I never understood human's hardon for burying the dead.

I'm not a religious person. The afterlife seems like a fruitless hope to me so protecting a corpse seems like a pointless chore in my opinion. I've faced deaths before, I'm not a stranger to loss I'm not heartless or anything I get the pain that comes with it but since I became conscious of my atheism I never understood our hardon for burial and the ceremonies that come with it.

The most recent funeral I went to was for a family friend. I participated as was expected of me as I respected the person very dearly. Even though I didn't believe in christianity I went with it and listened to all the things everyone had to say as well as went to view the corpse itself. Looking at it, the corpse of this person I knew it really dawned on me there how ridiculous it all was. That corpse there done up all pretty was not at all the person I knew. It didn't have the glow I remembered, the kindness, the respect I held for that person didn't apply to the corpse that lay there lifeless, pointless, and dead. It pissed me off. We where acknowledging an empty vase, throwing compliments at it as if we hoped that somehow the person that used to be inside it would hear.

I get it. Funerals are for the living. Its so we can celebrate the life that we all where a part of, the life that touched us all before it expired....but fuck....It just. It felt like an insult to me, some part of me didn't like the way the whole thing went as if the corpse meant something. Fucking....shit man get rid of it. It's the memories that matter isn't it. I know I'm being stupid everyone has the right to process mourning in their own way. I guess my way involves sitting by my lonesome remembering and gradually realizing the finality of the death that occurred.

I guess there's no real point in my post here, there is no question to it, but I hope someone out there gets something out of hearing my thoughts on the matter.