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.
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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!
10 Things That Keep Funeral Directors Up at Night
One. Did I bury that wedding ring?
I know the family wanted the ring taken off before their mom was buried. They told me how important that ring is to them. And I’m almost certain I took the ring off after the service was over. But did I? It was all such a blur.
This question keeps me up for about an hour.
Two. Did I cut that pacemaker out?
We don’t own our own crematory. In our area, there are only about two funeral homes out of approximately 50 funerals that have their own oven. When someone we’re serving wants their family cremated, we send the deceased to a lovely family owned retort that does most of the cremations in a 20 mile radius.
If I leave the pacemaker in, it will explode during the cremation process, potentially causing damage that can have a $10,000 price tag. Sometimes I forget. Although rarely.
Keeps me up 20 minutes.
Three. Is that family gonna beat us?
We pride ourselves on being one of the lowest priced funeral homes in our area. And while this helps us sleep at night, the word has gotten around that not only are the Wildes inexpensive, but they don’t require payment up front. Many funeral homes, in an effort to protect themselves from crooked customers who have no intention of paying their funeral bill, require the funeral payment — or a guarantee of payment by an insurance agency — at the end of funeral arrangements. We give a 30 day payment period and we get swindled by about 10 to 15 families a year.
For the most part, we’ve become wise to the crooked families. But every once in a while there’s a family that is so good at working us, it’s only afterward that we see the signs and we lay awake at night realizing that we’ve been hustled.
10 minutes. It’s just money.
Four. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT FAMILY BEAT US!!!
And then there are the families we’ve known for ages. The families who went to school with us. Who lived next to us. Who we played with as kids. The families we trust. Families that we never question. Months and months go by and finally, we’re laying in bed and we realize: THEY’RE NOT GOING TO PAY THEIR BILL!
This can be upsetting, especially if we know the family. It’s the broken trust part that can keep you up for two hours.
Five. Is that body going to stink?
Sometimes bodies smell. Sometimes embalming doesn’t stop the stink. And even though we do everything we can to cover up the smell, we can’t help laying in bed at night and wondering, “Is John Smith going to smell up the funeral tomorrow?”
Try to go to sleep as fast as I can so I can wake up early, get to the funeral home and double check John’s b.o.
Six. Twisted Visuals
I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I still see visuals that keep me up at night.
These kinds of visuals can keep me up AND find their way into my nightmares.
Seven. Night Calls
Night calls obviously keep us up at night. If someone dies at a nursing home or at their home in the middle of the night, we get up, suit ourselves up and off we go. This is what I look like the day after a night call:
Eight. How Long Can I Keep Doing this?
Career-doubt is a real thing. For me, the pace and the drain of death care undergirds a good amount of career-doubt. There are many times I miss my son’s life because I’m out at all hours of the day dealing with death. Night calls, night viewings, and the like make me less the father I want to be. I lay awake thinking about this.
This can keep me up for hours.
Nine. Was That Joke Too Awkward?
Okay. Maybe this is only me. I’m the king of awkward jokes. Sometimes the jokes are so awkward, I lay awake at night and repeatedly tell myself, “Caleb, you must never joke again. Caleb, you must never joke again ….”
Ten. What Did I Forget to Do?
Some days the funeral home feels like the floor of NYSE in that it’s all crazy and hectic and movement. The phone’s ringing with requests for reordered death certificates, the door bells ringing and there’s someone there who needs help with insurance policies, some of us are out picking up from a hospital, others are running around getting death certificates, and there’s a couple families are coming into the funeral home to make arrangements. After a hectic day where your brain felt like a Gallagher watermelon, you’re laying in bed at night and remember, “there was that phone call where the family wanted me to add the deceased’s cat ‘Jinx’ to the obituary … damn it.”
*****
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