Romanian funerals tell a great deal about the living in this reflective culture. The deceased is carried in an open casket on the flatbed of a truck in a procession through the village to enable all to participate in the ceremony. Death is seen as a transition from one life to another.

Romanians' attitude toward death is immortalized in the country's most enduring poem "Miorita," where a young shepherd is warned by his young black sheep, Miorita, that his fellow shepherds, a Ungurean - Hungarian - from Transilvania and a Vrancean from Tara Romaneasca, plan to murder him and take his flock. The young shepherd, coming from Moldavia, instead of resisting, accepts his fate, re-defining his death as a magnificent sacred marriage with his "princess of the world," attended by the universe. The translation suggests that death is not the end, but instead the beginning of a beautiful journey.