If you know me well enough, you know that I just don't do death. I don't think I'm afraid of it, it's just something that makes me queasy to be around. Insanely uncomfortable. Dan's grandmother passed away about a week ago and I was greatly relieved to hear that she would be cremated and there would be no viewing.
I don't do viewings. I just don't. I stay as far away from them as possible. You see, when I have, in the past, viewed someone dead in a coffin, it erases my picture of that person in my mind. I see them as dead in my memories. You will find me at most funerals, away across the room or hanging out in a totally different room to begin with.
So, I thought that going forward, I'd be ok, that I wouldn't have someone else pictured in my head when I thought back fondly on Iva Jean. Instead, this is not what happened.
Dan's uncle showed me a pic he got of her on his cell phone, just a few days before she had passed. Someone had done her hair very nicely, and that's what he was trying to show me. But that's not what I saw. I saw a dying woman. Gaunt, bony, and probably no more than 80 pounds. My heart and stomach dropped almost instantaneously. I mumbled to my mother in law that I was glad there was no viewing, can't deal with viewings. She said "I know." I'm a little cranky I wasn't really warned how bad she really looked before I said ok to seeing the picture.
I know that people need closure sometimes by being able to see a body. But I'm ok with not.
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Her funeral was this past Thursday. Such a lovely funeral. For a very lovely woman. Rest in peace, Iva Jean....
I agree, that is the image I have of my mom. (Seeing her so sick and then passing away) Makes it very difficult to see any other image..
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