Urning a Living

Most folks who know me in the 'real world' already know that I work at a funeral home. It is indeed a shame that the dictates of personal privacy and general good taste prevent me from relaying the details of daily events, there - in just over two years, I have amassed a collection of personal tales from work, ranging in themes from the bizarre to the hilarious to the heartbreaking to the darkest of dark. I keep all of these little gems close to me, hoping that perhaps one day, I'll be able to publish a book. I often joke that I am writing my own t.v. pilot about the place - but honestly, I think it would make for some compelling watching.

One of the more common questions I get, when I mention where I work, is something along the lines of, "Do you put the makeup on the dead people??" No, of course I don't. You don't just waltz back there, MAC brushes in hand. "Putting the makeup on the dead people" is just one of the many steps in the process of preparation or embalming, the execution of which requires many years of schooling and certification.

 I am an administrator at the funeral home. Thus, I deal very little with the dead, aside from perhaps helping to move someone surreptitiously from one room to another without anyone in the building seeing, the process of which always seems like a classic English farce to me, with one door opening, while another closes, etc. Usually though, the majority of my day is spent  buried in paperwork, and fielding myriad phone calls, inquiries and general absurdities from the living relatives of the deceased, who consistently prove themselves to be far more frightening and difficult than the folks having a nice long sleep in the cooler.

A comment that I detest hearing from the uninformed regarding my job is, "Oh, a funeral home. That must be so nice and quiet." See above. Yes, dead people are quiet. Living people are not. The office has six phone lines, all of which can be lit up at any point in the day with constant calls from the public with inquiries ranging from service times to general advice to prearranging their own final dispositions; a staff of about twenty people in the building at any given moment and a slough of internal calls coming in all day from our three other affiliate locations on the island, to say nothing of random people who walk in off the street.

I believe the thing that's kept me around the joint for as long as I have - many interpersonal and professional difficulties not withstanding - is the polarity of the place. For someone like me, prone to feeling immensely and profoundly about a lot of things, an environment such as the one in which I work really provides a certain outlet to explore the gamut of human emotions. On any given day, I may witness a full emotional breakdown from a family after  viewing their deceased loved one, only to walk into the directors' office immediately thereafter and find myself in stitches, laughing at a coworker's antics. 

Although it sounds selfish to say this, I must also admit that being around the grief of others all day is in many ways a great relief for someone like myself. In my work world, tears are an everyday occurence, weeping and wailing are expected and encouraged as part of the process of coming to terms with loss. As a sufferer of chronic depression, being around the bereaved provides me with comfort, too. It provides me with the surety that we all suffer some times, and that every day, people are dealing with excruciating heartbreaks and losses.

Recently, I returned the cremated remains of a woman to her elderly father. Usually, I don't perform this function, but if other staff members are busy, or if I just want to, I can do so. In this case, the man in question and I had a definite rapport. I had dealt with him several times over the phone and in person, and my heart ached for his loss.

Secretly, returning cremated remains to families is my favourite part of the job, probably because it is the most raw. There is something unbelievably sacred about the process of handing a small container to someone, that represents what is left of the mortal remains of their husband, wife, parent, child, etc. There are often tears, but I take a special pleasure and privilege in participating in this final rite, and in providing some sense of closure and comfort to our families. 

When I returned this particular urn to the man, he suddenly threw his arms around me and hugged me tightly, as if he could somehow hug his daughter one last time through me. And I hugged him back, even more tightly, and felt a strange energy and warmth exchanged between us, something that I carried with me for the rest of my day. 

Whenever I doubt the existence of love, I simply get up and go to work.