To be mortified

[banana87]

My great aunt passed away this week. The viewing was yesterday, the funeral today in the US.

Today my cousin posted a picture of my aunt in her open casket on Facebook. I feel this was highly inappropriate. AIBU?

but facebook really?
i totally agree with you about the sign of respect etc, and have obviously been included in emails when we have been unable to attend. but my family would actually be aghast at the use of facebook. that is the ultimate in disrespect

In the UK I think the open casket is predominantly a Catholic thing, so it's possibly common amongst Catholics of all nationalities.

It would kind of be spooky if she untagged herself though

As a "sands" mum, many of my friends have pictures of themselves with their stillborn baby on Facebook. It's not something I have chosen to do (although I do have one in a frame at home) but I can't object to it and I cannot see that this is any different.

Presumably your great aunt looks dignified and at peace and as such I cannot see how the picture itself is objectionable although I understand why you would onsider the medium with which your cousin has chosen to share it strange.

I don't know what's wrong with a photograph of someone deceased lying in a coffin for people to see if they want to. Some of you have forgotten how people in other countries have lost a leader of some sort (was it Breshnev or Khrushchev?) who was in his coffin and broadcast on our television and in our newspapers. There have been others, too. I took a photo of my DH because he looked so at peace with no worries or troubles. I've kept it to myself though. I like looking at it.

Some of us have seen dead people as well. Apart from my DH, I saw my DF and my DM - but not in coffins.

I think the reason that it's off is that the deceased should have a say in the matter. It's not as though they're in a position to say "no photos please".

The Victorians took photos of their dead children and displayed them. For many it would be the only photo many had (or could afford).

Everyone is so hypersensitive about death these days.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-mortem_photography

The next link is not for the ultra sensitive - but they are generic of the time and arranged in life like poses. So don't open it if you are going to tell me I'm an insensitive dipstick, I gave you fair warning.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=victorian+photos+dead+children&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=C19TT8ScOeGU0QXmrvCTCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CGUQsAQ&biw=1306&bih=646

YANBU by being upset about it, but I'd probably avoid a kerfuffle by just hiding the post from my newsfeed.

I looked at your linked website Troisgarcons and thought that those photographs were moving. I don't see why people with photos like these are dipsticks. They just miss their dear ones terribly - as I do.

I still think there is a big difference between photos which are taken for personal reasons and photos which are splashed on Facebook the day of someone's funeral and to me the latter is disrespectful.

I'm not objecting to the picture itself, I'm objecting to it being plastered on Facebook. If I wanted to see it I would have asked to see it. I am now left with an entirely different last image of her. Yes, she looks comfortable and rested but she also does NOT look the same (I.e. her skin has gone smooth and a bit puffy).

Hear hear proudnscary

Trois

Thanks for the links, it's interesting

This is the problem with going on FB, - sometimes you see/read things you don't want to. People put up all sorts of stuff that makes other people think 'wow, that's in really poor taste. I would have kept that to myself'. But, if AIBU has taught us anything, it's that there is a wide spectrum of what people consider acceptable, and there is often no one person who is 'right'.

I'm sorry that this has upset you, and I can understand why. The person who took and posted the picture doesn't consider it disrespectful, nor, I'm assuming have they done it to upset anyone.

But you're on slippery ground if you start insisting on other people taking down their own photos because you object and insist that they agree with you.

Sirzy Sorry if I missed the point. No, I would not post any pictures at all on Facebook!

Is your cousin the son of the lady who died? If so I would suggest that whatever your thoughts are on the matter then you should keep your gob shut. Think about how you'd feel if he starts criticising how you do things when your mum dies. Which obviously I hope won't be for a long long time.

Mortified....interesting word to use.
I think it is strange and insensitive to post pictures of dead people, but from what I've seen, there isn't such a taboo about seeing dead bodies in other countries.

Why is it embarrassing for you OP?

Btw. They have prob done it with the same intentions as having a condolences book. You should prob leave message about "sorry for your loss ..."

YANBU. I saw my fiance lying in state or whatever it's called and I shrieked, collapsed and couldn't get closer than a foot away from the bottom of the casket. I had gone thinking it would be like in the movies where I can say my final goodbyes, but I had to get out of there. I thought he was going to rise up and grab my throat. He looked nothing like he did when he was alive. Horrible.

Putting something like that on FB might cause a similar reaction to relatives.

I thought he was going to rise up and grab my throat.

Why would someone who loved you in life, hurt you when dead?

This is the whole problem with sanitisng death - shoving people in care homes, funeral parlours - we just don't "see" death any more thus it becomes something we are "frightened" of. Our g/grandparents lived through wars, saw death daily. They also had scant innoculations or birth control - again infant mortality and what is today, preventable, disease was rife. Death was a daily occurance.

today we fear it because we never see it as a part of the life cycle. I suppose the down fall of religion also plays a part in that.

Re Catholics laying out. Not in the South of the UK - I've never been to a funeral where the body has lain at home or open casket (other than Canadian cousins in Canada). Ditto burials are rare in the south these days because of the cost of plots. Been to plenty of burials in the North, none in the South

Very very common in lots of other cultures.
But then different cultures deal with death differently, and if you're used to living your life on Facebook. . .

troisgarcons it must be that the only experience I've had with dead people before is on TV. I can tell you that I was very upset and confused with my feelings for someone I loved very much.

I couldn't sleep with the light off for days. I kept imagining him lying next to me in bed not how he was, with his leg slipped over mine and snoozing gently into my ear, but as a cold, hard, autopsied body with a grey face and lips which were twice as wide as they were when he was alive.

Ever since then I've seen death in the face of the living and I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone else.

I would love to have seen him for who he still was and been able to say goodbye properly.