I always pat the person on the hand as a way of saying good by, good job, your work is done -- and -- as a way of proving to myself that they are no longer there. When you touch that cold flesh, you really realize that they are not in it any more. My mother's family was into kissing the person who died but they were also into screaming and yelling and fainting. They were hill folks and funerals were never sedate and boring in that family. Everybody has their own way. There have been a few times that I have thought that I would be better off if I could have expressed my emotions so freely. Although we have had undertakers (what do they call them now??) request that they stop kissing the body because they "groom" the body and put make-up on it and if too many kiss it, it messes up the make-up. So if you are going to kiss them, doing it right before they close the casket would be a good time -- and do it very lightly.