All Souls Day

There is a scene in "The Others" where Nicole Kidman finds a number of Funerary Photos in the house where the dead are staged for post-mortem photographs and placed into a keepsake album.  Creepy?  Maybe... except that I remember that my Great-Aunt had a book exactly like that.  While her book was comprised of relatives in their coffins surrounded by flowers, not staged in chairs that are still visible around the house, it's not exactly something that you'd want to place on the coffee table.

When she showed me the photo of her father in his coffin in 1932, she pointed at the flowers - "Look at how respected he was."  In the middle of the Depression, dozens of people found some extra cash to provide extravagant bouquets of flowers.  So, yes, maybe creepy... but if a little comfort is found in something that doesn't hurt anyone else, then why not?  I'm not sure who ended up with the photos when she died, but I hope they appreciate them.  Just don't give them to me - yeah, they're creepy.