Tue, 13 Jun 2006

Some Ohio families refuse to claim bodies

This is quite possibly the most horrible story I've ever mentioned here. Anthropologists generally date the arrival of "humanity" from the time our ancestors began to bury their dead and treat the bodies with a modicum of respect and even reverence.

This was not only the moment religion was born in the human spirit, but the moment that a human community began to mean something more than it's animal counterparts: a tribe is not a flock or a herd, and anyone who thinks differently is welcome to roam my pasture for a few days and see firsthand for themselves.

I wonder if the lady who used the insurance money provided to bury her family member to redecorate her kitchen has considered her own chances of dying alone, and being laid to eternal rest unmourned and unremembered? I doubt it - that would require her to think beyond the immediate moment and plan a bit for the future, which is also a defining human trait.

Truly this represents the human race reverting to our base primate nature, and reflects a "Who cares?" attitude that does not bode well for the future of our so-called civilization.

AP - Thomas Tellis died in March, but his cremated remains are still waiting to be claimed at a Canton funeral home. Shortly after the 89-year-old's death, investigators located Tellis' daughter, but the woman, who was born out of wedlock and raised by another man, refused to claim Tellis' body.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

/Asatru | 2 writebacks | permanent link

---

On 6/13/2006 18:33:40
Maritzia wrote

While I agree that the woman who wanted to use the money to remodel her kitchen is incredibly selfish, not everyone who refuses to claim bodies is of the same ilk. When my husband's father died, if there hadn't been money to bury him, I pretty sure he would have just laughed if someone wanted him to claim Peter's body. There were immense abuse issues in that family, and I wouldn't blame him if he had refused. While in general family ties are looser, sometimes there's a good reason for that. Just to give a different point of view on it.

---

On 6/13/2006 22:51:56
Dave H wrote

Chickens or Eggs?

Hi Maritzia: You make a valid point, indeed. Perhaps this is just a symptom of a larger issue. But I'm really of two minds here: one says that it's only logical to respect those who respect you - a gift ever looks for gain. In this case, refusing to have anything to do with an abusive parent is a rational and entirely understandable course of action. On the other hand, that parent is at least half responsible for your very existence: how much of an obligation of respect does the gift of life itself impose? How much abuse does it take to negate that obligation? Can you satisfy that duty by at least grudgingly acknowledging your progenitors - not as good people, but as the reason you exist as you? I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, but it's something that bears thinking about. Especially in this modern age when any sense of human community and even the family itself seems to be drifting into oblivion. Thanks for the comment and, Be well, Dave H.

---

:: Categories ::

 agriculture
asatru
copywrongs
humor
musings
politics
technology
index
haxton.org

---

:: Search ::

---

:: Blogroll ::

A Mindful Life
The Accidental Smallholder
Austro-Athenian Empire
Cauldron Born
Center for a Stateless Society
Dances with Ewes
Dispatches
egregores
Hardscrabble Creek
Honk & Helen
In Siberia
Laudator Temporis Acti
Lorrie's Livejournal
Masson's Blog
MyAppleMenu
NoNAIS
Notes on Religion
Numenous Thoughts
OrangeGuru
Overlawyered
Prophet or Madman
rogueclassicism
Sugar Mountain Farm
Thud Factor
Universe of Discourse
Wildhunt Blog
within the crainium

---

:: Archives ::

←May→

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

---

:: Site ::

Contact Me   

MacRaven
Dave Haxton's Weblog
Musings, Reflections, Rants and Comments from a Hoosier Heathen husband, father, grandfather, farmer and software engineer. There's really only one of me ...

---

lunar phases

Unless otherwise noted, all original
work on this site is licensed under a

comment...

Notes: If you put a <mailto:> link in the URL field your address will not be mangled: this could be a bad idea as your email address could be easily harvested by bots designed for SPAM. The comments field should now format correctly for line feeds and carriage returns: when you hit the 'Enter' or 'Return' keys in your comment it should break to a new line. The text should wrap cleanly. Please let me know if it doesn't. No HTML tags will pass through - entering links seems to be the main cause of comment SPAM. Also, please be sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser before attempting to post a writeback. Sorry for any inconvenience, but this really helps cut down on the amount of comment SPAM I have to deal with.
Name:
URL:	(optional)
Title:	(optional)
Comments:
Save my Name and URL/Email for next time