> e.g. we no longer keep the departed at home for relatives to get used to the fact that they are no longer alive, but still be able to look at them when mourning

What was this practice called? It sounds interesting.

In Ireland, they are called a wake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_(ceremony)

That Wikipedia page says viewings are basically the same as a wake. Are viewings not common in the U.S? They're common in Utah.

When my dad died, before the viewing there was the period right after death where my siblings and I sat in the room with his body and talked until the mortuary picked him up.

My suspicion is that the proliferation of cremation has significantly reduced the incidence of wakes. That, and US American society has so much functional separation that most of us probably interact very little with the elderly, thus also not ending up at many funerals.

I'm from the Southeastern US. They seem pretty common here.

We have wakes and visitations in Canada too, but they are held at funeral homes for brief periods - not in the home of the deceased or a loved one. I think this might be the same as the Jewish ritual of “sitting shiva”?? But I am not sure.

One of my dad's oft-told stories is of having his grandmother "in the living room" overnight prior to her funeral. He didn't use a particular term for it but said he found it quite terrifying as a 4-5 year old at the time. (This would be in the 1950s in the UK.)

I couldn't quite follow the wording, but it sounded like open-casket visitation, but at home instead of a funeral home.

Yes I agree. Was this a common ritual anytime recently in North America? I have heard of it back in the 1800s but only ever heard of funeral homes for visitations anytime more recently.

Possibly “visitation” in the American south, unless I’m misremembering or misinterpreting the parent comment.

Are visitations held inside a private home? We have them in Canada but they are invariably (in my experience) held in a funeral home.

> draft obituaries ready for all living celebrities, which have to be constantly updated

I was responsible for doing this for a news radio network 30 years ago. Mostly I was able to stay on top of things, but Princess Diana really ruined my weekend. No-one was ready for that one.

I'm very curious to know if you had an obituary written up for Princess Diana already, or did you only have them written up for celebrities that were "at risk"?

Was there any kind of cutoff in terms of age? Were there obituaries maintained for child actors and singers? So many questions but it's a very interesting topic!

Typically, they were managed based on level of fame, health, and age.

Any notable persons named in recent news reports for matters of health were kept near the top of the pile.

There was nothing pre-prepared for Princess Diana's death as she was just too young and healthy, despite her incredible fame.

My grandfather was a newspaper journalist all his life. When he retired, he took a side-gig back with the paper updating obituaries.

When watching the updated Shōgun, I was struck by how absolutely casual everyone was, about death; both the death of others, and their own.

I assume that was a cultural trait of the time. It does not seem to be so much so, these days.

I was raised in Africa, and was quite familiar with death -frequently violent death, at an early age.

We live in privileged times, where we have the luxury of not thinking about death.

When I lived in Sierra Leone, a common Christmas carol translated to "Merry Christmas, we didn't die".

In Bulgaria walls like this one are really common. https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE...

For anyone interested in these, I visited Bulgaria last year and wrote about them:

https://onthearts.com/p/the-necrologs-of-bulgaria