Funeral in the USA: everything is like in a movie

I moved to the USA more than 10 years ago, I rarely write about the differences between Ukraine and the USA, because after so many years I have already forgotten what it was like in Ukraine. Many things seem banal, but some things still cause “culture shock,” writes Lyuba Shipovich in in his column for Voice of America.

Photo: spazbot29 / Flickr

What caused me “culture shock” was a funeral in America. Funerals are always emotional, always very intimate, family-like and very painful. As an adult, I tried to avoid this ritual, but from childhood I had terrible memories of closing my eyes, coffins on stools near houses (or at a family home), the sounds of an orchestra, the lamentations of familiar and unfamiliar women, a long procession down the street when relatives or friends carried the coffin in the hands, the face of the dead in a coffin suspended over a pit, the deafening sounds of nails being driven in and the earth hitting the lid. Even emotionally stable people find this ritual very difficult, so I ran away, went to other cities, countries, but did not come.

About funerals in America, my knowledge was exhausted by frames from films about FBI agents and the military. Green grass, rose in the hand of relatives, friends, black formal suits, black glasses.

I could not imagine how close shots from the films were to reality. Half-open coffin in the memorial house, which is suitable for relatives, friends, acquaintances. The whole process is coordinated by the workers of the memorial house: they give explanations, tell the schedule what and why will be. Everything goes very calmly. People who have gathered, remember interesting and funny stories, put flowers in vases prepared by the service department, sit on the benches. The priest tells about the life of a person who is escorted into the other world, remembers the family, calling everyone by name, then the service rules, prompting those present when they need to get up, sit down. And all this is so calm, quiet.

Photo: Flickr / Bob B.Brown

After the ceremony, employees of the memorial house distribute stickers to the cemetery for wishing to travel to the cemetery, as well as printed instructions on how to get there, help to build cars in a column for a black hearse, where other workers have already placed a closed coffin and folded flowers.

At the cemetery, the column is met by representatives of the cemetery, they show where to wait until everything is prepared. Company cars indicate how to drive further, employees help to park cars along the road, hand out each one a rose. And further along the spread path (in order not to step on the wet ground) the relatives pass to the grave, where the flowers are neatly folded and a closed coffin is installed on the mountings. The priest completes the ceremony, silently and slowly the coffin is lowered, relatives put roses and the cemetery workers are very politely asked to depart and wait in the cars while they bury the grave, because it is not a very pleasant sight.

Photo: Flickr / Ann Varie Velentine

Here I remember footage from the film about the FBI agents: green grass around, black glasses and black suits, people, with their heads bowed, go to the cars parked in the column.

Death is always emotionally difficult. Funerals are a ritual that can increase pain.

That is why painful, unpleasant moments should be hidden from loved ones, should be performed by special services. Such an intimate and such an integral ritual, in my opinion, largely determines civilization. Once upon a time in archeology classes we taught that the culture of a people can be determined by its attitude towards its dead. For me, American culture has opened with a new side. This is the minimum that is decisive for civilization.

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