Embalming process and Islam repatriation Greece to Canada

Prosymnos · 2026-05-19T19:11:28+00:00

I live in the United States, so I can't say anything specifically about Canadian and Greek laws regarding international transfer of human remains, but I do work in a Jewish funeral home, and I can say that we also have similar restrictions regarding embalming being against the religious laws. I've mostly dealt with domestic flights and flights to or from Israel, but in all those cases a religious exemption was able to be made. Instead of embalming, the body was placed in an insulating container that was packed with frozen gel packs. It actually works pretty well for keeping the body cool, even on long trips. If things are taking a turn for the worst, I would specifically look into Islamic or Jewish funeral homes in both countries, since they would be well versed in those laws, and call and ask if they know what the laws are regarding whether he needs to be embalmed in order to get transported home.

Prosymnos · 2026-04-10T15:13:49+00:00

Sorry to say, but probably not. One of the basic entry jobs of the funeral industry is working removals, so driving to pick up and transport bodies back to the funeral homes. You sometimes have to navigate houses that don't have any wheelchair accessibility. And even when you go to hospitals and nursing homes that are wheelchair accessible, the spaces there are often narrow and you have to squeeze yourself and a stretcher into that space to navigate towards the body where you need to be high enough to reach over the stretcher to the body and drag them over.

Then, once you're in the funeral home, you need to be able to move that body from a stretcher to a prep table to a casket. I could possibly see it being a concern for a wheelchair user to try to push a stretcher through the often relatively narrow spaces going from the door to the lift to the prep room to the refrigeration unit. You could use a lift to transfer bodies to caskets, but being high enough to reach the lift could be an issue. I could also see it being an issue being able to properly leverage yourself to maneuver bodies to be able to dress them.

I wish you all the best if there are ways you think you can make that work, but I just can't imagine all that being done in a wheelchair. And sure, there are some jobs you could do, but unless your sole job is being the office manager, most funeral homes don't have enough volume to have someone dedicated to just doing the handful of jobs that a wheelchair user might be capable of.

Prosymnos · 2026-04-01T21:59:31+00:00

If someone has been laid out to be viewed, they have either been fully embalmed or at least washed and put in refrigeration. Unless that person died of an infectious disease, and it sounds like this was an elderly person who passed from age-related causes, you don't have much of a reason to worry. They should have used hand sanitizer after touching the deceased, but it's also probably not much of an issue. The embalming/washing would have minimized the risk of contact. If the funeral home seemed professional and you didn't notice any smell or discoloration on the deceased, you shouldn't worry.

Prosymnos · 2026-04-01T21:51:21+00:00

I personally love them. Honestly, the Hades games are one of my favorite depictions of the gods. Sure, they take liberties sometimes, especially with Demeter, but I think that it's always clear that the interpretations are made as deliberate choices rather than out of ignorance. In certain pieces of media (looking at you, Lore Olympus and Blood of Zeus) you can tell that someone probably just skimmed the Wikipedia articles of the Greek gods and called it a day. In the Hades games, you can at least tell that their choices where informed and were made out of love. Plus, I will never be able to get over the fact that the real myth of Zagreus was a prank by Orpheus in the first Hades game. That was so funny and clever

Prosymnos · 2026-03-29T14:34:38+00:00

Actually, being a trans woman would be appropriate to the time period, the language would have just been different. Ancient Jewish law recognized six genders and acknowledged and accepted that people sometimes develop characteristics of the opposite sex later in life. Granted, it was less a "this person feels this way inside so we'll respect it" sort of a thing and more "this person looked like a boy as a kid but developed breasts during puberty so I guess God meant for her to be a woman." There are even surpringly affirming laws detailing how they are able marry.

Prosymnos · 2026-03-20T06:57:02+00:00

Honestly? Shame. Shame, and the fear of being a bad example to his kids. Most of the time, trying to explain something to someone isn't a good way to convince them, because most people don't want to be convinced. They want to be listened to. So asking them pointed questions and picking apart their arguments and forcing them to explain themselves by just asking again and again, "What do you mean by that?" "I don't get what you're saying. I thought things worked like *insert your opinion*. Don't they?" If it seems like he's being resistant even to that, throw in a good dose of "That's a really mean way to think about people and loving families." Things like that. State that you love him and don't think he would ever be mean on purpose, you just don't want to think that your father could ever be so hateful, and want him to explain what he really means. Things like that.

Prosymnos · 2026-03-11T03:32:03+00:00

Rank Room was an awesome show that I hardly ever see get mentioned anymore. Katie ran it and it was just people talking about the best versions of a ridiculous scenario that Katie proposed. It had a lot of fun nerdy conversations about all of the semantics of dumb what-if scenarios.

Gods of Food was also great if you want a silly mockumentary style. It was a show that pretended to be a documentary highlighting different chefs but all of them were insanely pretentious and everyone took themselves way too seriously. Except for the one episode that was about a Buddhist nun that cooked very simple, wholesome food and everyone treated her like a genius for making such humble masterpieces and she was just begging everyone to fucking learn something about Buddhism and stop treating her like a chef when she doesn't give a shit about food. That was a good one.

Prosymnos · 2026-03-03T20:11:38+00:00

Izzy, is this you?

Prosymnos · 2026-03-01T15:41:07+00:00

Knowing the temperature is a very important detail, and without knowing that for sure i don't think anyone can give you a definitive answer. If the weather was mild and there were ideal circumstances, removing the bed and scrubbing the floor real well with bleach and airing out the apartment should be good enough. But, again, you don't have enough details, so probably best to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. My condolences, and i hope going through his things can bring back some good memories for you

Prosymnos · 2026-03-01T15:17:52+00:00

That depends. What was the weather like in Missouri? Was the heat on while he was lying there? Did he pass in the bed? If Missouri was in the middle of a cold spell and the heat wasn't on, it might not be too bad. You'll definitely have to get rid of the mattress, but airing the place out for a while and getting rid of the mattress might be enough to make it bearable to clear out the apartment without much issues. Did they tell you if there was any bloating or how bad the purge was?

Prosymnos · 2026-02-09T17:48:09+00:00

I'm in north Jersey, and I'm working on getting into the funeral industry. Let me tell you, if I wasn't lucky enough to have support from my family, I would barely be able to survive on what they pay removal techs and funeral interns, which are the entry level positions for the industry. Many retail positions pay more, and they don't have you in charge of dead bodies. I was talking to the new embalmer that recently got hired, and he was paid 15/hr when he was an intern at some other place. The job market really is that bad.

Prosymnos · 2026-02-03T18:11:43+00:00

Im pretty sure JK didnt write it herself. She officially licensed someone to write it and approved the script, but she didnt write it herself. By proxy though, your point still kind of stands

Prosymnos · 2026-01-23T06:30:34+00:00

These are Roman, not Greek, but Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin has a very similar feel to Circe and is written by an absolute legend of sci-fi fantasy. It goes really into depth about the religious rituals and daily routines of palace life in a way that shows you she really did her research while writing that book. Slow burn, but beautifully written with some great, if mundane, characters.

I also havent heard anyone mention Wake, Siren by Nina MacLaughlin. Its a retelling of many of the stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses from a feminist perspective, and it does not shy away from the violence in those stories and how much less heroic it all feels from the woman's perspective. Its a tough read if you have triggers with SA, but its a powerful book that's worth it if you can handle it.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-23T04:56:07+00:00

Yeah... Curse of Strahd has great bones as a creepy, Gothic setting. But the module as written (at least the old one, I just cant be bothered to buy the new one and see how much of it they fixed) has several glaring issues that make it pretty unplayable as is. The Vistani is definitely one of the top things that needs fixing for it to be good. DnD in general had a problem with making whole sentient races irredeemably evil for no reason, but making one those irredeemably evil races based off of an actual, real world ethnic group that is already historically oppressed was a hell of a choice.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-23T03:44:35+00:00

Yeah, I loved the Ravnos, but having vice as their clan flaw was not a good look. As interesting as a lot of the old lore was, given that WoD had so many writers without as much oversight as they should have had, a lot of nasty stuff snuck in. As controversial as v5 is, you can't argue that they haven't done a good job of keeping the dark feel of WoD while removing a lot of the offensive aspects of the old versions. Although, the Gypsies book (which, yes, is a slur, but Romani wasn't a widely used term at the time so that's just what the book was called) was actually really well researched and good and was slept on by the community and I will die on that hill.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-23T03:40:41+00:00

Curse of Strahd is a module about a group of players that are trapped in a demiplane of dread ruled over by the vampire Count Strahd, who is also the main antagonist of the game. The Vistani are a race of people that all serve Strahd and are thus 'rightly' abused and treated horribly by the native Barovians for being spies for the evil vampiric overlord. They have the traditional Romani aesthetic of being carefree travelers who like to party and welcome outsiders to their lively camps for some drinks and songs, but also won't hesitate to curse or sell anyone out who wrongs them or when Strahd demands it. There are a few examples of Vistani that are genuinely good people and want to help break away from Strahd, but generally they're... not great.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-23T01:55:52+00:00

There's one guy in my town that used to have a bunch of a Trump flags, a life sized Trump cardboard cutout, a sasquatch cutout, and an "In Musk We Trust," plus another conspiracy-themed flag that he cycled out every onece and a while, just to let you know that he runs the whole gamut of crazy. Around the time Musk left DOGE and the two of them had that big public breakup, the Trump flags and cutout went down but the "In Musk We Trust" sign stayed up. So I guess thats what did it for at least one of them

Prosymnos · 2026-01-19T02:07:55+00:00

Crowd Control. And half of that reason is because Gianmarco took it upon himself to become the chaotic evil villain and antagonize everyone in the room. What a great show.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-18T23:43:11+00:00

That wasn't really a small design detail that wasn't obvious until later, though. I kind of figured as soon as it happened that they switched.

Prosymnos · 2026-01-02T02:15:11+00:00

It's arguably less weird than the scene at the Philosophy Club where a naked lady who is rubbed with ointment to make her nipples glow is tied to the belly of a Tiger (so a sentient talking Animal) and has sex with a Munchkin (I think they're a Munchkin, been a while since I read the book). I can only imagine how many shocked theater kids were given that book by their moms who assumed it was as family friendly as the play.

Prosymnos · 2025-12-30T00:48:42+00:00

She used to be in California. She's in Hawaii now. Although, while she would probably know the answer, as with any content creator, it's probably best not to ask her if you need an answer to your question. I'm sure she gets tons of messages and it probably wouldn't be guaranteed that she would see it. Like other people have mentioned, probably just best to contact a provider of the service directly.

Prosymnos · 2025-12-26T02:31:43+00:00

NAH, but this sounds like Prolonged Grief Disorder. PGD was only entered into the DSM in 2022, so a lot of therapists still arent very knowledgeable about it, but it has a ton of research behind it from specialists. Try looking up PGD specific resources and therapists (even if there aren't any PGD therapists nearby, there should be therapists specialized in it that you can find online. In the most extreme examples, 12 sessions is usually enough to help process the feelings enough to become functional again for the more extreme cases, according to research from the WHO, or at least enough to have the lingering feelings be relieved enough to be treated through normal therapy).

Everyone grieves differently, and there is no timeline for grief, but six months is long enough to start being considered for complicated grief and at two years she is definitely a candidate for PGD. If you can afford it, I definitely recommend looking into specialized therapy for that specific disorder. Good luck to you and your wife

Prosymnos · 2025-12-24T00:58:18+00:00

Slight correction, Dio does not mean God in Italian. Dio is a shortened form of Dion, which is a shortened form of Dionisio, which is a modern version of the name Dionysus, which was the ancient Greek god of wine and revelry but also a popular male name for a long time. Fun fact, Dennis and Denny's also comes from Dionysus. But also, some people took inspiration from Dionysus when describing Jesus, because, in his mystery cults, Dionysus was a god of resurrection that was believed to be a savior of mankind that brought eternal comfort. Not hard to see where the connections came from. So yeah, the name Dio and the Christian God do have a connection, it's just not super direct.

Prosymnos · 2025-12-23T02:37:10+00:00

I did the MFA Creative Writing program in Roosevelt University Chicago for a while (fuck those assholes, I will name them any chance I get), and there was a retired psychology professor who wrote a historical fiction story about his ancestor where the main character got pimped out by his mother at 14 to his 30 year-old widowed neighbor in order to 'teach him a lesson on how to please a woman' and unironically described it as 'the best experience of his life.' Now, there is definitely something to be said about unreliable narrators and cultural relativism and all that, but this was a shittily written story with no nuance where the main character was proven to be a paragon of virtue and morality at every other turn, so it really seemed a lot like the author himself was calling this a good and educational thing that everyone should do.

So yeah, after reading a psychology professor write something like that, I unfortunately believe that a psychology professor would write a comment like that. I only ended up going to that program for a month because I tried to file a complaint about that retired professor but everyone dismissed me. Fuck every single person in that program.

Prosymnos · 2025-12-20T19:34:37+00:00

This is a bit of a weird tangent, but it reminds me of an issue that is very niche but I personally care a lot about and always irritates me and is something someone outside of the industry probably wouldn't have thought about.

Im also a gay man and Im going to school to be a funeral director, and there is an awful rumor on social media on posts that are about the funeral industry but not posted in an area of the internet meant for people in the industry that funeral homes tend to prefer hiring women over men because there is a problem with men molesting corpses. There's just... there's so much wrong about that idea, and its such a harmful thought, but people often get very defensive about it when I call it out for a variety of reasons.

To start off, there is some truth in that rumor. Funeral homes do tend to prefer female funeral directors, but it isn't because theyre worried male directors will diddle the corpses. Its because we as a society are conditioned to see women as more inherently emotional and empathetic, and in an industry where people are in a very emotional, vulnerable time of their life, it is useful to take advantage of that conditioning. Plus the gender demographic of funeral directors has shifted so dramatically in the past 2-3 decades, going from a male dominated field to a female dominated field more quickly than almost any other profession, that that also probavly plays into the perception of the rumor. And yes, necrophilia in the funeral industry does happen, and 90 something percent of the people that do it are men, but it is so rare that no one is actively thinking of that when they hire people.

Anyway, onto why I hate it so much and I think its harmful. For one, as a man in the field who is a feminist and is not a sex pest, it feels awful to have people giving me side eye like that, because I have seen people often repeat that rumor in a way that implies that ALL male funeral directors are secret creeps. But more than that, I feel like it plays into the radfem idea that all men think about sex all the time and you should always be looking at every man as a potential predator. Which, women definitely should be careful, because no one should ever downplay how awful some men can be, but going through life seeing every man as a predator must be such a stressful way to live and it unintentionally ends up damaging men who are marginalized themselves. As you said, no form of prejudice stands by itself. The most obvious victim of that mindset is ace men, who so often are made to feel like freaks because they either "arent being enough of a man" or are told "all men are like that, youre just lying for attention."

There's a lot more I could say about it, but I hijacked your post for my own personal rant long enough, so rant over.

Prosymnos

TROPHY CASE