I've Moved! Check out the all-new, all-different Invincible Super-Blog at www.The-ISB.com!

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The Funeral Diaries, Part 3

We buried my grandmother on Tuesday morning, right before the weather turned cold again. There was another ceremony with the same rev, and it left me feeling as empty as the first one. There was, however, no pimp suit at the cemetary.

Mom cried, and I spent my time avoiding relatives. This time my dodges were aimed at The Girls, a pair of kindhearted but genuinely creepy sisters from my dad's side of the family. And I'm not proud to say this, but I essentially threw my sister into their field of vision while I beat my own hasty retreat to hide behind the nearest tree.

After the burial, I struck up a conversation with the funeral director, bugging him with questions about the business. Now this might have been the most insensitive thing I did on the entire trip--and that includes playing my sister's Nintendo DS in the ICU waiting room--but really. It's a fascinating subject and you almost never hear about it.

We'd taken a limousine that the funeral home provided to the cemetary, so on the way back I got into the passenger seat to continue the conversation. The funeral director, Barry, was surprisingly funny and downright charming, and I got the feeling that it was a relief for him to not have to keep up his facade of professional sympathy.

He was also incredibly informative. I didn't even know that you had to have a specialized degree to work in a funeral home. I just assumed it was a job you sort of fell into, but it actually requires three and a half years of study with courses like "Social Aspects of Death and Dying," "Cremation Fundamentals," "Death in Literature," and my personal favorite, "Gross Anatomy for the Embalmer."

When I asked Barry how he got into the business, he told me that he'd been raised on a farm and when he was a kid, his dad wanted him to get some extra work. The funeral home was tearing down an old building, and he helped with dumping the rubble. That led to a summer job mowing the lawn, and eventually to an apprenticeship, a degree in Mortuary Science, and a thirty-year career in the death industry with a side-job telling elementary school students about Egyptian mummification techniques.

Apprenticeship, Barry told me, is the part of the job that makes most people give up, although I imagine once you've made up your mind to spend the rest of your career surrounded by corpses, there's not a lot that's going to dissuede you. Being the apprentice in the funeral industry is just like being an apprentice in any other business, but the grunt work you have to do is, I imagine, far more disgusting.

For instance: Barry mentioned that in his talks to fifth-graders, one of the first questions he ever got was from a little girl wondering what they do with amputated limbs. He chuckled about the question, but I'd never even thought about it before.

"So what DO they do with them?"

"Well, these days, if it's like a patient at a hospital with, say, diabetes, and they need to amputate, they'll just incinerate the limb at the hospital. But before, and sometimes today, they'll just hold onto it and the apprentice will have to go get it and bring it back to the funeral home for storage."

"Wow. I just got this weird mental image of a drawer full of severed legs."

"You're not too far off."

See? Fascinating.

Next: Hidden Treasure

13 Comments:

Blogger Mon-El said...

Dude...I love u madly, but you've got some SERIOUS issues.

:)

4/25/2005 10:58 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chris, only you would strike up a conversation with the funeral director at a family funeral and somehow make it all sound entertaining! Though after living through several funerals with my mother's dysfunctional family funeral hysterics, I can see how striking up a conversation with the funeral director would look like the most attractive option.

4/25/2005 12:00 PM

 
Blogger Phil Looney said...

Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine.

To share my own macabe joke, when my Dad died, we had him cremated and we were going to take his ashes to the lake and spread them out. I was carrying the contianer that had his ashes. Getting into my sister's SUV, my Mom tells me "Philip, get back there in the back with your daddy." We thought it was hilarious.

4/25/2005 4:13 PM

 
Blogger MarkAndrew said...

Read these all tonight. Really sadfunny. Nice stuff.

3/23/2007 11:39 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I kind of stumbled onto your blog because I have interest in funerals too... but I'm much older than you are. It's too bad that most people don't ask the same questions you did. Then maybe people wouldn't be as afraid of dying as they are.

4/23/2007 10:39 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As someone in the funeral business I was intrigued to see that you had an interest in our line of work. Most of the families that we see have little or no interest in our line of work. Becoming a funeral directory does take a lot of schooling and work, but it is well worth it.

4/30/2008 8:34 AM

 
Anonymous Managing Diabetes said...

Very nice blog, thanks for this post..it's been good reading this.

12/24/2015 2:22 AM

 
Blogger Mohamed Ali said...


افضل شركة تنظيف خزانات ومنازل وشقق بالمدينة المنورة شركة غسيل خزانات ومكافحة حشرات بالمدينة المنورة ونقل عفش بالمدينة المنورة مؤسسة صفوة المدينة
شركة تنظيف خزانات بالمدينة المنورة
شركة مكافحة حشرات بالمدينة المنورة

9/11/2016 9:30 PM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

Its my great pleasure to visit your blog and to enjoy your great posts here. I like it a lot. I can feel that you paid much attention for those articles, as all of them make sense and are very useful
شركة مكافحة الحشرات بالقطيف
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالقطيف
شركة مكافحة الحشرات بالدمام
هتم شركة مكافحة الحشرات بالدمام باعمال المكافحة للصراصير بالدمام فالصراصير من اكثر انواع الحشرات التى تسبب الضيق والالم وتسبب الشعور بالاشمئزاز والقرف فى المكان فاذا كنت تعانى من وجود الصراصير وتعانى من وجودها وانتشارها فى اى مكان فى منزلك وبالاخص فى المطابخ والصراصير الصغيره المتواجدة فى المكان
شركة مكافحة الحشرات بالخبر
شركة مكافحة البق بالقطيف
شركة مكافحة البق بالدمام
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالدمام
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالخبر

2/20/2017 11:25 PM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

I really enjoyed reading this post, big fan. Keep up the good work andplease tell me when can you publish more articles or where can I read more on the subject?
شركة تنظيف بالجبيل
شركة تنظيف بالدمام
شركة تنظيف بالخبر لتقديم المستوي الراقي جدا فاننا نقوم بخدمات التنظيف الداخلي والخارجي باي منزل فداخليا نهتم بتنظيف الأبواب بكل ما يتعلق بها من أتربه وملوثات واتساخات ونزيل كل هذا علي الفور  ونقوم أيضا بأعمال تنظيف الشبابيك وما يتعلق بها من أتربه ونقوم أيضا بأعمال تنظيف شامله للأرضيات والسيراميك والرخام والبلاط ونقدم دائما الخدمة بأسلوب راقي اما خارجيا نقوم بأعمال تنظيف المسابح وتنقيه المياه بداخلها ونقوم أيضا بتنظيف الخزانات بما يضمن لك الراحة وعدم التفكير فى الاستعانه بشركات النظافة بالخبر والدمام
شركة تنظيف بالخبر
شركة تنظيف بالقطيف

2/20/2017 11:26 PM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years.
شركة نقل اثاث بالقطيف
شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام
شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام
شركة نقل عفش بالدمام
شركة نقل اثاث بالجبيل
شركة نقل العفش بالخبر
Thanks for this great post, i find it very interesting and very well thought out and put together. I look forward to reading your work in the future
شركة نقل اثاث بالخبر
ارخص شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام
شركة نقل الاثاث بالدمام
شركة نقل عفش بالدمام
شركات نقل العفش والاثاث بالدمام والخبر على وجه الخصوص تعددت كثيرا ولكن القليل من شركات نقل الاثاث داخل الدمام والخبر ما زال يقدم الخدمة المنوط بها للعميل فنحن فى شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام وبالخبر افضل شركات نقل اثاث بالدمام والخبر والقطيف والجبيل على مستوي المملكه العرب

2/20/2017 11:29 PM

 
Blogger El Awal said...

شركة تنظيف فلل بالمزاحمية
شركة مكافحة حشرات الفراش بالرياض
افضل دكتور اسنان في مدينة نصر
افضل مركز لعلاج الاسنان في مصر
افضل دكتوراسنان في المهندسين
مراكز تجميل الاسنان بالقاهرة
اسعار ايجار الشقق في جمصة 2017
اسعار شقق للايجار في جمصة
ارقام سماسرة جمصة
اراضي للبيع في 15 مايو جمصة

8/27/2018 10:58 AM

 
Blogger azadseo said...

A Complete Collection Of Pinoy Tv, Stay Tuend With Us To Watch Latest Pinoy Teleserye and Pinoy tv shows.

12/25/2019 5:48 AM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home