The Culture of Puerto Rican Funerals
Misti Proenza
Puerto Rico is a beautiful island rich in history and culture. Throughout many countries in the world, death is celebrated or grieved in several different ways some may or may not understand. Puerto Rico’s more recent form of celebrating the dead is memorable, but may be seen as peculiar or over the top to some.
Standing funerals are funerals in which the body is positioned in a way that reflects the life the deceased lived. This method moves away from a closed casket to a presentation of the body posed in a lifelike fashion. This type of funeral has been gaining popularity after a Puerto Rican man named Fernando de Jesus Diaz Beato was fatally shot in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The funeral home, Marin Funeral Home, embalmed him in a way that many would say is unconventional. Marin Funeral Home is a pioneer in these memorable types of funerals, creating the trend of standing funerals in Puerto Rico. Families who have celebrated the nature of death through this atypical type of funeral were able to remember their loved ones positively. Despite the relative darkness death brings about to loved ones of the deceased, families feel that standing funerals have truly positively impacted them, including the de Jesus Diaz family.
Typically, families who hold these types of funerals do it to respect the deceased’s wishes or to ultimately remember them the way they truly were when they were alive. Traditions practiced in standing funerals include praying for the deceased, positioning the corpse to reflect the way they lived their life, and celebrating the good death may bring. As morbid as this type of funeral sounds, it is a way to bring about peace and closure for families and friends of those who passed on. The point isn’t to judge but to understand the way death is perceived and celebrated in different cultures. Traditions are methods that are used but can evolve and change over time.
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