Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? by Robert D. Webster Read Free Book Online Page B

dead human for viewing to his or her grieving family sounds like a strange custom. Why is it necessary that the deceased be present for a funeral to take place? Simple—it satisfies the need to say good-bye to a vessel that once held a beloved soul and that others still carry a strong emotional attachment toward.
    In The American Way of Death (1963), the author Jessica Mitford heavily criticized the way that Americans care for our dead, particularly in regard to our purchases of ornate and costly caskets. Mitford also railed about the funeral ceremony itself and the display of a dead individual looking as if alive. Her scathing book gained a substantial following, and the ideas she proposed were moving quickly toward universal acceptance—until a sudden, tragic pivotal event occurred. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated mere months after her book’s release.
    BARBARIC—OR NATURAL?
    With the death of President Kennedy, what did America see for the first time on live national television? A funeral of the grandest proportions, complete with a dead human contained in a very expensive solid mahogany casket, provided by a funeral home in Washington, D.C. That wasn’t the casket from Texas, however. Upon Kennedy’s death on November 22, the Secret Service contacted a Dallas funeral home to come to Parkland Memorial Hospital with the finest casket available. The dutiful director arrived with a solid bronze casket into which Kennedy’s unembalmed body was placed. The president was then spirited off to the airport and flown to Andrews Air Force Base for an autopsy by navy doctors.
    It was later reported that an actual tug-of-war with President Kennedy’s body occurred between Secret Service agents and the Dallas county sheriff. The sheriff correctly noted that a homicide victim should be autopsied in the county of death, but he was overruled, and the body left Dallas. The temporary casket was never paid for, although the Dallas funeral director billed the Kennedy family on numerous occasions. After never receiving payment, he mentioned the problem to a newspaper reporter, and the negative publicity from the story damaged his image so much that his business suffered and eventually closed. The same bronze casket was stored in the basement of the White House for several years until 1967, when Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s brother, had it unceremoniously dropped into the Atlantic Ocean.
    Secret Service agents accompanied Kennedy’s body throughout its travels, from the trip back to Washington, D.C., to the naval hospital’s autopsy room, and finally to the funeral home. One agent, unimpressed with the pomp and circumstance of the funeral and believing the embalming process was a crude, barbaric, and unnecessary procedure, wondered why Kennedy wasn’t just cremated, since there was so much damage to his head. Later, however, that same agent was reported to have been totally amazed at the work of the embalmers and their restoration process. He had watched as the formaldehyde-based chemical was injected and the color quickly came back to the president’s face. The Kennedy family was able to privately view the body in a most presentable state, looking very natural—unlike what Mrs. Kennedy had experienced in Dallas, when she was photographed attempting to retrieve pieces of her husband’s skull and brain tissue from the trunk lid of their open limousine.
    SUPERGLUE AND SKELETONS
    So, is it really a good thing to embalm and restore a body, then put cosmetics on it and dress it in its Sunday best to display as if the person were still alive? Ironically, in nearly every case of someone who dies over the age of seventy-five, the family is very satisfied with the appearance of the deceased.
    A young person, however, presents the ultimate grief experience to his or her family, which is often compounded by a need for extensive restoration, since young people tend to die