautiful, wonderful, amazing son. She choked back tears as she related the information regarding the terrible accident, the hospital, and the police. Suddenly, it dawned on her that she would have to call the funeral home to make arrangements, cancel the family cell phone plan, and contact all her son’s friends and relatives. Eva slouched to the floor and covered her face with her hands, consumed with grief. Adam crouched beside her and cradled her head in his arms, sharing her dread and tears of pain.
A family forced into the surreal state of grief has no choice but to make innumerable difficult decisions. Despite the feeling that life cannot go on without the person who was lost, spouses, families, and friends must continue on with funeral arrangements and the plethora of actions and decisions that must be made regarding the affairs of the deceased loved one. Each method of body disposition poses unique issues, and deciding which option is appropriate for the family’s particular situation is a difficult evaluation to make. Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of funeral arrangement is deciding whether or not to embalm the body.
Embalming the body is necessary in order for many families to hold a viewing or an open-casket funeral service, and provides an opportunity for geographically distant family and friends to pay their last respects prior to burial or cremation of the body. Each family should weigh the specific pros and cons related to embalming in order to decide if this is the right option for their situation. Opponents claim the effects of embalming fluid on the environment and living humans eliminate the positive aspects of embalming, but each method of body preparation and disposition poses hazards to the environment which cannot be avoided. Thus, embalming is a personal decision to be made by each family according to their culture and beliefs, and should not be heralded as a “wrong” decision.
Families sometimes expect and are prepared for the death of a loved one due to factors such as age or terminal illness. Advance awareness of the pending death gives families and friends the opportunity to say their final goodbyes. Many hospice care facilities will allow families as much time as is needed to pay their final respects to the loved one that has passed on. However, in instances of sudden death involving substantial physical trauma, families either do not have the opportunity to say goodbye, or the farewell occurred while their loved one was in a physical state very different from when they last saw the person in a healthy state. Viewing a body in a state of decomposition or severe trauma is emotionally difficult for survivors, and the image may haunt the grieving for many years to come. Embalming offers the chance for a body to be preserved for a period of time in order to allow family and friends to work through steps of the grieving process- accepting the death and coming to terms with the fact that this person is now gone {Quigley 1997:58}. Without embalming, the opportunity to view a body is quickly lost due to decomposition.
Eva and her husband had experienced a traumatic death of a close family member. The physical trauma caused by the car collision had disfigured the young boy’s face. Reconstruction would be necessary if they were to have a viewing, which is traditional in their family. The mortician would need to hide jagged cuts and broken bone. His forehead and eyes were bruised, and there was a gash taken out of his ear where his head had hit the concrete. Cosmetics and special embalming fluids would be needed to bring the bruised areas back to a more natural color. When he had left for school, the only injury he had was a callous where his baseball cleats rubbed against the back of his heels; his appearance had changed dramatically the instant the car hit him.
Though embalming has been practiced in many cultures for thousands of years, the process did not become prevalent and accepted in the United States until the Civil War {Quigley 1997:54}. Soldiers who were lost in battle needed a way to be preserved until they could make it home for proper burials according to their family’s wishes. Today, families are geographically dispersed and the old methods of bedside vigils and immediate burials observed prior to the Civil War are no longer standard. The grieving families need an opportunity to make appropriate arrangements to either transport the body or to travel to the location where the death occurred. In cases where the body is transported between facilities, embalming is required by law due to sanitation reasons {Quigley 1997:57}. When family must travel to the body, embalming offers the opportunity to preserve the body until the family arrives to pay their respects. Embalming addresses the need for our modern geographically dispersed families to come together prior to the onset of decomposition.
Adam had earned a promotion at the successful company where he worked. The promotion had required relocation across the country, away from Adam and Eva’s families. By the time grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and old friends had time to make travel arrangements for the funeral service, decomposition would have set in. The people who had not been seen for over a year since the move would lose their chance to view the body.
For Adam and Eva, embalming seemed to make the most sense. However, embalming is not an option for each family to consider. For example, Orthodox Jews do not, under any circumstances, embalm their dead, and burials occur typically within 24 hours of death. Some families cannot afford the additional cost associated with professional embalming, and others simply do not wish to have a viewing. Embalming is not necessary if the body will have an immediate interment or cremation. Therefore, the decision of whether or not to embalm is highly personalized and depends on each family’s situation, resources, and desires.
Some people express opinions that embalming should not be an option for grieving families to consider at all. Today’s methods of body disposition each harbor their own ill effects on the environment; opposing viewpoints fail to realize the derogatory effects of decomposing bodies as a whole. Cremation allows pollution to enter the air and contributes to the greenhouse effect. Burial allows the body and casket to seep into the ground during decomposition- including embalming fluids. Burial at sea exposes the body to the elements and can harbor bacteria and diseases. Clearly, no matter what choice a person makes, some environmental consequence will take place. Choosing one method as superior over the other is a subjective opinion, with no option being truly superior over another.
Yet, opponents of embalming suggest many “green” options which can be included in funeral arrangements. Most of these “green” options can be exercised regardless of whether a body has been embalmed. People who feel strongly about the effects of embalming fluids on the environment yet still find a desire or need to have their loved one embalmed may find a happy medium in utilizing particular options for environmentally friendly arrangements. One option is to cremate the body after the funeral or viewing. This option will prevent embalming fluid from entering groundwater. Additional options include burial in a simple pine box, burial at sea, minimal embalming such that would preserve the body through a funeral but not for weeks or years, memorializing through planting trees, making donations to environmental preservation groups, forming a memorial reef, and other options that contribute to the well being of the environment as a tribute to the deceased {Harris 2007}.
Funeral directors and morticians have chosen a profession in which they have put in a minimum of 5,000 hours of training time {Quigley 1997:57}. These professionals have chosen a profession in which they are in more danger of toxic exposure to the embalming fluids than they are of contracting disease from handling the decomposing bodies {Quigley 1997:59}. Opponents cite the health hazards to those people whose occupations require frequent exposures to decomposing bodies and embalming fluids {Harris 2007}. Morticians and funeral directors have many options available to them to protect themselves from the harmful effects of handling bodies and embalming fluids; options include immunizations against infectious disease and biohazard equipment to prevent respiration of dangerous fumes{Quigley 1997:59}. Failure to exercise basic self-protection options is the choice of the embalmer, not the community at large {Quigley 1997:60}.
People who disagree with the option of embalming also suggest that the life-like appearance of an embalmed corpse detracts from the realities of death and dying, and thus increases the effects of denial and grief {Quigley 1997:54}. The idea that viewing a life-like embalmed body will detract from the reality of the death assumes that this cannot be a legitimate method of a modern grieving process {Quigley 1997:57}. The grieving process is different depending on each individual’s personality. Because embalming is so new to the culture of the United States, it is too early to tell whether viewing a life-like embalmed body is detrimental to working through grief. However, the argument that it is unnecessary because the preceding generations had no such practice, contributing to increased exposure and awareness of death in historical times, does not address the changing conditions of our society and culture. Simply because the concept of embalming is different from historical practice in the United States does not mean the new practice is invalid. Also, the only person who can decide how to grieve is the grieving person alone; no person can tell another person the “proper” way to grieve. If embalming to preserve and restore a body is born of a desire to work through the grief process, a person should by all means be allowed the option.
Adam and Eva chose to have their son embalmed. When the family from across the country arrived, a viewing was held at the funeral home, and a memorial service was conducted on the high school baseball field the next day. Home plate was covered with flowers and candles in memory of all that was lost with this single death. Everyone present was extremely grateful for the opportunity to say goodbye to a beloved son, cousin, nephew, and friend. After the services, Adam and Eva chose to cremate the body and have the ashes poured into an artificial reef to be dropped into the ocean off the shore of their home state of Florida. The reef would become a habitat for marine life and represented the hopes Adam and Eva had held for their son to be a blessing to living creatures.
As grieving families work through their sense of loss, other people need to allow each mourner the opportunity to express their grief and to handle the death of a loved one in their own way. Death is an unavoidable, certain part of life, as are the effects that come from the necessity of disposing of a body. Humans have a certain nature to respect the dead; each person has a different opinion of exactly what this respect entails. It is not right for one human to tell another human that their method of grief and respecting the dead is incorrect. Embalming remains a valid means of working through grief, allowing survivors the opportunity to accept and move past a significant death. Because death and grief are so highly personalized, it may be difficult for two people to reconcile their opinions and feelings toward sensitive topics such as embalming. As a diverse culture, people must recognize each method is just as valid as the next, and support should be given to each grieving individual to work through their loss and move on to the next step in life.
Works Cited
Harris, M. (2007). Grave matters: A journey through the modern funeral industry to a natural way of burial. New York, NY: Scribner.
Quigley, C. (1997). The corpse: A history. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
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Well written post. Grieving is always such a tough subject.
I’m the only one in this world. Can please someone join me in this life? Or maybe death…