Social Care
The drive-through funeral parlour.
Untouchable bereavement.
They say that the most previous gift you can give someone who is important to you is your time. I thought of that as I came across a story in the Metro.
It describes the events at the Robert L. Adams drive-through funeral home first opened in 1974 which is only one of a handful in the US.
‘It’s a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlours,’ said owner Peggy Scott Adams, a Grammy-nominated gospel singer who took over the business when her husband died.
‘You can come by after work, you don’t need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside and the family knows that you paid your respects. It’s a convenience thing,’ she told the LA Times.
And those who cannot stomach stepping inside the funeral home can stay behind the safety of its bulletproof glass.
This blog has contained several articles on how we have become increasingly uncomfortable as a society with death. Is it me or does this say more about our need to distance and detach ourselves from the reality of death? The idea of not having contact with the deceased – of passing through at your own convenience, of fitting in respects when you have a moment – because work after all is far more important, of being behind a bullet-proof screen, frankly touches a raw nerve.
When will we start to be comfortable with the realities of living and dying?
Dr Donald Macaskill
Related articles.
Shut up and shut away.
