In paying respects it may be customary to view the body and to offer support through your presence and words of encouragement. Offer personal comments about the deceased or how he or she will be remembered such as:
“I will remember our college days”
“John enjoyed life”
“He certainly had a lot of friends”
These remarks tend to add further emotional stress and are inappropriate:
“You can have other children”
“He is better off now”
“Only the good die young”
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Cremation
Modern cremation, as we know it, actually began only a little over a century ago, after years of experimentation into the development of a dependable chamber. When Professor Brunetti of Italy finally perfected his model and displayed it at the 1873 Vienna Exposition, the cremation movement started almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the British Isles, the movement was fostered by Queen Victoria's surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson. Concerned with hazardous health conditions, Sir Henry and his colleagues founded the Cremation Society of England in 1874. The first crematories in Europe were built in 1878 in Woking, England and Gotha, Germany.
Meanwhile in North America, although there had been two recorded instances of cremation before 1800, the real start began in 1876 when Dr. Julius LeMoyne built the first crematory in Washington, Pennsylvania.
