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Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:21 pm
by Bob Of Burleson
At the family’s request, a funeral home in New Orleans posed the body of Miriam Burbank for her service this month.
Funeral Poses Mimic Life
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and FRANCES ROBLES
NEW ORLEANS — All last week, people were calling Louis Charbonnet to find out how they might avoid lying down at their funerals. Funeral directors have called; so have people with their own requests, such as the woman who wanted to be seen for the last time standing over her cooking pot.
The calls started coming in to the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home during its June 12 viewing for Miriam Burbank, who died at 53 and spent her service sitting at a table amid miniature New Orleans Saints helmets, with a can of Busch beer at one hand and a menthol cigarette between her fingers, just as she had spent a good number of her living days.
Word of the arrangement began to spread, hundreds showed up, the news spread online, and now here was Mr. Charbonnet getting a call from a funeral director in Australia.
Ms. Burbank’s service was the second of its kind that Mr. Charbonnet had arranged, and the third in New Orleans in two years. But there have been others elsewhere, most notably in San Juan, P.R. Viewings there in recent years have included a paramedic displayed behind the wheel of his ambulance and, in 2011, a man dressed for his wake like Che Guevara, cigar in hand and seated Indian style.
“I never said it was the first,” said Mr. Charbonnet, who mentioned the 1984 funeral of Willie Stokes Jr., a Chicago gambler known as the Wimp, who sat through his funeral services behind the wheel of a coffin made to look like a Cadillac Seville.
New Orleans, which has long boasted of its ability to put the “fun” in funeral, seems like the place where this kind of thing would catch on, and Mr. Charbonnet boasts that his 132-year-old funeral home is well known for its funeral parades.
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Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:41 pm
by Nailgun aka.Mark
Well,,,, That was strange. IMO..
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:46 pm
by BigTex
I don't like funerals and one way to assure I won't show up is to turn it into a bit.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 4:18 pm
by Grassman
So you're against the tricked up funeral?
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:24 pm
by Dancer
That is just spooky. Throw a cookout and party when I am gone. The Cremains are up to whoever is left in charge.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:26 pm
by BigTex
If it provides some comfort for the family, fine. But I have no use for it.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:28 pm
by LibraryLady
Not what I'd like for me, or to see.
I saw a similar story, but that had a man in a recliner watching sports on TV.
On a practical note: I have been told that if the body is prepared ...it then has rigor mortise and is "frozen" in that position.
So, will this woman not fit into a casket for burial?....or have to have a wide one and turned on her side?....or have to have "broken" limbs to get buried?
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:03 pm
by BillB
I wouldn't want it.
I don't want anything. I've left instructions for no viewing, no funeral- nothing at all.
I've read that a lot of people do that and unfortunately it rarely happens that way.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:15 pm
by Bob Of Burleson
BillB wrote:I wouldn't want it.
I don't want anything. I've left instructions for no viewing, no funeral- nothing at all.
I've read that a lot of people do that and unfortunately it rarely happens that way.
True that. A few years back an older friend died. He was in bad health and knew the end was coming so he told everyone within earshot that he didn't want a funeral and ESPECIALLY didn't want a viewing. Guess what...
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:30 pm
by Red Oak
LibraryLady wrote:Not what I'd like for me, or to see.
I saw a similar story, but that had a man in a recliner watching sports on TV.
On a practical note: I have been told that if the body is prepared ...it then has rigor mortise and is "frozen" in that position.
So, will this woman not fit into a casket for burial?....or have to have a wide one and turned on her side?....or have to have "broken" limbs to get buried?
In this case she is placed in a extra large hefty bag with the beer cans, cigarette butts, and chicken bones and dropped in the grave.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:35 pm
by bodine
LibraryLady wrote:Not what I'd like for me, or to see.
I saw a similar story, but that had a man in a recliner watching sports on TV.
On a practical note: I have been told that if the body is prepared ...it then has rigor mortise and is "frozen" in that position.
So, will this woman not fit into a casket for burial?....or have to have a wide one and turned on her side?....or have to have "broken" limbs to get buried?
From Wikipedia: Rigor mortis (Latin: rigor "stiffness", mortis "of death") is one of the recognizable signs of death, caused by chemical changes in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate.[1] In humans, it commences after about three to four hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates from approximately 24 hours after death.[2]
This is still creepy. I hate visitations/viewings in "normal" funeral situations.
Re: Rite of the Sitting Dead
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 7:24 pm
by Zelda
How ghoulish.
