Rainn Wilson Recalls Seeing Late Dad's Body Ahead of Burial — and Realizing 'That Is Just a Vessel'
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The Office alum told Maria Menounos on Tuesday's episode of Heal Squad that seeing his father's dead body made him realize that humans are "riding around in these flesh tuxedo"
Almost three years after the death of his dad, Rainn Wilson is reflecting on the experience while speaking with Maria Menounos.
During Tuesday's episode of Menounos's Heal Squad podcast, The Office star, 57, recalled how it felt seeing his father's dead body.
"When I saw my father's body on the table and we prepared him for burial, I was like, oh there's that beautiful body that I've known for my 56 years," Wilson said. "There's his little eyebrow hair that sticks out, there's his tuft of hair here, and his mole here, and I was like, that's not my father. That is not him."
The moment ultimately made Wilson connect differently with the human body.
"It is so clear when you see a body that that is just a vessel, that's the vessel that carried the pure brilliant spirit of my dad," the Soul Boom: Why We Need Spiritual Revolution author said. "His light and his flaws, and his personality, and his humor, and his artistic sensibility. It was made so abundantly clear there."
The encounter sparked a spiritual awakening in Wilson. "Something that I've always known was made abundantly clear: that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, riding around in these flesh tuxedos as I call them," he said. "Death isn't the end, it's not the lights out and that's it. It can also be the embrace of the wonder of what awaits us on the journey."
Wilson's dad died in August 2020 from advanced heart disease at age 78. "I miss him every day," the actor wrote on Facebook in February 2021. "And still I feel his presence."
Menounos, 44, lost a parent, too, when her mom died of brain cancer in May 2021.
"With my mom, you know, we were there as she passed," she told Wilson. "And, I mean, I was having moments with her even just the night before, which was pretty unbelievable that somebody with a brain tumor who should be completely lights out at this point, my dad and I were going through memories and just joking. And she's opening her one eye — and she had been pretty out for a while — and she was opening her eye and I'm like, is she mad I'm telling her secret stories about being drunk with me? Or is she just dying to laugh with us?"
The TV host — who's expecting a baby girl with husband Kevin Undergaro — went on to explain that when her mother eventually died, "she didn't look like herself after."
So during the funeral, Undergaro, 55, encouraged Menounos to close the casket.
"He's like, 'It's not your mom anymore. I don't want you to have this memory.' And so we closed the casket," Menounos said. "I'm so grateful because now the memory that I have, I have a beautiful picture of her just lit up happy with her chef's hat on and in my kitchen. End every day I say hi to her and I see her with that beautiful smile and it feels good rather than having you know, the opposite."
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