Imagine a Day when Funeral Homes, Morticians and Cemeteries Are Even Creepier than They Are Now

This image goes against our efforts to portray death on SevenPonds
(Credit: pixgood.com)

As the topic of death becomes more popular, I watch our morbid fascination with the macabre play out in the media. I also get concerned about the mental stronghold the funeral industry is retaining on our personal experiences with death.

Really, do we want to keep going down this same path?

Certainly some people just naturally have a morbid curiosity. And judging by the amount of rubbernecking I’ve seen at expressway accidents, I’d say it’s a large percentage.

But for me, I’m the one who drives or walks the other way as fast as I can. I have an immediate visceral reaction to anything bloody and creepy. It makes me well suited for SevenPonds. In the past, I have pulled creepy images off this blog: funeral homes, morticians, cemeteries, ravens and grim reapers (yes this post is a huge exception and every time I see the image above I will cringe!). Not to say we never allow them, but only ever so gingerly and for a certain purposeful point made. But, please, we need to reserve our morbid fascination for nighttime, films and Halloween, not as part of our real dying experiences.

In the past, I have pulled creepy images off this blog: funeral homes, morticians, cemeteries, ravens and grim reapers (yes this post is a huge exception and every time I will see the image above I will cringe!).

The truth is I’m working so hard to bring death and dying into an incredibly beautiful place, that natural part of life place it belongs, and yet quite frankly I do worry at times.

But then I don’t. I know something important. The cremation rate has been rising so fast for the past few decades that it scales to a slope so steep, no one could ski it, ever. We are nationally hedging close to a 50% cremation rate. And as this comes, away goes all the trappings of the past.

We may entertain ourselves with the morbid at times, but meanwhile we are one-by-one choosing to have a bright, beautiful, loving and meaningful death. In the end, what was, is really not what is now.

So when your time comes to die, which memorial do you choose?

This?
(Credit: everydaylife.globalpost.com)

Or this?
(Credit: unknown)

OK these are my image choices – what would yours be?