Who's Passing Gas?

In this morning's local metropolitan newspaper are fourteen obituaries, all written by families of the recently deceased. Of the fourteen, twelve say the loved one has "passed on," one says she has "now joined her beloved husband in heaven" (all the obits, of course, say that the loved one is now in heaven---a belief treated as some obvious kind of fact), and only one says the person has "died." Why in the hell (no quasi-pun intended, I suppose) are Americans in the last couple of decades so fearful to say "died"? And yet these same persons, apparently finding "died" and "death" too harsh to be used, don't hesitate to commit their loved ones to the contemporary, violent, semi-barbaric practice called cremation.

The little woman had better be sure that my tombstone says I "died," and that my body in my grave contains the smelly, oozing, putrid fluids from the embalmer.