BROOK PARK, Ohio (July 18) - They take the concept of resting in peace seriously at the Humenik Funeral Chapel.

The chapel offers a bedroom-like setting - a bed and two end tables - instead of where the casket would usually be laid out.

Owner Joe Humenik opened his own funeral home in suburban Cleveland five years ago after spending 10 years in the business. He first tried out the ''reposing bed'' for someone very close to him - his mother.

He had observed at countless funerals how mourners awkwardly approach the casket, say their goodbyes then retreat to the seating area.

But when his mom was laid out in a reposing bed, people stood nearby throughout the visitation.

''It was a real phenomenon. People took chairs and were sitting around the bed. It was just amazing,'' he said.

Donna Smith, 55, attended a funeral two years ago in which her neighbor was laid out in a bed.

''It is like walking into their bedroom,'' Smith said. ''It's just lovely. That's the way I want to go.''

So what's next? Maybe laying out an individual in a favorite chair or recliner?

''If a family requested it, I would use a recliner,'' Humenik said.



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that seriously gives me the creeps. ick.

Sounds nice to me.

I don't think this is unusual for older people. Before elderly care places where people go to die, they died in their beds at home. I remember going to visit a relative when I was like 5 or 6 at her house a day or two befor she died.

I'm generally bugged out by the idea of keeping the body around for any significant amount of time after death, especially open viewings. I also find embalming especially disturbing. I've left specific instructions that under no circumstances is my body to be embalmed or in any other way unnaturally preserved after my death.

But you'll decay too fast. In the event of a nuclear war, you may be too far gone to rise up as a zombie and take charge of the new toxic landscape... Doesn't that make you sad?

That is precisely what I am trying to prevent.

I think this is a great idea. People would feel more comfortable sitting around a bed to say their last face to face goodbyes. Though I wonder if it would cause confusion in children (and adults in denial)?

And I'm with PD: no embalming, no unnatural shit. Take every useful organ out of my body then cremate me.

Or even better: a funeral pyre.

Do they have to embalm you for any kind of viewing? I would like people to be able to pass by my casket, and if that means stuffing a fermaldahyde pipe up my ass ... what do I care?