The Final Make Over
I haven't blogged in a while, and it's not for a lack of having something to blog about. In fact I have something very strange to blog about, something that I witnessed on Saturday that has effected me greatly, yet when I have attempted to write about it (several times now) all I do is go into minute detail without really capturing the event.
I'll try again.
On Saturday I went to a funeral home 'prep' room, I saw an embalming.
The reason I did it was because I believe that life is all about experience and anytime I can see or do something that is out of the ordinary I jump at the chance.
My connection to the Death Industry ( it deserves capitals) was at first surprised when I first mentioned how interested I would be in seeing what she does. I guess most people cringe and shutter at the thought of her work and I didn't, for a moment I am sure she considered me strange.
I told her my belief about life and it's need for the out of ordinary, it is that which makes me feel more alive and what better way to feel alive than to witness the dead.
So the date was set.
On the night before I told some of my friends what I was going to see, we were all ice skating at the time to bad R&B in Prospect Park. I think I liked telling people to see what their reactions would be, truth was I hadn't really given it much thought myself, I was so wrapped up in the idea of seeing something unusual, I had not faced the reality of it at all.
The following day was grey and dreary, which seemed appropriate for what I was about to witness, on the walk to the 'prep room' I found my mind calm yet hesitant at the same time, wondering what my personal reaction was going to be.
We got there too soon, I was hoping it would take longer and as I stood in front of that very ordinary door on a very ordinary street I found myself wishing for a buffer zone inside those doors. I wanted a secretary filing her nails, a room with chairs, a long hallway, just something to ease me into whatever was there.
I didn't get one though, as soon as I was ushered inside I had to face my fears fast and calmly.
There on 2 gurneys, post embalmed bodies were laid out getting prepared for their open caskets. The first wave of shock was offset by the normality of the people working there. I was introduced to Keith the Mortician, Mrs White the Restorative Artist and another guy who's name I can't remember, he smoked a cigarette in the corner.
My eyes darted around taking in as much info as I could, I was expecting HBO's 6 Feet Under, not this shabby room that seemed more like a trashed rec room than a place to prepare bodies.
Keith was wrapping the torso of a woman in a plastic bag, taping it to her arms and legs with one of those tape guns that movers use
" In case she leaks, or if she gets shipped somewhere...No one wants a purging corpse on their hands"
The woman he was wrapping hypnotised me, her eyes where half open like she was just waking, her head propped up on a plastic block that cradled her skull. All around there was laughter and over exaggerated movements, I wondered if that is what you do when you work with the dead, you compensate.
Keith's laughter was a tad manic, much of what he was laughing at I didn't understand as I walked into a conversation full of creole and accents.
There was some inside joke going on about their collective boss, so I just kept taking in my surroundings, and it was then I realised there was another body in the room pushed to the wall, I saw his feet, they looked too big to be female. He was hidden by plastic bags and other debris.
I pointed to the area " Why is he hidden ?"
Mrs White looked up from the curling iron and the old woman laid out in front of her.
"Oh the closer you get to the wall the longer you been here"
Turned out he was waiting to be picked up, he was embalmed and ready to go but so far no one had come. He had died over a month ago.
Perhaps it was lack of money, lack of anyone to care, who knew. Either way he was now just debris in a busy room stuck in limbo until his ride arrived to take him elsewhere.
Wanting to get a closer look at what everyone was doing, as well and not wanting to seem squeamish hovering on the outskirts of the room, I moved closer to Keith as he started to dress the woman over the plastic garbage bag that was now her undergarment. I tilted my head to get a better look at her face, she was stunning, high glorious cheekbones and a fine nose that tipped slightly upwards at the end.
"She's beautiful" I said to no one, Keith stepped closer beside me
"Yes, she looks a little Indian, I think she was actually from Barbados"
He placed his finger on her bottom lip in a shhh motion, flipping her lip down showing me the yellow tint inside her mouth, then moving up to open her eyelid so I could see her cloudy iris and yellow whites.
" Liver cancer" he said, returning to his work.
Her hair was short from chemo, flecked with gray, apparently her family had supplied a wig for her but she didn't really need it,at least not in my opinion.
At one point during the process, Mrs Barbados' hand was resting on the arm of the older corpse beside her. Both of them facing the ceiling as the living poked and prodded their remains, I don't think anyone else noticed that arm holding, it was quiet and moving, as if they were reassuring each other in the middle of all this motion.
This moment stood out for me, perhaps because I thought that I was the only one to see it and that everyone else was too busy doing what they do. I'd say the truth is more that when you work with the dead you don't really want to see those moments as it would make the work harder.
I could go into detail about what they do to post embalmed bodies, but I am not sure if anyone wants to read that. Instead I will just say that death does slight yet very distinctive things to the body, the eyes sink and flatten, the cheeks fall back on themselves, fluid builds up in the extremities. Once a body had been embalmed it is sewn, packed with cotton wool, glued, needled with a postmortem botox type solution and covered in grease paint.
All this effort to make the dead look alive.
For my first 2 hours there I saw the latter half of the process, from embalming to coffin delivery. Many people came in and out, everyone very much alive and animated, if you were to close your eyes you would never suspect this was a place were death gets a makeover.
Eventually both of the dead women were placed (more like thrown) into their ordered coffins, propped up with rolled up newspaper and their heads tilted to the viewing side. Paper towel covered their made up faces as to prevent grease paint getting on the coffin fabric. Lid closed and carried out to the waiting hearse, driven off to a church or chapel somewhere for their final family reunion.
Once that was done the room was empty, except for us 3, the living and the forgotten man near the wall.
It was calm. No more coffin deliveries, no more make up lady , no more smoking man in the corner.
Then I realised that the next part of my adventure was going to be with 'raw' bodies, fresh from the morgue.
I was given a clean set of green scrubs to suit up in and a cold beer, the cold beer really helped for what was to follow...
I'll try again.
On Saturday I went to a funeral home 'prep' room, I saw an embalming.
The reason I did it was because I believe that life is all about experience and anytime I can see or do something that is out of the ordinary I jump at the chance.
My connection to the Death Industry ( it deserves capitals) was at first surprised when I first mentioned how interested I would be in seeing what she does. I guess most people cringe and shutter at the thought of her work and I didn't, for a moment I am sure she considered me strange.
I told her my belief about life and it's need for the out of ordinary, it is that which makes me feel more alive and what better way to feel alive than to witness the dead.
So the date was set.
On the night before I told some of my friends what I was going to see, we were all ice skating at the time to bad R&B in Prospect Park. I think I liked telling people to see what their reactions would be, truth was I hadn't really given it much thought myself, I was so wrapped up in the idea of seeing something unusual, I had not faced the reality of it at all.
The following day was grey and dreary, which seemed appropriate for what I was about to witness, on the walk to the 'prep room' I found my mind calm yet hesitant at the same time, wondering what my personal reaction was going to be.
We got there too soon, I was hoping it would take longer and as I stood in front of that very ordinary door on a very ordinary street I found myself wishing for a buffer zone inside those doors. I wanted a secretary filing her nails, a room with chairs, a long hallway, just something to ease me into whatever was there.
I didn't get one though, as soon as I was ushered inside I had to face my fears fast and calmly.
There on 2 gurneys, post embalmed bodies were laid out getting prepared for their open caskets. The first wave of shock was offset by the normality of the people working there. I was introduced to Keith the Mortician, Mrs White the Restorative Artist and another guy who's name I can't remember, he smoked a cigarette in the corner.
My eyes darted around taking in as much info as I could, I was expecting HBO's 6 Feet Under, not this shabby room that seemed more like a trashed rec room than a place to prepare bodies.
Keith was wrapping the torso of a woman in a plastic bag, taping it to her arms and legs with one of those tape guns that movers use
" In case she leaks, or if she gets shipped somewhere...No one wants a purging corpse on their hands"
The woman he was wrapping hypnotised me, her eyes where half open like she was just waking, her head propped up on a plastic block that cradled her skull. All around there was laughter and over exaggerated movements, I wondered if that is what you do when you work with the dead, you compensate.
Keith's laughter was a tad manic, much of what he was laughing at I didn't understand as I walked into a conversation full of creole and accents.
There was some inside joke going on about their collective boss, so I just kept taking in my surroundings, and it was then I realised there was another body in the room pushed to the wall, I saw his feet, they looked too big to be female. He was hidden by plastic bags and other debris.
I pointed to the area " Why is he hidden ?"
Mrs White looked up from the curling iron and the old woman laid out in front of her.
"Oh the closer you get to the wall the longer you been here"
Turned out he was waiting to be picked up, he was embalmed and ready to go but so far no one had come. He had died over a month ago.
Perhaps it was lack of money, lack of anyone to care, who knew. Either way he was now just debris in a busy room stuck in limbo until his ride arrived to take him elsewhere.
Wanting to get a closer look at what everyone was doing, as well and not wanting to seem squeamish hovering on the outskirts of the room, I moved closer to Keith as he started to dress the woman over the plastic garbage bag that was now her undergarment. I tilted my head to get a better look at her face, she was stunning, high glorious cheekbones and a fine nose that tipped slightly upwards at the end.
"She's beautiful" I said to no one, Keith stepped closer beside me
"Yes, she looks a little Indian, I think she was actually from Barbados"
He placed his finger on her bottom lip in a shhh motion, flipping her lip down showing me the yellow tint inside her mouth, then moving up to open her eyelid so I could see her cloudy iris and yellow whites.
" Liver cancer" he said, returning to his work.
Her hair was short from chemo, flecked with gray, apparently her family had supplied a wig for her but she didn't really need it,at least not in my opinion.
At one point during the process, Mrs Barbados' hand was resting on the arm of the older corpse beside her. Both of them facing the ceiling as the living poked and prodded their remains, I don't think anyone else noticed that arm holding, it was quiet and moving, as if they were reassuring each other in the middle of all this motion.
This moment stood out for me, perhaps because I thought that I was the only one to see it and that everyone else was too busy doing what they do. I'd say the truth is more that when you work with the dead you don't really want to see those moments as it would make the work harder.
I could go into detail about what they do to post embalmed bodies, but I am not sure if anyone wants to read that. Instead I will just say that death does slight yet very distinctive things to the body, the eyes sink and flatten, the cheeks fall back on themselves, fluid builds up in the extremities. Once a body had been embalmed it is sewn, packed with cotton wool, glued, needled with a postmortem botox type solution and covered in grease paint.
All this effort to make the dead look alive.
For my first 2 hours there I saw the latter half of the process, from embalming to coffin delivery. Many people came in and out, everyone very much alive and animated, if you were to close your eyes you would never suspect this was a place were death gets a makeover.
Eventually both of the dead women were placed (more like thrown) into their ordered coffins, propped up with rolled up newspaper and their heads tilted to the viewing side. Paper towel covered their made up faces as to prevent grease paint getting on the coffin fabric. Lid closed and carried out to the waiting hearse, driven off to a church or chapel somewhere for their final family reunion.
Once that was done the room was empty, except for us 3, the living and the forgotten man near the wall.
It was calm. No more coffin deliveries, no more make up lady , no more smoking man in the corner.
Then I realised that the next part of my adventure was going to be with 'raw' bodies, fresh from the morgue.
I was given a clean set of green scrubs to suit up in and a cold beer, the cold beer really helped for what was to follow...
posted by D. at Friday, January 14, 2005
