Fear and Death

Dad blamed Mom for my apprehension of funerals and dead people. Because Mom was so uncomfortable with open caskets at funerals and visitations, Dad thought I had picked up Mom's views. Neither of them realized how terrifying Grandpa's death was for me or that what I was feeling was actually a phobia. I didn't really get over the anxiety or fear until I was in college and oddly enough until I was an agnostic.

Grandpa, my dad's father, died after being ill for many years. Grandma and Grandpa lived just a few miles from our house and over 15 miles away from the closest funeral home. The family decided to have the visitation at the house rather than the funeral home because so many of the people who would come to visit were from the farming community. The funeral would take place at our little community church.

When we drove into Grandma and Grandpa's driveway, I must have been horribly excited. Visits to my grandparents were always fun and usually meant whatever special treats that my brother and I wanted. We got Dr. Pepper floats and biscuits with homemade syrup. It also meant sleep-overs and domino games and as many morning cartoons as we wanted to watch.

I'm sure my parents tried to explain again that this was not a fun visit and I really didn't understand what was going on. I was seven or eight years old and the permanence of death didn't really make sense to me. When I ran in the front door, I skidded to a stop in front of the coffin with Grandpa's body in it. Suddenly death felt very real to me.

I immediately knew that Grandpa wasn't alive. He didn't quite look like the real Grandpa. I backed away and edged toward the dining room. I avoided the living room as much as I could. When I had to be in there I sat as far away from the casket as I could.

This was the beginning of my anxiety of death and dead bodies. As a child living in a small community that usually had open-casket funerals, I had many opportunities to experience this fear over and over. After this when I did go to funerals, I avoided the line that would go past the body or quickly went past without looking.

I was afraid that the people who I loved would turn into zombies and vampires and otherworldly creatures when they died. My overactive imagination started worrying that these beloved ones would become strangers who wanted to hurt me. I certainly couldn't explain these fears as a child. I knew that what I thought was irrational and that my parents would tell me that I was being silly. I understood enough to know that others didn't think about bodies the way that I did because they went to visitations and they didn't cringe away when coming near coffins.

Now that I am an adult, I can see value in the closure that comes from funerals. That release of emotions act as a means for us to be able to eventually move on. Now as I begin my path toward ministering, I am extremely thankful that I got over my phobia. My ability to provide comfort would have been greatly limited by that fear.