[cva66snipe]

This is why the traditional “wake” was once held. My grandfather’s body was placed on the kitchen table and a multi-day party commenced

My Great Grandfather was a doctor up into the late 1930's. He told his wife when he passed to leave him alone in the house and come back in a day or so to have the undertaker get him. Yes he was afraid of being mistaken for dead.

Today EMT's sending an EKG strip to a doctor or a nurse checking vital signs and pupils can pronounced someone clinically and legally dead.

[trisham]

That’s reassuring, but not nearly as much fun. :)