Hello all. I'm new to the board and just posted a bio on the bio board for my wife and I. I've been lurking on RfM for months now. Thanks for all your stories.

I just needed to vent today about how riduculous Mormon Funeral rules are. My TBM MIL passed away a couple months ago. My wife wants nothing to do with the church but had not told her mother because we new she was near the end of her life and there was no point in upsetting her. Before dying, my MIL asked my wife to dress her body in the temple clothes after she died. My wife consented because she is a loving daughter. BTW, her temple recommend had not expired yet and MIL's bishop didn't know about our apostacy.

It ended up being traumatic for my wife to handle and manipulate her mother's dead body in order to get garmets, robes, and all the silly stuff on. I'm sure my wife would not have gone through with it but she didn't realize how hard it would be. It's one thing to say a last good-bye or have one last touch but actually dressing the body was too much. My wife only had one sibling to help her because her other brothers and sisters decided to have nothing to do with the church long ago.

DW's sister said how important it was to have the body dressed just right because that's what she would look like when she would be resurrected and meet the savior. What? All I could think was if there is a God please don't let me meet him while I'm wearing a cheap robe, a weird apron, and goofy white slippers.

I could go on and on about stuff at the funeral but the dressing part bothered me the most.

Don't funeral homes/mortiaries handle this? If you ask them to dress the body in whatever then the funeral home does it??

Or is it because of the "sacredness" of the temple etc...that TBM FAMILY members actually have to handle their dead loved one's body physically to dress them in their temple robes.







All I gotta say is.........EEWW.


That's too creepy for me.

Maybe others who have lost loved ones here can chime in.



I don't even go to viewings because I want to remeber that person when they were alive, not a dead shell in a box.

I think that only people with temple recommends are supposed to do the dressing. There are probably members who would have been willing to help but my wife did it because her mother asked her to.

Forgive me for this, but that's stupid! You don't dress the dead for something you don't believe in!

Well I respect the OP's wife in the aspect that she is honoring her mother's last wishes. That is understandable....BUT I didn't know that TBM family members actually do the dressing of the body.

(in my nonmo mind), I would expect the funeral home to do this. In the case of the sacredness of this, then LDS church leaders (Bishop, RS president, etc) do this work.

In the *REAL* Christian world (real in the apsect that the church leaders are TRAINED professionals), that is what some do I think. They know how to handle their dead.



And yes I know mormon church leaders are NOT trained.


Maybe some other ex-TBMs can correct me or just educate me on this.


Is it me or is this practice of TBM family members physically dressing their dead loved ones wierd?

If family members can't or won't, it's the responsibility of the RS Presidency to do it for women. I was in an RS presidency and terrified that I'd ge the call to go and participate.

I dressed two different sisters for burial while I was an RSP. In one case, the funeral director was the only other person there (no living family) and he was very, very helpful. For the second sister, the family was there but none of them were members so they needed instruction on how to put the temple clothes on correctly. They had lots of questions--and they seemed a bit horrified by some of the answers--but were very respectful. I felt like an interloper and an idiot.

Have you lost someone close to you? Some people respect their loved ones wishes. It may be "stupid" to you, but for other people it's not.

Also, calling someone "stupid" for doing something that you don't agree with, especially in a topic from a new person where they have just experienced a trauma, doesn't exactly show empathy or support for what they are going through. Nor is it all that helpful.

It was not stupid to the dead person, it is what she believed and her daughter was honoring her wishes. How unfeeling of you! Many cultures have funeral rituals we do not believe in but that does not make them stupid, just different. Perhaps if the daughter knew ahead of time how tramatic this would be she would have asked the funeral home to handle it. I give her a lot of credit, she is obviously loving and caring.

If that was directed at me...I didn't call anyone stupid. I respect that his wife did this. I find that practice odd, but if it is normal. Then it is, I accept that

I don't believe in religion, but if a parent wants to be buried with religious icons of any faith, I would probably respect their wishes as well.

I just wish my own wishes, to not be dressed in stupid cult robes, would be respected by all my family members. I have lots of non-Mormon friends and ex-Mormon relatives who I have told that I don't wish to be dressed that way. My final wish is if a temple outfit is given to my dead body, that it be donated instead to the craziest, smelliest, homeless person my friends can find, who will be told they are magic robes to protect against space aliens.

Some families request to have the "honor" of dressing their loved ones for their burial. My wife's cousin (a never-mo) dressed her mother (also a never-mo), my wife helped. She wanted to do this for her and the funeral home was very accommodating and if I remember right the director of the funeral home asked the family before anyone brought it up.

Apparently, it's common in some circles for people to want to do this for their loved ones. It's not unique to Mormons at all (yes the garments and the temple garb is, but the dressing part isn't). For some, it's just a chance to do one final thing for the person they loved.

All that being said, I don't know that I could do it. I think it would be too traumatic, and from what my wife said, it was pretty traumatic for my cousin, but for her and with her belief system (I'm not sure which brand of Christianity she believes in, but it's fairly orthodox) it meant a lot.

"I don't even go to viewings because I want to remember that person when they were alive, not a dead shell in a box."

Well said. That's what I do too. And I've been disappointed to be criticized for it. Nice to hear that somebody else feels that way too.

I also think the idea of dressing a family member is creepy, but then again, my family and most non-Mormons I know have the funeral home dress the body. That's especially true about my dad's side of the family as they don't even like to be in the room when someone dies.

I won't need close when I go.
I am going to be turned into carbon then pressed into a diamond. Then I want to be mounted at the equator of a large disco ball, so that I can be with my friends whenever there's a party.

Slimchance, you and your wife have my condolences on the loss of your MIL.

When my mother died a few years ago, the dressing of her body was an extremely traumatic experience for my sister and me. (At the time, I was still a TBM, my sister was a very inactive jackmo and our mom had been a mostly closeted exmo who only went to church when her own mother nagged at her.) The dressing stuff bothers many people and the church knows this. It's very strange that your MIL's Relief Society pres didn't contact your wife, and that no one from the funeral home was there to help because it's almost impossible to put everything on with only one person doing the work.

In any case, hopefully that's something you won't have to go through again. I hope that you and your wife will find a measure of peace in the coming days. The loss of a parent is often unexpectedly difficult.

You used to not be allowed to let the flag touch the ground. Now you can burn it. Sacred is as sacred is believed to be.

If YOU don't believe the garments are sacred, then they aren't. Hand them to a funeral director and ask the professionals who are paid TONS to do this for your loved one.

Here's why-- a dead body is not pleasant to handle, it leaks, has gases and processes going on which are the stuff of horror movies. You risk imprinting yourself with a visual and tactile memory right out of Stephen King WHICH WILL NEVER LEAVE. Don't do it.

Screw the church and its crazy garment/temple clothes superstition. You have to live with your final memories of your loved one, so protect those.

Those who say it's an honor to handle a dead body are working from an old model which tried to glorify the necessary to overcome natural repulsion. That repulsion is there for a reason--trust me.


Anagrammy

Your wife was put into an impossible political/social situation. It sounds like she managed it with love and grace for her mother.

Thanks everybody.

I know it doesn't make sense to participate in the dressing when we don't even believe in it but it one of those emotional things that DW felt committed to do. It seems irrational but let's face it, if humans weren't irrational creatures the mormon church wouldn't exist.

It makes sense to me.

1) To honor her mother.
2) To not create bad feelings with her believing sister.

She has my respect for being willing to do so.

Welcome aboard!

I'd never thought about how disturbing dressing a dead person would be in temple clothes - there's a good reason the morticians are usually the ones who deal with preparing the deceased for the funeral and not close family members.

You post for some reason made me think of being resurrected and going up to Jesus in your temple clothes:

Jesus: [starts giggling] Oh you must be one of those Mormons - yeah we punked you big time! [Turns to Joseph Smith] This just never gets old. [Starts laughing hysterically.]

FWIW, I chose to dress my mother for her burial. Her two closest friends from RS helped me. It was a tremendously moving experience for me, the last act of loving service I could perform for this wonderful woman who had loved me and supported me all my life.

I think this was a very loving act by your wife, especially since it really wasnt her choice, but honoring her mother. And I feel that, in time, she may come to cherish the memory.

Until the early 20th century and the rise of the modern funeral industry, women in every religion and culture washed and dressed bodies for burial; there was no other option. I agree with Anagrammy that there are plenty of good reasons to leave that task to professionals nowadays, but I also respect what your wife did. I'm not sure I would have the strength to do so.

nor would I think she would want me to. I knew somewhere in my subconscious that I'd heard of this and then a few months ago, I was talking to my ex's sister. She helped dress their mother--and she has told her kids that they are to dress her.

I guess to each their own.

The one thing I can say is that I was very fearful of seeing my parents dead. My mother died first. I avoided going into the viewing for a while--and when I saw her, I was SO GLAD I did. It was obvious to me that she was gone; otherwise, I may not have been able to put her in the ground. Then my dad died 2 months later. I don't want a viewing or a funeral, but I do want my kids to see me dead. I want them to know before they put me in the ground that I am indeed GONE.

"I guess to each their own."

I agree. It's interesting how different our views on death and funerals can be. My wife and I went to a funeral recently, and that started a discussion about our own funerals. My wife--who is Japanese--has thought about it a lot and has a specific idea of what she wants. Myself, I could care less what she or my family does, and do not want to think about it. My wife was offended by that, and thinks I owe it to her and others to tell them what to do. We still discuss the subject from time to time.

Your own preference that your kids see you dead makes sense. I had not thought of that, but it would be a good way for them to get closure.

This little tidbit for anyone else that might get stuck doing this horrifying little ritual.

Do what the morticians often do. Cut the garments and clothing up the back. Lay the clothing over the body and tuck the edges under the body. It's much much easier than trying to wrestle with a dead person. My uncle the mortician(He's very TBM, stake pres etc.) did this with every body. He said that usually the clothing doesn't fit right because of the fluid they use.

My husband had to dress someone when he was EQ pres. I told him the cutting up the back secret. It's exactly what he did. The guy he was dressing was almost twice his size, it would have been a nightmare to do it any other way.

I can't imagine my daughter dressing my dead body. She would be forever traumatized. I would never, ever, do that to her.

I'm sure someone will say that's against the rules. I wouldn't tell anyone, I would just do it that way. It's not like the person is going to get up and walk around. If they do, none of that will matter anyway.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2013 02:17PM by Mia.

Back in the late 1960's-early 1970's we were taught (in PH maybe) that dressing the body was a sacred duty or priviledge of the Relief Society sisters. Was that a partial truth or optional policy at the time?

BcE

So much about death is hugely distressing. Seems like someone from the ward could have volunteered to help your wife. MIL's bishop surely must have known about her illness and death?!

I think back to when my mother died. The only thing creepier about being asked to handle her dead body was the idea that some stranger(s) had handled her dead body.

Some last wishes don't have to be honored.

I was a mormon for nearly 30 years and on my way out before I found out that our mormon dead were supposed to be buried in temle clothes. That was one more thing that showed me that mormonism was simply a bunch of man-made rituals. There is nothing scripturally that says dead people have to be dressed a certain way.

True - TBM family members do dress deceased TBM family members in temple atire after death. My parents dressed my brother. Sad, but true.

It is my understanding that recommend holding family members are asked to do this. If they can't/won't, the EQP or the RSP are expected to step in.

When I'm dead, I don't want anyone on that list dressing me. That's what morticians are for. Besides the fact that I will come back and haunt anyone who dresses me in that crazy Mo getup.

If I'm not cremated, I want to be buried in a red dress.