By Father Monty Burials are for the dead and not for the living. Funerals are for the living and not for the dead.
Coffins range from inexpensive pine boxes to lead-sealed caskets.
Death goes unnoticed by public acclamation unless one's life has attained fame, infamy, riches, celebrity, or some level of fraternal botherhood. If one's life is ended by a gruesome fate like Columbine or by bravery at the nation's war front or by events that have captured the public's imagination, then such circumstances can take the ordinary to the extraordinary of elaborate interment. But the end result, alas, is exactly the same no matter what. The body is lowered into a burial grave or it is cremated according to the rite of fire or the accepted custom of the time. I have officiated at burials for murder victims and for dear friends departed.