Sometimes, when viewing the deceased, families can be quite surprised by the changed appearance of a loved one’s face. The loss of tone as facial muscles relax is frequently unanticipated, and such a change can be startling. Even so, the experience of death by viewing the body can aid acceptance in complicated ways no matter how it lands; research on the psychology of grieving indicates that experiencing this altered appearance and unfamiliar set of the features of a body can affect the nature and process of individuals’ mourning.
Life Matters
Death care professionals know how much about the experience of death is unique, but civilians don’t. As much as manner and timing of death affect the condition of remains and processing, these few factors may be all that the living intuitively understand. But age and sex of the deceased, progress of decomposition, and any significant health conditions (like advanced disease) that can also limit restoration are not elements most mourners know to consider. If the overall effect of factors results in significant facial differences, that altered appearance can be quite profound to the living, however skillful the restoration.
Funerals and viewings aren’t the same for everyone, of course; whether the expressions of the dead are interpreted positively or not by each viewer affects their memories of the deceased. The decedent’s skin pallor and setting, the nasolabial fold, and the general positioning of the body all contribute to the way that the viewers experience a face-to-face final goodbye. Individually, of course, the personality and emotional state of the grieving matter too, as do their relationship to the deceased, their age and sometimes gender, their personal history, and any prior experience of trauma.
Those initially struggling to accept the death may have a harder time still after viewing a dramatically changed face… to the point of believing it’s someone else.
Inanimate death
Death itself isn’t really mistakable for most people. We don’t have to learn it to recognize it; we typically know it when we see it. Our brains are built with a complex, hard-wired life-force-recognition system included, a failsafe that distinguishes the dead from the living, perhaps as an ancient survival trait to help us avoid predators or disease.
A prominent feature of this failsafe entails registering lack of animacy. Detection of animacy in the slightest presence, the essence of the many degrees of purposeful movement made by the living, is a superb human skill. When the criteria of life’s animacy aren’t met, recognition of a body as lifeless is relatively easy for most people.
For so many of us, a face forms much of the identity of a person. Someone’s standard , expected expression — whether smile, a slight scowl, or quiet peace — becomes almost equivalent to their face for us. The absence of the particular set of the features we’ve become accustomed to may be jarring.
Whether comforted or unsettled by it, families coming face to face with death confront mortality and begin to reconcile their beloved’s life with its ending. Funeral directors help these people to align expectations with the reality of loss… meaningful, dignified care not only for the dead, but for the living.
