If I Could Just Be Serious For A Moment…
At the end of my road is a funeral parlour. When I first moved there it was quite a shock to walk round the corner into the kind of cul-de-sac next to it. It’s not a rare site to see various pall bearers lolling round with their shirts un-tucked, smoking cigarettes, laughing and swearing whilst clustering round an open-backed hearse complete with coffin.
At first I was vaguely horrified by this display of antipathy around the dead. Inside that hearse was someone’s mother, brother, cousin etc. etc. The pall bearers were all in their official garb so, presumably, the funeral procession full of mourners was imminent. But then I started thinking that you can get used to anything if you do it enough. What to me was alien and horrible was just another day at the office for these people. Like when someone phones me at work and has to get insurance put into place that very second. For them it’s a big thing, for me its just something new to add to the pile.
Compare this to DJ Scuzie’s parents.
Actually, I should backtrack: On August 8th last year, the son of the local Indian restaraunt managed to drive himself off a railway bridge at 2am. On a straight road. I would hate to speculate as to what caused it, but that’s besides the point anyway. The day after he died the railway bridge was covered in bouquets of flowers, soft toys, cards etc. People wrote poems, huddled round in clusters. DJ Scuzie was a popular fellow.
For the next few months the railway bridge was a plethora of colour. But, as happens, people move on. Soon only the parents left a new bouquet every day, then every week. They became a regular sight, strapping flowers to the lampost which Scuzie’s car hit before it’s fateful plunge.
The anniversary of his death was two days ago. And it’s obviously hit the mother hard. The railway bridge is once again covered in flowers but she stands for hours on end, oblivious to passing traffic, hugging the lampost, body racked by silent sobs. It’s a heart breaking sight and, yet, such a contrast to the jovial, scuffy pall bearers waiting round the corner, enjoying a last smoke before having to put on their ‘formal face’.
I wonder if there’s anywhere else in the world where you can see two such radically different attitudes to death within twenty feet of each other?
August 11th, 2006 at 1:04 am
“I wonder if there’s anywhere else in the world where you can see two such radically different attitudes to death within twenty feet of each other?”
Sorry Phil, I may have missed the point completely with this story, as I usually tune out when you start babling on, but surely these are totally unrelated!
As you said, one is a personal and emotional grieving process, the other is someones job.
The undertakers deal with death, day in, day out. They don’t need to get emotionally involved with that days ‘goods’ (for want of a better word) They dont make jokes about the ’stiffs’ or make them touch themselves in funny ways. They have to do a professional job on behalf of people who have lost someone.
We don’t know what sort of ritual or grieving is expressed by those who use the funeral parlour. They too may go to the burial site or even the crash site there daily, weekly or yearly, depending on the relationship and the strength of that person.
What we have here is a case where the son died yards from both the family home and the family business. If it was elsewhere, she may do a similar pilgrimage to where her son fell.
The last paragraph of the different attitudes misses the whole concept. One is a business, the other is family - Sounds like the mafia! But I don’t see the need for you to question the radically different attitudes.
Thats like presenting a picture of a homeless man begging outside Canary Wharf, the two polar opposites. Some people grief at death, otehrs dance.
I just dont get this story at all!
August 11th, 2006 at 1:44 am
I think we’re making the exact same point… I was taken aback by the juxtaposition and thought it worth commenting on.
August 14th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
People deal with death in different ways. Some of us tragically affected by it choose humour, and this can often be misunderstood as ‘wrong’ in some way. I remember in Australia Ciara and I, who had both lost our fathers in deeply tragic circumstances, used gross humour as a coping mechanism all the time. But every time we’d joke about “Smoking each others dads ashes” people would understandibly cringe or look shocked.
The fact is death scares most people, and the death of those close to us deprives us of an emotional bond and reminds us of our own mortality.
As for the Funeral Home employees, humour is a necessity to cope with that much death around you. Thats usually why soldiers have a warped sense of humour.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:00 am
Can I advance the opinion that a soldier’s warped sense of humour comes much less from their familiarity with death, and more from the state-sponsored, de-humanising brain washing that makes them think of the enemy not as human beings but as ‘Towelheads’, ‘Argies’, ‘Jerry’, ‘Frogs’, ‘Cheeseheads’ etc. etc.
Wow, that was a long sentence.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Does that rule solely apply to soldiers?
August 18th, 2006 at 5:37 am
I guess to an extent you could also apply the same logic to my Funeral Home employee example… the thing in the back of the van is just ‘work’ rather than ‘a human being’.
Which, really, is just a variation on my original point!
But I think with soldiers there are deliberate attempts to de-humanise the enemy. It’s easier to take potshots at an idea (i.e. they’re ‘the enemy’ and therefore ‘evil’) rather than a living individual with thoughts, family and the capacity for pain.