Family thoughts on care for the death

With my mother busied by several projects for a museum and father fixing troubles at work, for the start of this unit, I turned to my nine years younger brother yet again for his thoughts and opinions. As a child, even he admits that death isn't something he often thinks about and even less so is care for the deceased. At first, he was confused with what I meant by "How do you think the dead people should be cared for?" In return, he frowned in confused and tilted his head. "How can you care for someone who isn't alive to get care?" he asked back. I rephrased my question and asked how he thought the bodies should be treated. From then on, the conversation was either. "With respect," was the first thing out of his mouth. "Don't break them or drop them. They're someone's family. Treat them like they were yours." I asked him if there was ever a case where one body should be treated differently from another. Respect came up again but he allowed himself to build on his thoughts saying that soldiers and veterans should be allowed a funeral that honored their service to their country.  I can't account for the majority of the country but I know at least he was aware of this option because of the militarized presence in the funeral of our great-grandfather who served in World War Two and Korea, in which our cousin who was recently on leave from the middle East played a part in.

"Bad people should be remembered as bad," he added at some point, following a silence. "It's different from when you bury a child and when you bury a bad guy." What qualified someone as a being bad, he couldn't quite define. This was understandable to me. Already I consider him to be worldly for his age, even before this discussion, because he is always bringing outside, unselfish elements into discussions. If someone was bad, he later explained, it wouldn't be fair to whomever they had wronged to be treated the same as a "good guy". Even with though it was toned down and reminiscent of an old Marvel or DC comic good versus evil discussion, I find it immensely interesting that he was already starting to gain his own thoughts and opinions on a topic that adults today still argue about. Some cultures see not getting buried as unjust, wrong, or plain inappropriate. I think that as a whole, America falls somewhere in the middle. Getting cremated doesn't seem to be scandalous but it certainly isn't expected.

Additionally, I've noticed that once cremated, the family or next of kin doesn't always abide whatever further wishes the deceased had wanted. When my great-grandmother was cremated, as requested, I saw nothing wrong with it and nothing particularly interesting either (although I remembering giggling at the idea that was getting whispered around the funeral that the ashes would be divided amongst her children, "What if you got ash that was really just coffin? Wouldn't that suck?"). I do remember though that my aunt held onto the urn with her remains. This is what I believe the norm is cremations - keep the remains and leave them somewhere presentable. It wasn't until recently, the reason for adding in this last line, that I discovered that apparently, my great-grandmother wanted to be scattered in the backyard, beneath a certain tree - not trapped in an urn.