Death
10 Things Funeral Directors Do to Chill
One. We Hobby Hard.
Nearly ever funeral director I know has a hobby. I know a clay sculpture, an antique car restorationist, a golfer, a dragster driver, a pole dancer, exercise fanatic, a colonial home restorationist. Most everyone has a hobby, but it seems funeral director invest themselves heavily in their hobbies to provide a respite from their job.
Two. We Party Harder.
I’m not a partier, so you can count me out of this group. But I think I might be an exception.
A couple years ago a casket company flew me and about 20 other funeral directors to their casket-making plant. During the day, we would walk around the plant and get all the details about how caskets are made. During the evening, we’d be bused back to a lodge, a lodge that had an open bar. There was a lot of libations, as seen by the numerous drinks sitting around us in the photo below. A couple years before, my dad went on the very same trip and he said a couple directors got so drunk they were dancing on tables. Good times.
I’ve always said, there are few things in life more interesting than a drunk funeral director.
Three. We Probably Don’t Have Many Deep Friendships
The schedule of our work can be very rigorous. And free time can be hard to come by. Sometimes we don’t get to see our families and the little free time we have, we want to spend it with our partner and children. And sometimes we just have to say “no” when you invite us out to dinner or to a ball game. But don’t be hurt by our “no” and please keep asking us to visit with you. Funeral directors need friends too, it’s just not always so easy for us, or you. Which leads me to number four …
Four. We Tend to be Home Bodies
When I get home from a long day at the funeral home, I just want to stay there. One of the reasons we like to stay home is that we’re often on call. And nothing sucks more than going out only to be called back in.
Five. Our Social Lives Tend to Be Invested in Social Clubs
Social clubs are perfect for funeral directors: there’s often drinks, there’s a bunch of potential clients and we don’t have to get too deep with anyone. Win, win, win.
Six. Gardening Is a Thing
Gardening is another win-win situation for funeral directors. One, gardening is relaxing and peaceful; and two, you can do some gardening at the funeral home and make it look pretty.
Seven. We Might Embalm Road Kill
When my dad went to funeral school, one of his classmates would embalm roadkill as an enjoyable pastime.
Eight. Church(es)
Churches have the win-win situation like social clubs, although without copious amounts of liquor (unless you really imbibe the Lord’s blood). I know a few funeral directors who frequent a couple churches because nothing spells “good business” like exploiting the Lord’s people.
Nine. We Make a Bunch of Kids (and enjoying practicing)
Sex. Most people like it. But, I’ve noticed a proclivity in funeral directors. They really like it. Maybe it’s a way to let off steam. Maybe all the death pushes us to do things that make us feel alive. Maybe it’s just a great way to exercise without having to buy any exercise equipment. But, yeah. We’re a horny bunch.
Ten. We write stuff
Sometimes blogs. Sometimes books. You didn’t see that sales pitch coming, did ya?
Al’s Soul Is in that Damned Bird!
Photo by Hans Splinter
My phone rang early in the morning, waking me up to the sound of the coroner on the other end explaining Al Johnson was dead in the second story bathroom and Mr. Johnson’s family was ready for us to come and get him. It was one of those calls that was close enough to breakfast time that I had to stop and think, “Do I grab some breakfast now, or do I wait until I get back from the house removal?” I forget what I did that morning. I probably went with the easy option of a breakfast bar instead of my normal protein and banana shake.
I called Nathan, the funeral home’s apprentice, who always sleeps right by his cell phone. “Hello,” he said before the phone even rang. His voice was groggy like mine had been only a few minutes before when the county coroner had called me and woke me up from sleep. “We have a house call and I’m going to need your help. Second floor. The coroner says it’s going to be a tough one. So eat your Wheaties”, I joked, something that isn’t always a great idea at 5 AM in the morning.
A few minutes later I was dressed and driving over to the funeral with a breakfast bar in my mouth.
Nathan and I arrived at Al’s house to find some EMT vehicles and the coroner’s Suburban. We parked as close to the back door as possible so as to make our removal as short as possible. We knocked on the door and we heard a voice, very loud and very clearly say, “Come in.” It was an odd voice, not entirely normal but human enough that we opened the door. We were quickly greeted by Al’s widow Liz who came to us with arms open for some hugs. I embraced her, she started crying and in between the sobs, Liz told us how she found Al in the bathroom early this morning. “He’d be saying he was tired lately, but I figured it was just this hot weather that was wearing him down” she recalled.
Liz pointed upstairs and just as she did I heard that same weird, humanlike voice from the other room say, “I’m hungry. Feed me.” Liz didn’t comment on the voice so I poked my head around the corner and saw a parrot. He looked at me and repeated, “I’m hungry. Feed me.”
“I think your bird’s hungry,” I said in jest to Liz.
“My bird? No, no. That’s Al’s bird.”
Some of the EMT crew followed us upstairs because they knew that getting Al downstairs wouldn’t be easy. As we were going up, the Parrot kept saying, “Hey, girl. Whatcha doing?” It repeated that phrase at least a dozen times every time it heard us doing something upstairs.
When we pulled Al off the toilet, it was followed by “hey girl, whatcha doing?”
When we slide his body to the stretcher. “Hey girl, whatcha doing.”
And on, and on, and on until we got Al out of the house and into our van.
It was weird for Nathan and me, but for Liz and the family and friends that were at the house, this talkative Parrot seemed a normal part of their life.
Nathan and I came back in, grabbed some paper towels and Clorox spray, cleaned Al’s blood up from where he bumped his head on the sink, gave the widow a hug and that was the end of the story. Al was eventually cremated.
That story happened a couple years ago and it has stuck in my mind because of the Parrot. That was the first and only time there’s been a talkative Parrot involved in a house removal.
Today, we had a prearrangement appointment at the funeral home. I didn’t make the appointment and I didn’t know who was coming in. One o’clock came along, the doorbell rang and my dad yelled, “Caleb! I’m on the phone. Can you get the front door?” I walked down the steps from my office and there was Liz standing at the front door waiting for me to let her in.
“Hey, Caleb!” she said as she gave me a hug. It took me a minute, but my mind started to piece everything back together. I remembered the call. I remembered Al on the second floor. And I remembered that Parrot.
I sat her down and we started chatting while we waited for my dad to finish his phone conversation. Dad was the one who was going to make the prearrangements with Liz.
“How are you?” I started out.
“Good! Do you have any whiskey?” she asked. “No,” I said, “but do you need some?”
“Oh, my. I could use some. This whole thing of prearranging my funeral has all my memories of Al coming back to me.”
We talked about Al for a minute or two and then I brought up the bird.
“Oh, God. She said. I love and hate that damn bird. That bird was Al’s for 15 years. He got it after he retired. That thing came to mimic all of his sayings. Everything like, ‘Can you turn the TV on, honey?’ ‘I’m hungry, feed me’ (which Al said as a joke), ‘Come in’. The bird even knows the right context for its sayings. Like if I’m upstair working on something, Al would say, ‘hey girl, whatcha doing?'”
“I hated that damn bird for 15 years, but now it sounds like Al, it talks like Al and it’s a daily reminder of Al. Al’s soul is in that damned bird” she joked. “As much as I’ll enjoy the peace and quiet when it dies, I dread that day.”
A minute later, my dad walked in, the conversation changed and I walked out of the room.
If you like my writing, please consider preordering my book.
10 Things Embalmers CAN Fix
Picture is Public Domain from 1905
Trigger Warning: This post contains descriptive language about suicide. it also contains topics that might cause a loss of appetite for foods such as spaghetti or sushi.
One. WEIGHT LOSS. You’ve tried for 50 years to lose weight, you finally got it off, but your terminal cancer took this weight loss thing a little too far, and it took your life too. Embalmers can’t give you your life back, but we can put some pounds back on. By adding large volumes of embalming fluid and using restricted drainage, we can give you back some weight back AND with some restorative art magic, we can make your weight look healthy. It’s cases like this that embalmers can prove their worth. I don’t believe in embalming is for every body — like many funeral directors do — but when a family says, with tears rolling down their cheeks, “Mom hasn’t looked this good for a year” you know you’re doing something right.
Two. BAD GAS. If you die after a huge meal at Taco Bell, and you’re full of horrific gas, our trocar can fix that.
Three. AUTOPSIES. Usually, the people that are autopsied are people that have died suddenly without their family and friends being able to say “good-bye”. Autopsies are usually performed when there isn’t an apparent cause of death, or the death seems suspicious. Autopsies are invasive. Most involve a cranial autopsy, where the skull cap is cut off, and the brain is examined. The internal organs are examined, which involves the “Y” incision we see on forensic TV shows like CSI. Autopsied bodies are not pretty. But embalmers can put the skull back together, embalm the face and the body, and make an autopsied body like normal again (although, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes autopsied bodies present difficulties that make a body look less than normal).
Four. EYE ENUCLEATION. If the person dies, and they’re relatively young, in good health and registered as an organ donor, there’s a good chance that their eyes could be removed to help someone living who needs a part of an eye. This, as you can imagine, leaves the deceased looking rather different. BUT HAVE NOT FEAR, EYE REPLACING EMBALMERS ARE HERE!
Five. DEATH BY GUILLOTINE. The last recorded death by guillotine happened in France in 1977 to one Hamida Djandoubi who killed his girlfriend. It’s very unlikely that you’ll be killed by a guillotine, but if you are, we can probably put you back together (although you’ll still be dead when we’re done with you. Which brings me to a very important question: If they could have put Humpty Dumpty back together, wouldn’t he still have been dead? So what’s the point?).
Six. EDEMA. Sometimes dying persons are pumped full of fluids. Sometimes dying people are pumped full of drugs that cause water retention, making the deceased look like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka. Most of the time, embalmers use Edema Fluid as a co-injection to help heal the giant blueberry Beauregarde swelling problems.
Seven. GUNSHOT WOUNDS TO THE HEAD. Our ability to fix this depends on where and how. If the gunshot wound exits in the back of the head, and/or isn’t caused by a shotgun or a high caliber gun, we can generally cover up the entry wound and use the trusty atomizer to spray tan the filler and make everything look decent. Many suicide cases are, to some degree or another, fixable.
Eight. LACERATIONS. For the most part, we can fix these.
Nine. JAUNDICE. Word of the day is “Bilirubin.” Bilirubin is a yellow waste product that is usually filtered out by our liver. When the liver starts to fail, bilirubin flows freely throughout the body causing us to turn an ugly yellow. Embalmers can fix yellow (although we can’t always fix the green caused by biliverdin) with our magical jaundice juice that we pump as a co-injection through your arteries.
Ten. SKIN TONE. You haven’t been to the tanning salon because you’ve been stuck in your hospice bed? Embalmers can fix that. There are dyes in embalming fluid that can create different skin tones. We can make you darker, and sometimes we can make you lighter. We can also use the atomizer/airbrush to give you that California sun-kissed skin you’ve always wanted.
If you like my writing, please consider buying my book. If you don’t like it, my mom will buy it back.
A Morgue Miracle
A morgue miracle occurred today. I was doing deeds that are done in prep rooms, deeds that shall not be described in detail in this forum. Unlike many embalmers, we use an old school electric aspirator instead of a hydro-aspirator. One of the disadvantages to the electric aspirator is that the aspirated contents go into a little container (shown above) that has to be removed from the vacuum tubing when full so that the contents can be dumped down the drain. Another miracle that I’d like to see is this book in your hands. If you like funeral stories, you’ll like this:
10 Situations that Make Funeral Directors Feel Awkward
Author: Scary Side of Earth
Author URL: https://www.flickr.com/people/143513894@N04/
One. When you go to pick up the deceased at their home and it’s more than obvious that he/she died during coitus, and you try really hard not to blurt out, “Well, looks like he went out on top.”
Two. When a somebody dies on the third floor of an apartment building the very same day that the only elevator is “Closed for Repair.” So you have to slowly move the deceased down each step while more than twenty people scooch past you on the stairs with a this-is-not-happening look on their faces.
Three. When the deceased has genital jewelry and you have to ask the family if they want it back. “So, mom has jewelry on some of her … lady parts. Do you want that back?”
Four. When the wife and the side-chick of the deceased show up to make funeral arrangements. “Wait, so which one of you is his legal wife?” And they both say, “I am.”
Five. When the long lost son that nobody knew about shows up at the funeral and the widower demands a DNA test right then and there.
Six. When the family wants great grandma dressed in a really revealing dress for her viewing. “Just to be clear, it’s okay that grandma’s cleavage will be showing for her viewing?”
Seven. When the family tells you they have no money for the funeral but they’re only willing to buy the very best casket and the very best vault because “Dad only gets the best”. “Tell me again how you plan on paying for this?” And when they respond, “Oh, we have a GoFundMe account” you have to remind them that GoFundMe accounts aren’t magical money trees, and neither will they provide enough to pay for that Mercedes-Benz of caskets.
Eight. When the deceased wanted Eminem played at her viewing and all the older people are standing in the viewing line with a “what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks did I get myself into” look on their faces.
Nine. When the drunk friend of the deceased takes advantage of the “open mic” time during the funeral service and starts telling all the horror stories and you have to shut him down with a, “This was really fun, but it looks like your time is up my friend.”
Ten. When the dead body farts during the preview and you take the blame because you know if you blamed it on the dead guy no one would ever believe you.
My book has gobs of stories about death and life. Preorder today!
