When my father was being embalmed, I insisted on watching the whole process even if I was very uncomfortable with it, just to make sure he doesn’t suddenly wake up in the middle of the whole thing. I love my dad and don’t want him to get hurt. Was I being silly?
I assure you your dad was not hurt in the process. No reputable embalmer is going to proceed without a death certificate. A death certificate is a document where a doctor stakes his medical reputation that the person indeed has died. The doctor states the primary and possibly secondary cause of death and affixes his or her signature on the document. Without this document, you could not have had your father embalmed.
It is possible to have someone embalmed without the actual death certificate on hand provided the funeral parlor has assurance from a certifiable doctor or a hospital that the person is indeed deceased.
Before the onset of modern medicine, it was fairly possible to bury someone only for them to wake up inside the grave later because doctors were not effective in certifiably determining one’s vital signs. Now, it is pretty standard and simplified.
So, in those days, a cord was attached to one of the dead person’s wrists. The other end of the cord was attached to a bell above the ground. Someone was assigned to wait above all night, and should the bell ring, they promptly dug up the grave. Thus came about the term, the “graveyard shift.”
The death certificate has several copies and is filed in the city government where the death took place and all the copies go to corresponding departments. The burial place will likewise need a copy. Without a death certificate, one can not get a burial permit or a cremation permit. This is to make sure that there is definite record of one’s death and one has not merely disappeared from the face of the earth. The death certificate is also a requirement for one’s burial so that it is possible to trace the location of one’s remains should your survivors prove to be unavailable.
As all the copies of the death certificate are submitted and filed, you don’t end up with any of the copies. However, you may need a copy or two in order to claim for insurance, office death benefits, banking, and the like. You can actually request beforehand, for the funeral parlor to secure a certified true copy or copies from the city hall.
The more reputable funeral parlors usually include the death certificate service in the package you avail of. Provided you have a doctor to sign the certificate, they will take care of filing the certificate in all the relevant city halls. You can do this yourself, but it is time-consuming, so why not let the experts handle it? In the institution I belonged to, there are two individuals whose only job is to file these certificates. So if the funeral is to be out of town, it is their job to file it in whatever town that is.
The certified true copy of the death certificate is merely a photocopy of the original document, but stamped and signed by the city clerk that it is indeed truly a copy of the original in their records. These copies are available by request for a few hundred pesos each.
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