Should we have a viewing?

How a Viewing Helped a Family Heal

This is an excerpt from one family’s story of losing their mother.  Her wishes had been to be cremated and scattered at sea.  The family had not been present at her passing, and had quickly followed through with her wishes without viewing her body.  Here is what they had to say, "And therein lay the most permanent mistake we ever made.  None of us actually saw her dead.  There was a death certificate, a certificate from the crematory, and a box full of remains.  But there was no closure.  The reality wasn’t there.  Having her cremated without thought all seemed reasonable at the time.  Intellectually I know she is dead, but emotionally, there is this gap.  We learned our lesson.  When my father died years later, we had a private viewing for my siblings and me.  I was able to say good-bye, touch his favorite sweater and acknowledge he was dead.  There was the closure.” 

And there is the importance of viewing the body.  Especially if a person was ill at the time of their death, your last memory picture could be of them suffering.  A lot of times after a viewing many people comment that, “They look so peaceful now.” or “She looks 10 years younger.”  If someone dies suddenly as in our story, you may be left with that emotional gap of not having seen them one last time.  When someone dies in a collision or violent death, many times the imagination is much worse than the reality.  Through embalming, reconstruction, and cosmetics families can have their closure and say their final good-bye without thinking, “What if?”  There are also options for private family viewings where embalming is not necessary for those that would still like this form of closure without the formality of a public viewing.