One of the trips I look forward to the most in the future is visiting Mexico during their annual "Day of the Dead" festival (click on the photo above), because I think it's an absolutely beautiful tradition to keep. Native Americans* often have different funerary practices than European Americans, depending on the tribe and its geography. Out west, people were wrapped in several layers of decorative blankets, placed high in treetops on secured wooden platforms, and visited after the body was completely dessicated so their bones could be wiped clean, to be put back within a smaller bundle in a ritualistic design**.
I appreciate their traditions for representing a more mature attitude towards life and death. We are born, we live, and we die. Simple as that, or not, depending on your amount of life strife. But, wouldn't it be comforting to know that the children you gave birth to (and their children's children) came back to visit your grave in memorial every year, decorating the site with beautiful artwork made from the traditional designs of your culture? They would be the people who gently unwrap your bones, tucking you back into a fresh bundle, keeping your resting place neat and tidy.
It's so cheerful, isn't it? Your family plot becomes a place people look forward to visiting, by celebrating your life (and theirs) eating and drinking the same foods you enjoyed during your life. It seems like such a loving thing to do, in contrast to our colder American burials, as performances of grief and mourning that often lack the real heart and soul of your loved one and their life. My grandparents were such fun people for me to be around, but their brood is most definitely not: there's nothing to be had for me by spending time with them, whether its over a burial mound or anywhere else, for that matter.
Then, why would I do something so intimate as grieve with them? They don't understand life! Would they understand death any better? They don't get it, any of it. I understand that life and death is a process because I was taught that and I've also experienced it, but I'm also the best student my family has ever produced. I'd rather be on my own, than suffer through a bad death with a bunch of people who lack feelings and emotions. Do you know what I mean? We need to change the way we feel about life before we can conquer death, or life-after-death, as part of G-d's eternal promise to us for an everlasting reality. That's the day I'm looking forward to: the greatest holiday of all time. ¡Salud!
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_Ridge
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prehistoric_sites_in_Colorado
