My mother died in a care home in Fresno, CA, USA. The funeral director said because she was so dehydrated I could not see her body although I had flown from the UK to see her before burial. Then he said I must buy a dress with a high neck to cover her. In a large store, my sister and I looked for a dress. The only one we felt appropriate was in the children’s department. Overhearing us talk, another customer told us it didn’t matter because the funeral director would cut it down to cover up her front. Then the body of Mom needed to be taken to Utah where she would be buried next to Dad. Nine-hundred miles. We could not take her body – law forbids. In Utah her coffin must be put inside a cement box. Why? In case over the years the ground moves and disturbs the coffin. All the way, authorities controlled our movement.
