Death is hard. It can be ugly and nasty and it robs us of that which we prize most,

the people we love. Sometimes death can be a sweet relief, as in the case of someone

who has suffered a long and painful illness before finally succumbing to death's

quiet embrace.

Sometimes death is abrupt and unexpected.

The proverbial slap in the face that leaves us stunned and bewildered

as to what the heck just happened. And what do we do next?

Death is the great equalizer. It's coming for all of us, like it or not.

Whether we're young or old, rich or poor, it doesn't matter.

Someday, somehow, you and I are going to die. Throughout history different cultures develop different means of dealing with their dead.

In most cases death is followed by that most sacred of rituals, the burial.

The ancient Egyptians erected massive stone edifices to honor their dead.

That practice would be carried on in a much smaller scale in some of the stone mausoleums and crips that can be found throughout Western cultures.

A common practice among the Norse people several centuries ago was to send their dead out in a literal blaze of glory, a funeral pyre.

The idea was to create such a massive blaze of fire and smoke with the deceased at its center

that the person's spirit would be carried up into the afterlife in a pillar of smoke.

But even the Vikings didn't do this for every person who passed.

There are still plenty of instances in which they did that most common of practices, putting them in the ground.

The act of burying the dead in the ground is both a common one and a practical one.

Although the details vary from culture to culture,

except in those locales where digging becomes impractical.

Most everywhere you go, you can find examples of local rituals to

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