life, love, sex and death and never in that order
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| THIS PHOTO IS 13 YEARS NEWER THAN THIS POST |
state
n.
1. A condition or mode of being, as with regard to circumstances: a state of confusion.
Big time. Ok. got it?
For those of you that know me, forget it, throw that away, you do not. Not even close. I am A. Mortician, that is all you know. That being said, let me attempt at blathering on for awhile.
I dodged a particularly tragic pair of deaths this week. Conflicting arrangement times prevented me from meeting with the family of a nightmarish tragedy. Counting myself lucky, I moved on into my week attacking various duties with great abandonment and beautiful hope for the future. Then, a few days ago, I was greeted with my comeuppance. A distraught and destroyed woman on the other end of a telephone telling me that she needed my help. Help with the kind of thing I know a bit about. This is, as they say, not my first rodeo. I listened, I cared, I used "the voice" as best I could. Today, I will meet with members of a family whose lives were changed so quickly and inexplicably that they surely will never recover, never forget and never be ok again. No matter what. My presence in their lives has begun and to my very bones I wish it had not. There are plenty of details here that I will not fill you in on. Details simply outline what is seen at the bottom line. Like an itemized price-list.
My life has changed a lot recently and to be perfectly honest I was doing pretty well with all of it. Given the circumstances, things seemed to be going on as best they could and the parts seemed to be fitting in together as well as to be expected. When that changed this week, I knew I was screwed. Truly and deeply.
One thing that an undertaker needs to do, in my humble and jaded opinion, is to get as close to a family as they possibly can. To attempt to understand what they might need, have questions about or to simply nod and say "I can not imagine". Being there for someone in that time when their loved one has been stripped from their lives is not about comfort to me, it is about presence. That presence hopefully exists out of a sense of some small amount of understanding. While this understanding can come from personal experiences of the mortician, I need it to come from the individual experience that I am feeling with that family standing right in front of me. Standing there crying, broken, destroyed. Sitting across the table in the arrangement room laughing, smiling, and full of hope and freedom from the thought of no more pain for them. In these rooms, at these houses, along the sides of these roads one must be present. One must be aware of what is needed at the time when it is needed.
So over the past week or so this blog has seen a bit of action. A new contributor, new people reading and commenting, new ideas and opinions. I appreciate all of this and wish to turn inward from all of it for a moment. A common thread has emerged that I think needs to be addressed. For me, right now, I could care less about "the industry". Caskets can go on being caskets no matter their type, style, species or gauge. Burial plots with beautiful views can do just that. They have no meaning for me nor do they have any bearing on what is important. All aspects of these items are secondary to the matters at hand. Matters at hand are how we feel and how that affects our ability to move to the next moment.
My eureka moment came to me when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. Not a goddamned clue. Last night, after the children had been tucked in and hugged and kissed and assured, I sat down to write this post. All I had was tears. I have them now too but they live behind my face, hiding from those who do not understand or have enough on their plate right now. "What the fuck am I doing" I ask myself. What. The. Fuck. I sit here and ask and wait for a family that will arrive and ask me "what do we do now?". I have no idea. none.
All these people, and not just the ones on their way to the funeral home now, ALL of these people, ALL OF US want one thing. We don't want to lose what we love. When we do, we know it, and it hurts. Bad. Schedule 1 Class A triple-double bad.
Time has passed since I began this post and now I have met with the family that I was speaking of before. My pity for them and what they are going through is legendary. They got the raw mortician, the one that does not pull any punches and tells it exactly like it is. They were not ready yet to make all of the arrangements that needed to be made. Neither was I. Questions were asked and answered to the best of my abilities, ideas were laid on the table to be pondered, and a family left this place with more information than they came in with. Their loved ones are still dead and they will never see them again in any way that they desire to. All they want is to have them back. All any of us want is to see them again, to touch them, to speak to them the truths of love. If even for a second. Anything to stop this pain now. Even for a second.
So we wander. We wander around in life taking it all in and hope for the best. We either take it for granted or we don't. Sometimes we get hung up on the little things. Sometimes we don't. I am in the bubble right now. I am on the inside looking out. Leaves are greener, the sky much bluer. Music is not for the background, it is a soundtrack that must be paid attention to. Nothing, is going unnoticed.
So I wonder. I wonder why it is that I can pay so much goddamn attention to all of this bloody beautiful glory crashing all around me that I still have no idea what I am doing. My easy answer is that I never knew to begin with. The hard answer is that for the first time in my life I actually do. Somewhere in between those two answers might be the truth. Maybe not.
Once again I write the same damn thing that I have always written on this stupid blog. I am going to try and end this post with something different. Bare with me.
The funeral industry exists. It is certainly not perfect. None of that matters to me. My job is to help people despite what people do. Rising to that occasion seems very important right now.
People will die. Life will change. Love hurts. I am here. I am now going to go have a cigarette by the dumpster in the alley of the funeral home and think about sex.
I leave you with a poem by Ted Hughes. He is dead. I am using this poem with absolutely no permission whatsoever.
October Salmon
Now worn out with her tirelessness, her insatiable quest,
Hangs in the flow, a frayed scarf-
An autumnal pod of his flower,
The mere hull of his prime, shrunk at shoulder and flank,
In the October light
He hangs there, patched with leper-cloths
All this, too, is stitched into torn richness,
The epic poise
That holds him so steadfastly in his wounds, so loyal to his doom,
so patient
In the machinery of heaven.
Comments
In 1995 my family experienced a tragic lose. I can't even begin to describe the pain and fear that I felt. One thing that was Very important to me was the care that Les's body would receive. I wanted the FD/Embalmer to Care. And, I wanted the FD/E to be gentle with his body. I know it sounds crazy, but, I wanted to protect him.
Existential angst. I hate it! I fucken have it and it sucks. I do my best to ignore it.
Hey man, my heart goes out to you. It's been said that tears are the path to healing.
My shoes are muddy.
Like you said, presence matters, feelings matter and, as they say, the rest is bullshit. Our "industry" will continue to manufacture cleaver money making schemes to offer families. There is always the next big thing.
But what really matters is the care, compassion and humanity we can show. That is all we really have to offer. And that, too, is starting to fade to black. More and more families are trying to hard to protect themselves from the pain. They are trying to move further away from it instead of closer to it.
Consequently we are not able to do our jobs to the fullest of our capability. And that pisses me off! How many times have you been visiting with a grieving family, reminiscing about the deceased; who they were, what they were like, how they were cared about, etc., and some family abruptly cuts off the conversation and wants to "get back to business"? Sometimes I want to just scream and say, "You stupid fuck, this is part of the business. Your mother/father/whoever deserves better than this!!!"
In the age we are in today, it is more and more difficult to be present with them. They want to come in, get the paperwork done and have mom/dad burnt in the quickest, cheapest, most efficient manner. Sometimes it's an act of congress to keep them in the office more than thirty minutes.
Fortunately there are still enough of the other family members, ones that I can make a connection with, share in their memories and pain to feel like I am able to make a difference. That is the only thing that keeps me going.