Hw # 46***(This one)

My personal experience with this topic is less than what the typical person has, because I fortunately have not had anyone close to me die. But then again I haven’t lived for so long. Unless you count the time I was in middle school, I recall it being 7^th grade and I was playing basketball with a boy who hours later was announced dead. After announcing the person has died, hospitals always do an autopsy to find out the cause of death before burying or cremating them, unless the family does not give consent for it. In my classmate’s case, due to his family’s religion, they did not allow an autopsy. Many of his classmates and I were invited to his funeral, but at the time I remember not wanting to go. I did not want to recall him as someone now laying dead in a casket but who he had been a funny and jubilant teenager.

As a child, I was innocent and the concept of dead people hadn’t been introduced to me yet. Making me believe that we were immortals, until of course it came up at school, a place where most people learn about these things like death, curses, sex, etc… After finding out, I also learned that in my parent’s and now my religion Catholic people tend to be buried, something I’m not sure yet on which way I want to go. A decision everyone must make and if made too late, others will make for him or her when they pass away, having a burial OR a cremation. When someone died that my parents knew, I learned that every time they mentioned the person’s name they would say “ Insert name, en paz descansa.” Which in English means RIP – rest in peace, which my family and my culture does after naming a person who had passed away, out of respect.

In my culture (Mexican) instead of having the dead person in a coffin at the graveyard and standing over watching the coffin being buried, the Mexican people have them at home in the casket covered surrounded by wreaths of flowers. Where the family and friends prays over the coffin because in Mexico, homes are actual houses not tiny apartments. Then the next day he or she is taken to the cemetery and the priest comes to pray and bless him or her before the person is finally buried. Then for 9 nights, they pray for this person but on the ninth night they pray with the cross that like a gravestone will be placed over the grave. This is how people in Mexico take car of their dead, a country where many of the people are Catholics but of course everyone has his or her own little changes.

Something I would like to learn more about during this unit is what do other religions or cultures do for the care of their dead. For example, I remember learning that in Egypt many of the royals and people would have all their gold and treasure be buried with them. So what is it like in Brazil, India, etc? Do the Jews, Christians or any other religion have different rituals? These are some of the questions I would like have answered during the course of this unit.