Right-to-Life Families Increasingly Refusing to Give Up on “Dead” Relatives – Graves Plundered

To the Roberts family of Cheyenne Wyoming, the word ‘dead’ is a four letter word that has no place in their home. They are a right-to-life family who believe that faith can overcome any adversity – even the state of clinical death their beloved grandfather Harvey slipped into after suffering a major embolism and falling down a flight of stairs and through a plate glass window in 2002.

“Pop’s not dead, he’s just sort of taking a little vacation,” Gregg Roberts, Harvey’s son, proclaimed, “He’s hovering above his body, watching, laughing and loving, but he’ll be back soon, and won’t that be a wonderful surprise! In the meantime however, we’re doing our best to preserve his sleeping form by giving him plenty of food and water, a cool, dry place to sleep, and only taking him out for special occasions like holidays and Sunday mass.”

Through the power of unwavering faith, an enormous amount of air freshener and the steadfast devotion born of consummate familial love, the Roberts feel they have rebuffed death, and although the amount of work required to keep the darkness at bay might be large, they remain undaunted.

“What else are we going to do? Let our Gramps die out of laziness – because suddenly we feel we can’t be bothered to keep the dog from gnawing on his leg or provide him regular meals, chew for him by manipulating his jawbone, then scoop what food his hibernating body didn’t digest out through the ulcer in his stomach? I’m sorry, but where I come from that’s called murder. And besides, the good times far outweigh whatever trouble he might cause. For instance, last Christmas my son Matthew combined his gift for puppetry with Grandpa Harvey’s love for pantomime into a rousing game of charades. It was a lot of fun, and I’m sure Gramps really enjoyed himself.”

If a recently conducted analysis of the numbers of recent deaths in the country compared with actual funeral services and gravesite exhumations that have taken place over the same period is any indication, the Roberts aren’t alone in their vigilant commitment to their “dead” relatives.

Commented mortician Simon Madano: “We’ve seen a marked decline in business as people have become less and less willing to come to terms with the passing away of their loved ones. I think that ultimately, even in the cases where the deceased is obviously not coming back and in some instances has been buried for years, its just easier and more comforting to have their corpses around to see and touch than to have to go visit a grave in a cemetery.”