Patriotic Star

The stirring sound of Taps will be heard at cemeteries across America this weekend, its haunting melody rising above the tombstones. In towns large and small, veterans groups, Boy Scout troops, families and community groups are placing flags and flowers at the graves of America’s fallen soldiers in preparation for Memorial Day this coming Monday. Ceremonies will be held to honor the brave men and women who have died serving America on our country’s national day of mourning and at each Taps will be played.

Composed during the Civil War by Union General Daniel Butterfield in July 1862, Taps is the bugle call used by the U.S. military to signal lights out. Just as Reveille is played at sunrise to signal the start of the military day, Taps’ 24 mournful notes are bugled at sunset to mark the end of another day. Taps provided a fitting dirge as soldiers mourned their fallen comrades and brought comfort to those who lived, assuring them that they were safe and would arise to fight again.

Traditionally played at military funerals and at wreath-laying ceremonies at cemeteries and war memorials, Taps’ solemn notes are the final bugle call in the life of a soldier.

“In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes,” Benjamin Franklin once said; but how Americans address death has changed with the times. The high cost of funerals in the midst of a difficult economy is enticing some Americans to embrace funeral customs that haven’t been practiced since before the Civil War.

In the U.S., home funerals were common before chemical embalming gained acceptance in the later 1800s. When a person died, family members would wash the body and dress the deceased in his or her “funeral clothes.” These were often an individual’s nicest clothing, a man’s Sunday suit or a woman’s nicest dress worn to weekly church services or special holiday gatherings. The deceased would be “laid out” in the parlor or bedroom of his home. Family and friends who attend the “viewing” to pay their respects to the deceased and console the family. Due to the lack of refrigeration, viewings typically lasted three days, sometimes less in the summer, before the body was interred.

This kind of do-it-yourself funeral is gaining a niche following from people who wish to keep funeral rituals simple and inexpensive. Under the direction of “death midwives,” family members bathe, dress and lay out the body in the home of a relative. Dry ice is used to preserve the body while family and friends visit to pay their respects. Inexpensive cardboard or pine caskets can be purchased to transport the body to a crematorium or to the cemetery for a green burial.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day when many Americans celebrate their Irish heritage. Even if they’re not Irish, many families invite friends and family members back to their home after a funeral for a buffet dinner. Stories are told and memories about the deceased are shared over food and drink. The practice harkens from the traditional Irish wake and is a way to support the grieving family and ease the transition to grief.

The traditional Irish wake was held in the home of the deceased or a close family member. The deceased was laid out in the parlor. Family and friends would gather to party and drink, tell stories and sing songs, to celebrate the passing of the deceased and the beginning of his afterlife. Early Celtic people believed death was the beginning of a new life in another, better place and equipped graves with objects and possessions the deceased might need in the afterlife. A funeral was cause for celebration; hence the joyful, sometimes raucous tone of Irish wakes.

Another fanciful though largely discredited reason for Irish wakes holds that the Irish fondness for stout, which was drunk from pewter mugs caused lead poisoning, one of the symptoms of which is that the victim can become catatonic (comatose) and may appear to be dead but awakens in a few hours. Irish legend says a victim’s drinking buddies would lay him out and keep watch to see if he would arise from the dead!