Modern Funerals

Last summer I went to a memorial service for a friend's mother. It was a very nice service held at a funeral home in Ozark, MO. The room we were in had several pews and a pulpit at the front left corner. I noticed other things about the room, too, like the 90s-style gold chandeliers and the curtain swags at the front of the room. The rest of the funeral home was very old-fashioned to me and reminded me of something you would see in a typical parlor room of old days.

As I looked around the room I wondered if funeral homes would always look like this or would they change over time and adapt to the current styles. Take churches, for instance. Nowadays, most churches are in more of an auditorium with removable chairs and no windows instead of a sanctuary with stationery pews and stained glass windows. With the way things in our world seem to be going - more modern and untraditional - I wonder what will become of funeral homes. I hope they don't change and remain as they are now. I think there's comfort to be found in the old-fashioned style of funeral homes, especially considering that when you use funeral homes you're dealing with a lot of sadness.