death question

[freakyone22]

whats with the pulling a blanket or jacket over thier face whats the thought behind that? i get the closing of the eyes its to soften the blow of death and make it look like a slumber of some sort

[Grm]

Just to stop the necrophiliacs taking advantage of the corpse.

[buddyChrist]

I was always of the understanding that it was to basically cover the face of the dead person so it would not be seen. It is one thing to know that there is a dead body under the coat/sheet/whatever, but to actually see it... Some people have a rather extreme reaction to dead bodies. Covering them makes dealing with them easier.

[Pixie1]

My dad died a couple of years ago.  He went to bed saying he had a headache... he called it "feeling under the weather."  The next morning he didn't get up and start the coffee.  I went to check on him and he was dead.  I knew it instantly because he was ashen, his mouth was open and he was laying on his back.  He was cold and stiff.

The shock was profound for me.  I don't know why but I pulled the sheet over his head and called 911 because I didn't know what else to do.

The paramedics put him in a bag and zipped it up completely and put him in the ambulance to go to the morgue.

I never saw his body again.  But the pulling of the sheet over his face seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.  I still have the frozen in time image of how he looked when I found him.

[liontamer2]

That must have been terrible, Pixie.  I can't imagine what you must have felt there.  Dreadful that you had to experience that.

[buddyChrist]

Inversely, I was sitting with my mom when she died in the hospital. The nurses came in and took care of business, and never covered her at all. I think that it might be because it did not bother me to see her. It was far worse to watch her die than to see her after it was over.