My mother has an obsession with death and would drag me to open-casket funerals of ppl I had never even met (she knew them or at least a relative or something). Funerals are still usually open- casket and everyone remotely related to the family is expected to attend in the small community we live in. She berates me for not taking my children to funerals more often as this (in her way of thinking) is somehow supposed to de-sensitize them to death and make the death of the ppl they are really going to miss somehow easier to swallow. I remember going to my cousin's funeral- she died of polio before the vaccine wiped it out here- and being made to walk by and look at her in the casket. I swear, in my poor little 4 yo mind, I thought I saw her move! To this day I have nightmares about them burying her still alive.