Thank God...
That the pope is buried already! I was so sick of seeing his body paraded around like some awful pinata or float decoration. It was really disturbing to me to see pictures all over the papers and the internet of the old man laid out dead in his robes. I didn't want to see him dead. I have seen enough dead people all fixed up for the grave. I don't care if others wanted to see him dead enough that they made the pilgrimage to do it. I don't care if others wanted to see pictures since they couldn't afford to go, or whatever. I just wanted them to put him away already, stick those damned pictures inside the paper instead of on the front cover, put the images on a page you had to fucking click on, or even better, put his body away in whatever grave had been chosen for him.
That's it, the photo-op is over. It's time to put the pope away now.
There was one funeral I went to as a teenager that was for a man I didn't know, but we've known the family for ages. I remember that when they pulled out cameras and started posing for pictures with the corpse, I was just aghast. I looked at my mother, at whose instigation I'd attended, and she said, "Some people back home used to do that. Our family doesn't do that, I know." It was just...creepy. Perhaps it's just the way I've been raised, but once you're dead the time for photo-taking has passed (pardon the pun).
What was even more bizarre was my grandmother's funeral, when my grandfather - who had been acting exceedingly strange all that day - asked my Uncle Jim to take pictures of him with my grandmother's body. I thought it was just grief then, but perhaps it was a little of the dementia that had already started to spring up in him. Anyway, my uncle never gave my grandfather the pictures even once they were developed, since my grandfather was grieved enough.
My mom told me this week that my uncle asked if she wanted to see those pictures, and she told him that he would be better off to destroy them outright; not only does my mother not want to see them, she doesn't even want to accidentally stumble across them. To tell you the truth, neither do I. My mother didn't go to that funeral or my grandfather's because she is done with seeing people dead; at my Aunt Sandy's funeral my mother stayed far enough away that she didn't have to see the corpse. Sometimes I wish I hadn't seen my grandmother dead - it wounded more than healed me.
And I'm very glad I don't have to see the pope dead anymore.
That's it, the photo-op is over. It's time to put the pope away now.
There was one funeral I went to as a teenager that was for a man I didn't know, but we've known the family for ages. I remember that when they pulled out cameras and started posing for pictures with the corpse, I was just aghast. I looked at my mother, at whose instigation I'd attended, and she said, "Some people back home used to do that. Our family doesn't do that, I know." It was just...creepy. Perhaps it's just the way I've been raised, but once you're dead the time for photo-taking has passed (pardon the pun).
What was even more bizarre was my grandmother's funeral, when my grandfather - who had been acting exceedingly strange all that day - asked my Uncle Jim to take pictures of him with my grandmother's body. I thought it was just grief then, but perhaps it was a little of the dementia that had already started to spring up in him. Anyway, my uncle never gave my grandfather the pictures even once they were developed, since my grandfather was grieved enough.
My mom told me this week that my uncle asked if she wanted to see those pictures, and she told him that he would be better off to destroy them outright; not only does my mother not want to see them, she doesn't even want to accidentally stumble across them. To tell you the truth, neither do I. My mother didn't go to that funeral or my grandfather's because she is done with seeing people dead; at my Aunt Sandy's funeral my mother stayed far enough away that she didn't have to see the corpse. Sometimes I wish I hadn't seen my grandmother dead - it wounded more than healed me.
And I'm very glad I don't have to see the pope dead anymore.