It is a common observation that each person dies uniquely. From their spiritual experience, to their family relations, the experiences of the dying and of their relationships vary. Some settle scores, others seek forgiveness and salvation.
Death seems to be a time when we can elevate our sense of ourselves with the obituary. Val Patterson, a scientist from Salt Lake City, made headlines postmortem as he admitted to falsifying his PhD and owned up to a decades-old robbery in his obit. https://abcnews.go.com/US/written-obituaries-thriving/story?id=17030088#.UDJHfbDx1FR
Others find redemption as they consider their mortality. Mark Felt, an FBI officer who secretly revealed the Watergate crimes shared his story of this with Vanity Fair as he approached his death.
https://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2005/07/deepthroat200507
Even the funeral home can not escape the fact that they are human. For instance they too are faced with life’s challenges and nature’s laws. Stumbling innocently a funeral worker walked tripped as he carried a casket which caused the body to roll out during the funeral (See https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Funeral-home-staffers-drop-casket-body-falls-out/-/1719418/16132162/-/cv0k9oz/-/index.html). A minister died during the funeralXXX. Even when there is no incident with the bodies of the deceased, they might be rolling in their graves about cases of sexual misconduct between the funeral director and embalmer. (See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9453577/Lady-funeral-director-groped-by-embalmer.html)
Those attending the funeral are also prone to their inproprieties. Lack of awareness of traditional funeral attire is obvious to those who do know that black is the appropriate color. Wearing bright colors, tee shirts, and other faux-pas are not uncommon. (See https://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Funeral+fashion+faux/7036427/story.html) Even the law has gotten involved with military funerals; most recently to limit protests during military funerals. (See https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/opinion/free-speech-at-military-funerals.html?_r=1)
Our culture prefers to imagine that things are sanitary and full of grace with death. Each funeral mishap reflects back the fact that humans are not in charge of all things in life and that we are prone to errors. We prefer to view the dying process as super ordinary, beyond our normal daily life. The funeral home business recognizes this and profits as they perpetuate the illusion that there is a way to make this all perfect. We confuse our notion of sacred perfection with a mask that only shows that which appears unsightly. We wear the sense of complete order and seriousness. Meanwhile we wrestle with the discomfort of the fracture slowly cracking through the veneer of life. We fail to admit that death is as messy as the life we live. The foul chaos we tried to flee from meets us when we least expect it. For some that is at death. For others at during the death of a loved one. The disorder that we tried to veil has a way of surfacing when the randomness of nature intervenes.
We try to control nature in our own dying process. Medical science often allows the body’s to live beyond its well being. We escape the fact that the body narrows in its abilities to hold life and try to hold onto breath even if its vessel does not functionally exist. Last, as a nation we expect those whom we pay billions to annually to protect this burial process with complete solemnity and order, never minding that their services are provided within walls separate the living customers from those who are dead.
Is if fair to ourselves to believe that we have control, to think that our life is actually completely controlled by our will to make things appear regulated, well composed and methodically sound?
What if we begin to examine our lack of control? Are we actually as formidable, as separate as we imagine? Death’s doorway trains us and educates us. Our daily actions shape our mortal line. Each life and death is unique. There are as many answers to these questions as there are humans in all of history. Can they all be valid? What if we searched for an absolute answer, what methodology would we choose for absolute purity in the sample, in the validity and reliability? How do we investigate the grieving? How do we investigate the dying? How do we investigate those who passed through the door? Mental models fail us and we fall into an abyss of confounded mystery. Fall, let your self bath in the mystery that is you, that is those whom you love, that is the endless list of souls who search for these answers, and those who don’t. It is those whom we have shared our lives with, those who have no name, the ones we adored and those we could not find a place for in our hearts. Fall, endlessly. Abandon caution. This is just an exercise to release the unrelenting compulsion for order. You can go back to your concerns. Pause and fall. Dig into the soil of actual no mind, no knowing.