Every funeral home will have different arrangements when it comes to providing after-hours service. I’m sure somewhere, perhaps family-run funeral homes, there are open door policies but in most cases funeral homes close at night like any other business. The problem is, just because we lock our doors at night doesn’t mean death stops occurring. Where I work, there are certain staff (mostly funeral directors but can be managers) required to take a cell phone or pager home with them. Once a month I am required for one week to take home a pager and take calls… which I’ll get into in a minute. One thing I want to point out is that especially in small towns, the funeral director is also responsible for doing the transfers (picking up the body and bringing them to the funeral home). I am privileged in the sense that I work for a corporation and we contract out a transfer team to do our pick-ups. We also have a live answering service, which allows me to carry the cell phone and pager. The answering service picks up when our funeral home gets a call from the hospital, family etc. and then they reach me – relaying all the information I need. I then dispatch the transfer team and go back to eating my dinner, or sleeping, or getting ready for work… you get the picture. So who do I get these calls from? Well most of the time it’s a nurse from a care home. Care homes do not have morgues therefore they need us to pick up the deceased. While that person was still alive they would have stated which funeral home they would like to be arranged with so the nurse knows to call us. The next common calls are hospices – again they do not have morgues. Then there are also families who call who have had an “expected home death.” (Please note: Rules change and names of things change depending where you live in the world – It may not be allowed, or it may be called something different wherever you are.) An expected home death is where a person is gravely ill and has had their doctor fill out the required legal paperwork allowing them to spend the rest of their days in the comfort of a home rather than a hospital. Usually when someone dies at home it requires a call to the coroner, however if they have expected home death form, then it gives us the permission to bypass the coroner and pick up the deceased and bring them to our funeral home. That’s the bulk of the calls I get after we “lock our doors” however once in a while you have a family that pressures the answering service to get in touch with us for some reason or another. Honestly, that’s part of the job, being there for people when they need you the most. As I’ve discussed before, emotions run high when one is grieving. I had a family call once at 10p.m. freaking out about the service date having to be changed. There was also the time where a family member wanted to know if the clothing they needed to bring should include shoes, or the time they wanted to talk about what papers the obituary should go in. The latest one was a fellow shopping for the best cremation price at 1:45am. You get all sorts, it definitely keeps in interesting and it’s amazing how you discover new things about yourself. Did you know I’m extremely patient at 3:00 in the morning? I know….amazing, I would have never guessed either.
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The initial call that we receive that someone has passed away is also called a “first call”. Typically it’s from a family member, and often the Executor. We also have nurses from care homes and hospices that call and sometimes a Public Trustee if there is no family. We have a form to fill out to capture all the information we need immediately. This includes the deceased name, birth date, the person who is calling, their contact information and the location of the deceased. We ask if the deceased has a will, and if so, who is named as Executor of the will. If there is an Executor this is who we make the arrangements with, and by law, has the right to making decisions. If there is no will, then the next of kin has the right to make the arrangements. The next of kin is decided upon by what is written in funeral law for where you live. There is literally a list that starts with the Executor then usually spouse, children (starting with eldest), then sibling, parent, the list goes one… So once we know who the Executor or next of kin is, if it’s not the person on the other end of the telephone, I tell them that the person is required to be at the arrangement meeting. In some cases, we email or fax the forms to that person if they don’t live in the area. I then tell them the items they need to bring to our arrangement meeting. This usually includes a copy of the will, some forms of the deceased’s identification, a recent photo and clothing. If it’s a care home or hospice calling, we make the arrangements to pick the body up immediately since they don’t have morgues. If the family informs us that their loved one is in a hospital then I tell them the procedure – when they come in and make arrangements, it’s at that time they sign a hospital release giving me permission to go and pick the body up from the hospital. If the person calling us informs us that the deceased is in a house, we ask them if it’s an “expected home death”. If it is not, we tell them they have to contact authorities first. This would involve a coroner. An “expected home death” is when a person is gravely ill and has their doctor fill out the required legal paperwork allowing them to spend the rest of their days in the comfort of a home rather than a hospital. By presenting this paperwork it allows us to immediately pick up the body.
First calls can be challenging. Sometimes a person is very much in shock when they call us, sometimes they are crying uncontrollably, sometimes they are angry but it’s often because they are scared and the process is very much unknown to them. Sometimes, they pour their heart out, and it’s just hard for us to even hold it together. I try to assure the families I talk to that we will guide them during the initial steps and everything will be discussed at our arrangement meeting. Usually this gives them piece of mind and already takes a little weight of their shoulders in knowing that we will help providing them some direction.
The last year has brought so many eye opening experiences and learning’s I honestly don’t know where to start again. When I began school in the fall I realized that focusing on school and my career, while still balancing time with my family and friends that other hobbies had to drop on the priority list and the blog was one of them.
I find the schooling very interesting; there isn’t a single subject that I don’t enjoy. Just to recap, for my program the courses are online and I only attend sessions and exams at certain times during the school year with my fellow peers. The courses range from embalming to microbiology, the psychology of grief, world religions, communications etc. The coursework isn’t necessarily challenging, but you have to be disciplined to get it all done every week and on time, or you’re penalized. Also, the exams are tough! Thanks to my focus on the schooling and the support from my place of employment, I did very well at school and am in the top percentile. Never before in my other college studies or high school was I a “top percentile” student – it feels awesome! So here I am, towards the end of summer, about to start a new year and my final year of schooling and I have become lazy. Sure, I’m working at the funeral home and it is extremely busy, but other than that I have to excuse why I haven’t updated my blog, and so my loyal readers, I am sorry. It has absolutely amazed me the amount of emails I have received from you though. I would say about 95% of the emails are about the interest in going into the funeral profession. So some advice…
1.) You are never too old to enter this profession. My classmates range from right out of high school all the way to previously retired people from all walks of life.
2.) You do not go into this profession for the money. People have this perception that since funerals cost so much these days that funeral professionals must make lots of money – so not the case! There are a lot of expenses and staff to pay!
3.) Every country, state, province, etc. will have different requirements, school programs and laws for apprentices getting into this profession. The best thing you can do is contact local funeral homes in your area and ask owners/managers how to go about getting started in this business.
4.) Like I said above, every area is different but to answer a common question… I personally get paid as an apprentice and I’m fortunate enough to have my employer pay for my schooling.
5.) If you’re not sure if you’re going to like the profession and want to “try it out”, keep in mind that a manager/owner of a funeral home is probably thinking the same thing. It’s very common that they will hire you (usually for something like office work) before you officially start an apprenticeship so you can both make sure it’s the right “fit” before they invest all the time, money and energy
into you. If your area allows volunteers, offer to volunteer and help out on services to get a taste of what it’s all about, besides it would also get your foot in the door!
6.) Be patient. Sometimes it takes time for the door to open. Keep at it and let everyone know how interested you are.
Like I said, the new school year is about to begin so the blog may drop by the wayside again, but I appreciate you stickin’ by me. Stories and experiences will be written about eventually! I love writing, I love hearing from you, and I love this profession so much that I want everyone to know about it – I just need to keep my priorities in check! So stick around. To those pursuing a job in funeral service… I wish you nothing but the best on your journey, I hope you find the passion I did.
“Isn’t it depressing being around grieving people all the time?” I get asked this question constantly whether I am telling somebody what I do for a living, have a new follower on Twitter, or even a curious family at the funeral home, and I completely understand why you would. You would assume everyone that comes in would be upset, crying, etc. which is usually the case, but often people are angry – angry the person died and left them, angry they are in charge of taking care of the planning and estate, angry they have to pay for the costs…angry for a number of reasons and unfortunately they usually take it out on the funeral director. They may not even realize how they are dealing with the loss; emotions run extremely high and some people deal with grief differently than others. It also comes with a lot of stress, anxiety and irritability. You also have people that don’t show much emotion, mostly because they haven’t come to terms with the death and sometimes this comes with indecisiveness and procrastination which can be very frustrating. No matter what kind of emotions you are dealing with, it does take a certain type of individual to handle the bereaved. For the most part we can set our personal emotions aside. There’s something in the back of our heads that say “Thank goodness I’m not in these peoples shoes… it’s not me going through this.” You can never start to think about ‘what if this was your child, your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, etc.’ because emotions will hit you like a ton of bricks and you won’t be able to do the job. Sure, we are human and sometimes it’s hard to hold it together, and I’ve seen the funeral directors shed a few tears for someone, especially if we can relate their loss to one of our own. But that’s a good thing, we haven’t become numb! And when someone is angry and taking it out on us, sure, we can slip and take it personally, but, to that one difficult person or family we have ten families that are so grateful that we are helping them through what is likely the most difficult time in their entire life. When we help with all their needs or put together a personalized funeral that exceeds their expectations, the rewarding feeling and is so worth the time spent (and perhaps the few tears we spilled in the background). It’s what makes us walk through the front doors of our funeral home every day.
Tags: bereaved, crematorium, depressing, emotions, funeral director, funeral director emotions, funeral girl, funeral job, funeral planning, funeral profession, funeral service, grieving, interview, mortician, mourning, sad, the funeral girl, undertaker, upset
As my three month probationary period was creeping closer and closer, I felt myself getting more and more unsettled about the fact that I was still undecided whether I wanted to get my dual license (funeral director and embalmer) or just funeral director. On one side, the dual would take me more places – outside this corporation they look for duals, especially in small towns and small funeral homes. However, on the other side, I like this corporation and I like this funeral home so if I ever wanted to change my location there are a number or funeral homes in this corporation I could transfer to. With this being said I couldn’t come up with a reason to do the embalming side. In just the last couple years the funeral directors apprenticeship changed, requiring one to learn how to wash, dress, set features, cosmetize etc. So as far as the business goes, I would still have prep room experience and a good understanding of what exactly goes on in there. I felt uneasy about making the decision I had to make and decided to have a heart-to-heart with my boss. It went really well, he agreed with every point I made and told me if I ever regretted not doing the embalming apprenticeship that the corporation could pay for me to go later on. After this conversation I felt great and at peace with my decision to just get my funeral directors license. Basically this means I won’t be authorized or certified to do embalmings or work on autopsied bodies. Now, since I have some issues with eyes and packing *ahem* holes… I’m going to continue spending time in the prep room before my apprenticeship officially begins to get as comfortable as possible.
Tags: apprenticeship, autopsy, cemetery, embalmer, embalmer apprenticeship, embalmer license, embalming, funeral chapel, funeral corporation, funeral director, funeral director apprenticeship, funeral director license, funeral girl, funeral home, funeral profession, funeral professional, funeral service, interview, role of funeral director, the funeral girl, undertaker
Caution: Contains graphic info and infant death.
I enter the prep room and see Lynn is leaning over a baby. I go stand next to her and look down. She is the most beautiful baby girl and immediately my heart sank for the parents of this little angel. All I could do was stare; she looked like a beautiful, healthy, peaceful, sleeping baby. The baby, who was a stillborn, was being prepared for the parents to view later that day. We cleaned the nose, set the eyelashes and took few other steps which I am going to withhold due to the graphic nature. A baby’s skin is very sensitive, as they are made up mostly of water, so the baby was washed carefully with sanitizing fluid and then we dressed her in a sleeper. We placed her in a small basket, and the embalmer, apprentice and I all swooned over her cuteness.
All the time I hear of the all the babies that come to our home and now I think of that little cupcake. It’s so unfair that a mother carries this life for 9 months, the parents plan and prepare and create a room for this life, they have a celebration, families are excited for the new addition, and at the end of it all they don’t get the chance to show off their little miracle and raise their child. I can’t even imagine the grieving one would go through – I would never wish this loss upon anyone.
After the baby I helped to prepare an elderly woman with Lynn. The woman’s face was heavily covered in face cream, which is often applied right after death to help preserve the skin. I wiped it off with a cotton cloth and disposed of it in one of our biohazard containers. (The hazardous waste company comes once a week and picks up multiple bins.) The eyes still had some cream in the corners but I was getting squeamish around them. Lynn tells me that the eyes need to be opened, and then proceeded to open and clean them – it completed grossed me out! Then she tells me it’s time to set the eyes. Suddenly I was nervous. She got out two plastic eye caps which were beige in color, rounded to the curve of the eye and had pin pricks in it where the plastic was pricked upwards. I started feeling faint so I told her to go ahead without me and describe what she was doing as I went and cleaned up a few things. “I’m dunking the top of the eye cap in the “stay-put” cream. Now I’m using a small hook to pull up the eyelid so I can get the eye cap underneath…I’ve now closed the eyelid overtop of the cap. With the prickles on the eye cap and the cream, the underside of eyelid will catch to the eye cap and the eye won’t open.” She proceeded to do the other one and then I came back to the table as she was arranging the eyelashes and wiping off leftover stay-put cream. Next she told me to grab the small metal rod and cotton pad. I wrapped the cotton pad over the tip and then as she instructed, cleaned out the nostrils. I had a moment where I thought, “I’m picking a dead persons nose… how the hell did I get here?” Next, I was told I had to clean out the mouth. Lynn and the embalmer both started to discuss their absolute disgust with the mouth cleaning and how each of them up-chucked the first few times they had to do it. I figured it couldn’t make me as squeamish as the eyes did and I was right, it didn’t but yes, it was nasty. I took a pair of tongs with a huge wad of cotton and wiped out the inside. The inside of the mouth starts to get soft and break down and often there’s fluid and whatnot left in the mouth. Out came some skin, mouth gunk and well…I didn’t really dissect it too much. Next we had to set the mouth. Lynn got out two little metals screw that had a long piece of wire hanging off each one, then a small metal piercing gun. She inserted the screw into the gun and pressed it firmly to the top gum and explained “the gums soften rapidly after death; it may take more than one time for the gums to implant the screw”. After a few shots she was able to implant the top screw and just one shot to implant the bottom screw to the gums on the bottom. This lady wore dentures so the dentures were cleaned and inserted and then she twisted the metal wires that were sticking out until the teeth were clenched together. She referenced the picture of the woman that was hanging on the cabinets above the table, “we need to check her jaw line and make sure we’re not too clenched or have an over/under bite, it needs to looks natural”. The setting was complete so we went on to the washing stage. Unfortunately, for us, she had pooped at some point so we lifted one leg at a time as we hosed her backside with water and wiped her down. Even more unfortunately, for us, she kept leaking feces. Lynn proceeded to grab the large metal rod and multiple sheets of cotton pads and then I started to feel faint again. As I quickly suspected she would, she wrapped cotton pad after cotton pad around the metal rod and stuffed them up her behind. My legs were so tightly crossed I started seeing black spots so I left the room. She explained afterward that some people just leak, sometimes women leak from the vagina as well, but all these areas need to be packed. If a penis is leaking, it must be tied off with a string. I said “what about butt plugs?” she said they use them all the time, for anal and vaginal but sometimes if the hole is stretch too much they will not work. She explained that the number one priority for embalmers is sanitization and anything leaking is not considering sanitary. Next, we put a large flat square cotton pad around her sort of like a diaper (just in case of anymore leaking we don’t want it to go through the clothes) and we dress her. Meanwhile, the apprentice, asks me to help her remove another lady from a cremation box to the prep table. As I open the lid this god awful smell comes from the box and the apprentice makes this sour face “oh, this one has gas”. “Oh lovely” I respond sarcastically, while I’m actually yelling in my head “Gross! Ew! I’m breathing in this dead lady’s fart!” I head back to the table to find Lynn getting out the makeup to cosmetize, and I chuckled out loud. “What?” asks Lynn. “Well, I was just thinking that these women would probably be mortified if they knew they pooped them self and was farting.” “Ha! Yep…” says Lynn, “…I don’t think anyone really thinks about that when they think about death.” We went on to choosing more makeup that would suit the woman and based on what she was wearing in her photo. There’s a combination of special embalmers makeup such as cover-up/foundation, as well as normal foundations and lipstick by Revlon, CoverGirl etc. Next thing you know, I’m called for a meeting with the funeral directors. I was actually really looking forward to the hair and makeup part but that’ll come again.
My morning in the prep room came to an end and after the impromptu funeral directors meeting I went back to the office to reflect on the experience. I firmly believe it has to be my determination to succeed in this field and my passion for this business that allowed me to get through those first couple days in the prep room. I realize there’ll be far more days like these and although some situations may make me squirm, at least for the first while, I have to focus on the fact that these deceased have no one else to take care of them and it’s a privilege to be trusted in their care.
Tags: a day in the life, baby, baby death, cremation, crematorium, dressing, embalmer, embalming, Funeral, funeral director, funeral girl, funeral job, funeral profession, funeral service, infant death, makeup on dead, mortician, mortician cosmetics, prep room, stillborn baby, the funeral girl, viewing
Caution: Contains some graphic info.
I spent a couple of mornings in the prep room and what I witnessed over those two days is too much for one post. As I write I’ll further be absorbing just what I was subjected to, which is never in my wildest dreams…or nightmares…what I ever believed I would see.
I met the prep room staff in the coffee room first thing in the morning and asked if there was something I could observe that day. As I think I mentioned in one of my last posts, it’s about taking some baby steps in the prep room to get me used to being around and handling the deceased to make sure this was a career I could deal with. The embalmer jokingly, or so I thought, said “yep you can observe the two decomposed bodies we had delivered this morning” and chuckled. I said sarcastically “oh perfect” not realizing she was completely serious…until I followed her into the prep room and was nearly knocked off my feet by the smell. She handed me a medical gown, medical cap, mask, two sets of rubber gloves (to double up on my hands,) a paper and a pen. I dressed up and took a look at the sheet of paper, it was to take down information about the deceased -checklists for what appeared (or didn’t appear) i.e. tattoos, teeth, clothing, decomposer…mold, signs of dehydration etc. The embalmer, Lynn, opened the first body bag and the smell was even more sickening then what was in the air. I could see the side of the body and it was covered in green fuzzy mold, exactly what you would see growing on really old food. The smell, as Lynn pointed out, did have a moldy scent to it, it was horrible to say the least. I didn’t want to get too close, so Lynn read out to me what I needed to mark down on the sheet. Tattoos, 4 of them but unrecognizable, autopsy had been performed, mold all over, eyes now non-existent, no teeth but in the body bag came a pair of dentures and a shirt, blanket, and pair of jeans. The body was arranged to be cremated so we transferred it to a box, marked the decedents name on it, and put it in the cooler until it would be time to have it transferred to the crematorium.
The second decomposed body was one that had been in a fire. The sight is so horrific yet at the same time it doesn’t even look like a human being anymore so somehow my brain put some emotion aside, it’s like it wasn’t real. There was no sign of skin, just a layer of what looked like thick black charcoal. I believe it was CSI or a similar show that I was once watching that had a burn victim, and now that I think about it, they were pretty bang-on. What really grossed me out was the fact it had been autopsied. The thick string that held the autopsy openings together were pulling apart and the inside was a gut soup that was leaking out. There wasn’t much to write on the information sheet – “autopsy performed”, and “piece of a shirt in the body bag.” Once again, the body was transferred to a cremation box and put in the cooler. “Well” says Lynn, “you okay?” I had to take a second and take in what I just saw, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t passed out or barfed but like I said, it was hard to think of them of once people, they were so far from looking human anymore. “It’s hard to focus with such an awful smell” I said and Lynn surprised me with a “Smell? That was nothing; I was actually surprised at how little they did smell!” I wish I could describe what the smell is like because so many people are curious but I honestly can’t, not yet.
The next task was to dress two decedents. They were washed and ready for dressing. Both were women and they were elderly. I looked for the clothes the family had brought for them in our closet. The bags were tagged with our inventory forms. I checked the clothes and accessories in the bags to the inventory forms to make sure it was all accounted for. Sometimes families ask “do we need socks and underwear too?” and we tell them that it’s great to provide anything the person would have worn normally. The embalming apprentice helped me with the first dressing and gave me tips along the way. He told me how to lift the legs, arms, what the best ways to get different kinds of shirts on, etc. Dressing the dead is not easy. They are cold, heavy and sometimes hard to bend. To be perfectly honest, I found fitting the bras the most difficult. Before you put it on, you hook it on the loosest loops then put it over the head, and then you put the arms through. Once the arms are through the arms holes, the band and cups are around the armpits to you have to try and yank it down below the breasts. The other problem though is that the breasts are settled to the sides of the body and they don’t fill the cups no matter how hard you try. Also, shoes can be tricky – the feet swell and they can be hard to fit.
After the dressings I was called from upstairs to help a funeral director with a service and I was happy to call that the end of my day in the prep room. I was cold and desperately felt like taking a shower.
That afternoon I reflected on my first surreal time in the prep room, I remembered how I previously feared that it could go very badly, and I felt proud that I got through it. Then I also remembered I had the next morning to experience it all over again, what surprises would tomorrow bring? I don’t think there’s any real way to prepare.
Tags: a day in the life, crematorium, dead, dead smell, death, decomposed, dressing, embalmer, Funeral, funeral director, funeral girl, funeral job, funeral profession, interview, mortician, the funeral girl, undertaker
I’ve been asked what happens if you can’t get the jewellery off the body and whether jewellery can be left on or not when it comes time to burial, cremation, etc .
It’s our policy that when we are picking up the body at the location to bring it back to our home, we check for jewellery. If there happens to be jewellery on the person we do try our best to get it off and then give it to the nurse, care home person, whomever, to make note it was removed and return it to the family. On the rare occasion where the jewellery doesn’t want to come off, we inform the appropriate person and make a note of it ourselves. Most of the time, it’s the rings that don’t want to come off swollen fingers. Sometimes the family is aware it’s been left on too; often the family has been with the person in their final days and does remove the jewellery or attempts to take it off. When we meet with the family back at the funeral home to make arrangements, we bring up specifically what was left on the body and we ask if they would like it removed. If so, with rings it’s a matter of some cold cream and a string. The cold cream is slippery and then you shimmy the ring off with the string. Worst case scenario, we have the tools to cut any jewellery off as well, but it’s all about communicating to the family first that it may be the only way.
A family can decide if they would like any jewellery to remain on the person when they are buried or cremated, it’s their decision. Sometimes they have jewellery kept on just for the viewing/visitation. It’s my understanding so far with cremation though, that some metals will not break down, the jewellery would be ruined though and possibly removed before the remains are grinded down – and they will not be returned. Another option is to place the jewellery in the cremated remains when transferred to the urn.
Tags: burial, cemetery, crematorium, embalmer, funeral director, funeral girl, funeral professional, funeral service interview, interview, jewellery on deceased, the funeral girl
Management figured they better get me more involved with the deceased to make sure I could handle things before it’s time to sign me up for the apprenticeship. Determining whether I can deal with the emotional and physical aspect that comes with being around the deceased will let us know for sure if I’m cut out for this profession. Anyway so we’re taking baby steps and I was asked to follow the caretaker around for a day to do some removals and transfers.
Removal refers to removing the deceased’s body from either the hospital whether that was the place of death or another place of death to our funeral home. Transfer has a broader definition. Some of our sister homes do not have a prep room or cremation. It can refer to bringing a prepared body for viewing to one of our sister homes or bringing it back to ours (usually to do the cremating since most of homes to do not crematoriums). Then transferring can also mean taking the cremated remains back to a home or even taking the deceased to the airport if they are going to another location. We have a care taker, Michael, we use to contact for all removals and transfers, we send him the appropriate paperwork (basic info…who, what, where) and then he prioritizes all the calls.
So we started off the day by heading to the local hospital to pick up a body from the morgue. We drove a van that has space for two gurneys in the back. When we arrived we pulled in front, reported to a small admin office, picked up the doctors paperwork and then headed in the van to the back of the hospital in a pick up/drop off zone. There are a few security guards there but they knew the care taker so no identification was asked for. We pulled one of the gurneys out of the back and headed to the morgue. It was just as you see it on tv, just a room with a wall of metal doors. Each door had a number and a small slot with ID tags. We showed the security guard the paperwork, then we looked in a file there that told us what spot body was in. We opened the door and slid the metal tray out, the body was in a white body bag. Mike explained that we have to open the bag, check the body for jewellery (the ears, wrists, fingers). This one was an older woman and there wasn’t really any smell. We didn’t find any jewellery on her but if we had we would give them to the admin office (the one we had checked in with and it would be there responsibility to take inventory and contact the family about the jewellery). When we open up the bag we also do a quick ID check, often they are still wearing the hospital bracelet or we do a quick comparison with the little information on Mike’s paperwork and the doctors. Then we tag them with our own bracelet and put it around the ankle. After that, we had to get the body on our gurney. Our gurneys have a fabric body bag that we place the entire body bag into, so we opened it up and there’s also a couple seatbelts to keep them strapped in. We pulled the gurney right up next to the tray used a pulley system to haul up the metal tray on an angle then just slid the body onto the gurney. There are no patients near the area so we didn’t have to watch out for anybody on our way out, we just wheeled it into the van and we were on our way back to the home.
The next trip was taking a body to the airport. The woman had lived here a number of years but the family wanted her buried in her hometown where most of the family still lives. The price on flying a body is based on the weight and dimension, since weight is such an issue, most of the time a family chooses not to fly it in a heavy casket, it’s done at the funeral home receiving them. So we simply put it on a wooden board with a special insulated cardboard top. There is some documentation that goes with it so we put it in an envelope and tape it on top. We dropped it off at a cargo area and that was it. Pretty simple. I wondered this, so I know some of you are…yes they fly on regular passenger planes, you’re probably flying with dead folks all the time and you had no idea!
The next trip was doing a transfer of a prepared body from our funeral home to another sister home because there was a viewing that afternoon. While we were there we picked up a person who had just been viewed that morning who had to be brought back to our crematorium, so we basically did a switch.
The final trip of the day was picking up a man from a care home. He was 90-something years old and his body had shut down, the nurses went to wake him in the morning and he had passed away through the night. Going to the care home was awkward. We reported to the front desk and it’s in a big open area where the residents dine and watch tv. They were all around us and I think they knew who we were…what our purpose was. I started reading their faces, I felt like they were judging me, I didn’t feel welcome. We went into the man’s room, thank goodness it didn’t smell. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were open. I thought the open eye thing would really bother me when I would see it but it was fine actually, they were still glossy and not frightened. There were a couple of rings and a watch left on him so it took a couple minutes to get them off, something the fingers swell up a bit. I started thinking about my grandmother and how her room was very similar when she was in a home and started to wonder if she looked like that when she died. Then I snapped to it…what was I thinking? I was mad at myself, you can’t go to that place in your head. When we were finished belting him on the gurney we told the nurse we would be making our way out. She cleared the hallway of any people (without letting them know what was going on although I’m sure most knew) and then she opened the elevator so we could get out as quickly as possible.
Mike and I headed back to the funeral home and it was nearing the end of the day. We figured since I was unfazed by the day’s events that we would take it one step further. The embalmer, Lynn, had just finished embalming so Lynn and Mike suggested I go in the prep/embalming room and have a look. There were two decedents completely uncovered on metal trays. Lynn was washing one down with some disinfectant soap and a cloth. She was dressed in scrubs from head to toe. There was just some blood on the underside and either than that I stood far enough back that I couldn’t really see the embalming openings. Although I was surprisingly fine with what most would normally consider a disturbing sight, I figured this was enough for one day.
Tags: a day in the life, body bag, crematorium, dead, dead body, death, decedent, embalmer, embalming, funeral job, funeral professional, hospital morgue, morgue, remove body, the funeral girl, transfer
We had a man arranging his mother’s funeral with our funeral home. From the first meeting until the time of the funeral three days later, he visited our home multiple times. Quite often a family member or the family members doing the arranging can be in just once, that’s very common, or sometimes maybe two or three times max. The first day, I counted six visits from this man, the receptionist swears it was 10 but it’s hard to say if he had actually left and came back or was just floating around the home somewhere. I asked the receptionist what was going on as I wasn’t familiar with this funeral arrangement. Was this a very large, detailed funeral? Were there complications? Did he have issues with the funeral director? She says “Oh, we call these The Obsessers, we get them every so often. They just can’t focus on anything else but the death so they involve themselves as much as possible – they are literally obsessed.” The next day, he came in three times then decided he would just like to stay for the afternoon and set up camp in our Clergy waiting room (thank goodness we didn’t have any funerals that afternoon). Even after the funeral took place he said he had to run an errand but would be back, we told him it would just take a minute to finalize the payment and get him his photos back and he could be on his way but he insisted he would come back. When he did awhile later, it was almost difficult for him to say goodbye. Funeral directors and the staff know not to say “hope to see you soon” or anything along those lines, it’s usually “take care, please call us if you need anything at all” and the family usually does a thank you and are on their way. With The Obsesser it was like he was trying to think of any possible question, even standing at the door looking down in deep concentration, even asking some of the same questions twice and reconfirming answers. It was definitely awkward but it would seem he’s a fairly normal guy usually, I’m just learning that death makes us say or do stuff we wouldn’t normally do.
Tags: Funeral, funeral girl, funeral profession, funeral professional, funeral service, obsessed, obsesser, obsessor, the funeral girl