Daily News reports:
After a graveside eulogy and a few prayers, the scene morphed quickly from silence to Stephen King with the appearance of the foot.
“We all looked down and we were looking at what apparently was a human foot and leg wrapped in plastic, with cloth wrapped around it, sticking out on top of my father’s casket,” said Alonzo Butler, 53. [*]
One of the mourners snapped a cellphone photo of what looks like an outtake from “The Walking Dead.”
Relatives later griped the cemetery workers ignored the dangling foot and quickly filled in the grave.
… Mount Holiness owner James Shmergel felt that the attention to the ghoulish grave mishap was overblown.
“Is it newsworthy? In a cemetery?” asked Shmergel. “Not really.”
The Butlers may hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit seeking compensation for pain and suffering.
But cemetery caretaker Bill Plog, who started at Mount Holiness in 1983, said he was surprised such incidents were so rare.
“There was a casket,” he said. “It deteriorated. You can purchase a concrete vault, but people don’t. That grave there is from 1969 … It’s unfortunate that this happened, but this is a graveyard.” [1]
Death is disturbing, so we do our best to literally bury it. We don’t want to see it, not even at a graveside! But is denial really the best way to deal with this reality?
King David, in the 23rd Psalm, suggested that we, “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (v. 4). This may seem like a pretty negative outlook on life, but although David was a realist, he was not a fatalist. Even though he recognized the presence of death, he did not live in “fear” (v. 4). Rather, he found comfort knowing that God was always with him (v.4), and he possessed the assurance that one day he would, “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (v. 6).
Death is meant to be disturbing; it is designed to get our attention. But most importantly it’s intended to draw us closer to God, the only place where comfort and assurance can be found.
Remember, this is a graveyard! But according to King David, God’s comfort and assurance are the ultimate reality, even in the graveyard!
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).
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* The foot was from a decayed coffin adjacent to the fresh grave and fell loose after the grandfather’s casket had been lowered.
1. “Decaying foot horrifies grieving family as they bury grandfather,” by Christina Carrega, Elizabeth Keough and Larry Mcshane, New York Daily News , August 11, 2017, < http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/decaying-foot-horrifies-grieving-family-bury-grandfather-article-1.3401379 >.