My father died in 1982. My mother died in 2002. I am an only child.
I
did not choose to look at the dead body of either my father or my
mother. I am fully persuaded it would not benefit the dead for me to
look on the dead body, and I felt it would do harm to me to do such.
My
mother was still living when my dad died so because of her, and the way
she might feel, I did have a funeral for my dad, but with a closed
casket.
When my mother died,
I felt I was the only one to be considered. I did notify my two
cousins and told them I would not have a funeral. I told them I felt I
was the only one to be considered in this matter. I told them my
belief of the resurrection and I think I shared I Thessalonians 4:13-18 with them.
(One cousin said she could do a memorial service for my mother. I replied, "That is fine. Do you want me to keep her body for you?" I didn't hear from her.)
(One cousin said she could do a memorial service for my mother. I replied, "That is fine. Do you want me to keep her body for you?" I didn't hear from her.)
Before my mother died, God gave me a dream showing me the next time my mother fell she would die.
I watched over her very carefully knowing this.
Then one night,
I was in my bedroom sleeping but I heard a strange noise. I got up and
went to my mother's room. She was on the floor, fallen. I called
ambulance and took her to hospital. I knew she would die because of
that which God had shown me in the dream.
They did operate on her. She was 97. And she lived through the operation.
While she was in hospital even while she was still living, I went to local funeral home (during a snow storm)
and arranged for her burial. It cost more to do this the way I chose,
but I arranged for them to pick up her body upon her death and bury her
without my being there.
I took her home, but could not care for her by myself. I put her in an assisted living home. She died within a month.
When they called from the assisted living home, I told them to call the funeral director and have him pick up the body.
I never saw her dead body.
This was simply my choice based on that which I know about those who die. They are asleep. They will awaken when Jesus returns. Until then they know nothing concerning that which the living are doing.
It will benefit the dead person nothing for me to view the dead body
and I considered it would harm me, perhaps for the remainder of my life.
I've never regretted this decision and I still believe it is scriptural according to the New Testament.
But the one thing I know for sure, we who are the living cannot focus our attention on the dead as this world does.
For Paul says:
Philippians 3:13-15 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded:
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