Caleb Wilde
(218 comments, 980 posts)
Posts by Caleb Wilde
When Ghosts Beckon Us to Join
© 2006 twitter.com/mattwi1s0n, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
The death was sudden
Tragic and violent
The metal tore against his flesh
Before it threw him.
“I cant! I CAN’T!!!” you yell
When they asked you to see
To identify
The one who had just hugged you
When he walked out the door for work.
*****
Your cell rings
You think it’s him.
You prepare a table for two.
His ghost still lives with you.
His birthday ready with his favorite dish.
The news, the news, the news
You call him to talk it through
But he’s not there
So you stare
At his ghost
With tears floating down.
*****
Years later
His clothes still folded
His things still standing
His ghost still lives.
You’ve made peace
And you talk about your complicated grief
Tell him about this and that
How you miss him
And wish him back.
*****
“I’ve moved on” you say
But you can’t and you won’t.
Decades fly by.
You still wait for him at the door.
A haunted life
Of tears and strife
Living with his ghost
That beckons you to join.
This Guy is the Worst Funeral Director Ever
David Wayne Sconce
There’s been some bad ones.
Bernhardt “Bernie” Tiede II (the subject of the Hollywood movie staring Jack Black) confessed to murdering a wealthy 81 year old widow. After her murder, he forged a $20,000 check. If you watched the movie, you can feel some sympathy for Bernie.
But you probably won’t feel any sympathy for David Wayne Sconce, who is possibly the worst funeral director ever documented.
David was a funeral director in the Pasadena California area.
Whittier Daily News documents one of his more egregious practices:
Oscar’s Ceramics on Darwin Road in Hesperia, a plant that purportedly was making ceramic panels for space stations, was instead a secret cremoratorium. Investigators on Jan. 20, 1987 found two large kilns, each more than half filled with the burning bodies of human beings. Human bones and ashes partially filled eight 55-gallon garbage cans. The thick, dark liquid of human body fats and oils covered the floor, running out the back door to a makeshift pit. Pasadena Crematorium, located in Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. The Altadena crematorium was gutted by fire Nove. 23, 1986, yet the cremations credited to the facility continued. David Sconce was operating an unlicensed crematorium in Hesperia.
In addition to operating an unlicensed crematory under the guise of a ceramics plant, he also:
sold body parts from dead bodies
stole gold dentures
performed mass cremations
hired thugs to “rough up” competing morticians
forging organ-donor consent forms
He plead guilt to 21 accounts and served (along with his conspiring parents) two and a half years in jail.
Sconce then hired a hitman to kill a businessman who was attempting to buy a rival crematory.
He plead guilty to Conspiracy to Murder and was sentenced to a lifetime of probation in 1997.
Via the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:
The Lamb Funeral Home (the funeral home owned by Sconce) case led to a massive lawsuit that also involved 100 mortuaries that contracted with the funeral home for cremations. The $15.5 million suit in 1991 involved 20,000 relatives of people cremated at the funeral home.
In 2012 Scounce was caught committing a felony when he was caught with a stolen gun that he was attempting to pawn. Prosecutors are seeking a 25 year prison sentence (I’m not sure if the sentence has yet been finalized).
So if you’re a mortician and you’re having a bad day … maybe you knocked over some flower baskets and broken some roses; or maybe you forgot to list the fiance of the deceased in the obituary … remember, even though you feel like a bad funeral director, you’re not the worst. That infamous title belongs to David Wayne Sconce.
Death Positive
© 1885 Museum of Photographic Arts, Flickr | PD | via Wylio
The metanarrative that we’ve been fed
Is that it’s always bad when someone’s dead
That death is public enemy number one
And that there’s nothing good when life is done.
*****
It’s true that death hurts me and you
And it’s true that death can be tragic too
It’s true that grief will never leave
And it’s never good to be bereaved.
*****
But the idea that death is all bad is a lie
It’s hard to see but let me help you try;
When your eyes adjust at night you can find
That this is the time for the stars to shine.
*****
We’re used to the day so it’s hard to see
But death’ darkness has its own kind of beauty
It’s not glamorous and it’s certainly not glorious
But caring for our dead is never ever worthless.
*****
For in the dead we see our future and our past
We see very clearly that some things don’t last
It helps us remember what’s valuable and real
It helps us remember that love is our ideal.
*****
Death is the friendly reminder that life is short
And it reminds us to only pursue things of import
And when our eyes see our own setting sun
If we lived with death in mind, we’ll hear “well done”
