Should we have a viewing?

If you are trying to make a decision about whether you should have a viewing or not, this article may help you make up your mind.

Excerpt from an article by Doug Manning

One of the benefits of running around through the country making talks and selling books is, I hear stories. I often tell audiences that I am not an expert on any subject. I am a person who has traveled around and listened to stories. I collect stories and tell them to the next audience, because originality and no plagiarism makes many a dull speech. I want to share three of my newest ones. They relate to the importance of viewing the body. The first one came in form of a letter from Wendy Kinlaw who is a student at Gupton-Jones.

I saw that my father was dead, and equally important, there is now a marker which shows the world that he was born, that he lived, that he was loved, and that he died. There is no marker anywhere that shows these things about my mother

Part of her letter said:

My Mother was my best friend.
Though we certainly didn't sit around talking about death the subject did come up occasionally. Both she and father had said they wanted to be cremated.

My mother became ill while visiting my brother and, within hours, she died before I could get to her. My father reminded my brother that my mother wanted to be cremated and directed him to have the body cremated and brought home. We all gathered here and had a private memorial service for just my siblings, my father and myself. Then he took her ashes and poured them into the lake, as she had wanted.

And therein lay the most permanent mistake we ever made. None of us actually saw her dead. There was a death certificate, a certificate from the crematory, and a box full of remains. But there was no closure.The reality wasn't there.mum wanted her ashes poured into a lake, where they owned a summer home. It all seemed reasonable at the time. Intellectually I know she is dead, but emotionally, there is this gap.As far as I know she is still visiting my brother.We learned our lesson. When my father died ten years later, we had a private viewing just for my siblings and myself. I was able to say good-bye, touch his favourite sweater and acknowledge he was dead. There was the closure.

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