Death is never something that is easy to deal with. The sadness and emptiness that can accompany losing someone close to you is something that will always stay with you as long as you live. That is not to say it is impossible to overcome and go on living a happy life. Many cultures deal with the grief that accompanies death in a plethora of ways. There is the custom of digging up relatives bodies and displaying them all around town. This story is along that lines, but with a twist. This is something so bizarre that you would have a hard time wrapping your head around it if you saw it in person. Check out why there was a dead man playing poker, and the weird yet heartwarming story behind it.
The man in the New York jacket is named Henry Rosario Martinez, and if he looks a little funny, that’s because he’s dead.
Henry died on January 19th at 31 years old from drug and alcohol abuse on the north side of Puerto Rico in a town called Barceloneta.
Henry’s family asked the funeral home to embalm him and place him a chair around a poker table. This practice of embalming someone and then placing them in a personal location is becoming more and more common in Puerto Rico.
Martinez was a fan of gambling. So his parents decided to have him be part of one last poker game.
The family dealt Henry two aces for his final hand of poker.
While this may seem like one of the weirdest things you could do with a dead body, there are many places around the world that have customs such as this. If it gives the family a little closure, I really don’t see the harm in it. I’m not sure how I would feel sitting next to a dead person, acting like everything was normal though.
dan