Is it advisable to view a body several weeks after death?

[NotPerfectlyAdverage]

Dhs step mum died around 2.5 weks ago. His dad said the body won't be ready to view until three weeks has passed. By the time the funeral happens it will be five weeks post death. Dh wants to see the body. I have told him to ask the funeral directors if this is good idea. To me, it seems to long since death as other relatives he has seen have been much sooner after death. However his cousin was viewed around 3-4 weeks and I was told they just looked exactly the same but asleep.

They will be in cold storage so it won't make much difference

My dad was after 3 weeks and he looked beautiful and he wasn’t embalmed. Just like he was having a lovely sleep.
My brother was 4 weeks, embalmed and he looked like a wax work.
Grandparents were a week and didn’t look right.
still healing to see them all though, it’s closure.

From experience: be guided by the funeral director who is caring for your DH’s stepmum.

The funeral director advised against it in my mother's case, when a distant relation wanted to view the body. Think that was probably about 3 .5 weeks, can't remember.

Agree, be guided by the funeral director. Often depends on the extent of the illness leading up to the death.

Does dh need to ask if she has been embalmed? I guess she will be as the body is in a central hub right now for a few days.

We did a friends funeral as per his request a few weeks after his death. He just looked asleep. It is our custom in our religion to kiss the dead and he was stone cold, frozen actually. That was the only thing that was a bit disturbing.

@NotPerfectlyAdverage
Saw DM a few times the first week, she looked very peaceful.

2nd week she had started to deteriorate, funeral director advised us to stop coming.

She wasn't embalmed.

Id ask the advice of the funeral director, it's not a question they won't have heard before, I found them very kind but honest.

What you dont want is your DH to get a shock and have a not very nice image of his DSM imprinted in his mind, sometimes it's better to remember them how they were.

Unfortunately my dad was in the hospital morgue for a week because the doctor didn’t sign the death certificate. He then went to the funeral home and was embalmed (for family who said they wanted to see him, but then didn’t) and by the time I saw him he looked like his face was wax that had melted. I wish I hadn’t seen him, as I’d been there when he died. I wish that wasn’t my last memory.

Thanks the body has been at the hospital for around two weeks, then at this hub and won't be ready to view until next week. Mil was extremely frail when dh last saw her ( 6 stone at 5,4). It think too much time has passed and have told him that will never un-see this, and to directly ask the funeral directors for advice. He is set on going ahead. But the whole thing is getting dragged out and I guess he had in his mind that he would have seen her by now. That's not worked out.

they keep them in a fridge so they should be ok. especially if embalmed. the staff would be best to ask. sometimes people look peaceful and it’s reassuring for family but other times they dont look like them any more and i’d have preferred not to go. but it has to be his choice because if he doesn’t go he will always wish he had…..

I saw ds after nearly 4 weeks. Its an experience I will never repeat.

A relative really wanted to see my grandad almost 6 weeks after death, the day before the funeral. Body wasn’t embalmed. Funeral director didn’t want to let him but relative was insistent ‘if at all possible please could I’ type thing and he relented and let relative see him.
Apparently grandad still looked just like himself. Guess he was pretty well preserved all by himself - maybe it was something to do with his nightly glass of sherry!

This. Ask the FD if you can view the body, they will be honest with you and won't want anyone to view if they feel it's not suitable. I know a woman whose young husband died very suddenly. I assume he was embalmed as he was laid out in their house for 4 or 5 days and due to the nature of his death he wasn't released for about a week. The funeral was planned but then she decided she didn't want him buried until all the post mortem samples came back, which wasn't for another six months. They saw him again before the burial and she said he didn't look very different to how he had before. I also know of someone who said after hours of death their loved one had changed so much, so I think it's very case dependant.

Please stop trying to stop him, if this is what he wishes support him. She will look the same, they wouldn’t let him or would warn him if it was otherwise, she will be dressed, made up and likely embalmed.

however having seen a dead body I found it shocking, the body to me looked like a shell, the person gone. Jist their outer casing left, its hard to describe, but you know immediately they are dead, I don’t understand how anyone thinks it looks like sleeping.

so yes, it may be disturbing but not for the reasons you think and as you can see a lot of people take comfort from it; I was not one of those people.

I’ve never been to view a dead body, but my parents viewed several over the years and regretted every single one. They spoke for years about how awful the people looked and that it became their last memory of them. My mum used to often say that she wanted no-one to see her after death.

I’d be trying to dissuade him.

I also agree with this. My father in law died and wasn't found until a couple of days later, both the police and the funeral directors advised my husband not to see him so he trusted that there was probably a good reason for that

So sorry for your loss 😞

Due to my job I’ve seen a lot of deceased people plus a couple of relatives. I’ve never thought they looked asleep, they’ve always looked very much dead to me. My lovely Dad in particular looked absolutely terrible immediately after death.

Its a difficult decision to make just is just prepare your DH by explaining that they may very well not look like themselves.

I saw my mum just over two weeks after she passed and I wish I hadn't.

He should ask the funeral director.
I was abroad when my dad died and by the time I got back to the UK and he had a post mortem etc. it was 3 weeks after death.
I asked about viewing and the funeral director said he couldn't stop me if I wanted to but he would advise me not to.

I saw my beautiful dad 3 weeks after he passed. He wasn't embalmed and he looked better than he did towards the end of his life(bastard cancer). He even had a little smile on his face. I'd go with what the funeral directors advise. They will be honest. Your partner might end up resenting you if you try and stop him viewing xx

The funeral director will be able to advise.
If she has been embalmed and stored knowing people will want to view i think it will be fine. But the funeral director will tell you if it is advisable.
Personally I wouldn't. The first couple of times someone in loved died I viewed the body but I didn't get any comfort from it. All I could think was this isn't the person I knew. Their essence had gone. I have since lost two more loved ones and I didn't view the body because I decided I'd prefer to remember them as they were.

We were advised by the funeral director not to when our relative had been in the hospital mortuary for several weeks due to hold ups with the coroner

In my personal experience, it depends on what the person organising the funeral has asked for. My mum died in her 50s a few years ago and wasn’t embalmed. The funeral director said really it was just an extra expense and only necessary if people needed to fly from abroad to see her etc, so as that wasn’t the case I didn’t get her embalmed. I’m a nurse so have seen my fair share of bodies but chose not to after my mum had died. She was also just a shell as described above but it’s personal decision on whether he’d regret going a lot more than seeing her and regretting it if she did not look very good