The Chick and the Dead

by Carla Valentine

  At the end of the seventeenth century in Europe, meditation on the decay of the body within the tomb, with as much detail as possible, was recommended as a spiritual exercise. Around 1667, the manual L’uomo al Punto di Morti (‘Man at the Point of Death’) by Jesuit writer Daniello Bartoli suggested this as a means to understand death. It included a chapter entitled ‘The tomb a school able to make even the mad wise: we enter therein to hear a lesson of moral and Christian philosophy’. The wax bust known as La Donna Scandalosa, created at the turn of the eighteenth century in Naples, depicts a beautiful woman’s face and chest just visible through soil. She is covered in ‘worms’ and even has a rat gnawing at her breast. These images and writings were visual reminders of that famous verse:

  Remember me as you pass by,

  As you are now, so once was I,

  As I am now, so you must be,

  Prepare for death and follow me.

  Those who lived during times of pestilence and torture were almost transgressively intimate with the decomposing corpse in a way we in the clinical and airbrushed West are not. But a small minority are beginning to protest against that hidden, antiseptic world of dying and instead embrace a more natural approach to death and decomposition. ‘Green funerals’ are becoming increasingly popular. Funeral directors are discouraging the use of chemical embalming and coffins made from non-biodegradable material. Wicker and even cardboard coffins are being suggested instead, and natural or ‘woodland’ burials in sustainable land rather than non-environmentally-friendly churchyard burials and cremation. Suddenly, Munch’s quote ‘From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity’ is becoming more of a reality. Why spend so much time artificially reconstructing the dead when our natural fate is to be recycled and, in whatever way you look at it, ‘reborn’?

  The Buddhists understand impermanence. They understand that things change. So we can fragment, we can fall to pieces, and we can let ourselves do so, without the intervention of chemical and physical stabilisers. But, regardless of religious beliefs, we will in some way be reconstituted – a fate meant to befall us all.

  In the end we come full circle.

  Eleven

  Chapel of Rest: ‘Sister Act’

  Almost everyone has or will experience getting dumped in their lifetime. Unless, of course, you’re a nun. Jesus can’t dump nuns.

  —Jenny McCarthy, Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies, and True Romance

  I woke up at 5.15 a.m., and not naturally. I’d needed to use the alarm on my phone, which defeated the object of being here, really. The idea was to be secluded, alone, undistracted by the trivial things. I wanted my phone to stay off.

  Note to self: buy a travel alarm clock.

  I also did not want to get out of bed. The basic sheets I’d climbed under in this small room the night before hadn’t felt particularly luxurious, but now, with the heat of my body from a night’s sleep cocooning me in comfiness, it felt like the best bed in the world. The air outside was so cold on my face it made me want to snuggle in deeper. But then I remembered the wall-mounted fan heater above my bed. I reached out of the warmth of the sheets for the pull string of the heater with lightning speed, like a viper striking at its prey. Within a split second my arm was back where it belonged beneath the covers, as the room began to fill with a gentle whirring and balmy air. I nestled back into my pillow.

  I must have stayed in that pleasant state for around fifteen minutes, somewhere between waking and sleeping, until I heard singing gradually amplifying and I reluctantly opened my eyes. I knew it must be five thirty because Nocturns had begun. The gentle, sweet sound of the nuns’ hymn was too hard to resist. Like Scooby Doo transported through the air alongside the smell of some delicious food, I floated through the convent and accessed the Chapel through a special door, one which only guests could use. This entrance led to a small balcony that overlooked the interior of the church: the main door to the right which admitted people all day, the rows of pews and therefore the tops of various heads dotted here and there, and the altar on which the monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament (the holy ‘wafer’) was glowing like a golden halo as the sun rose through the windows. I could only see one nun at the altar and she was kneeling in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, completely motionless – she could have been embalmed and propped there. Certainly she reminded me of the increasingly common practice of ‘lifelike’ embalming which had occurred several times in the past year. These muerto parado, or ‘standing dead’, were created by an enterprising undertaker who preserved the deceased in lifelike postures after death, even positioning them so that they could attend their own funerals and eternally carry out their favourite pastimes. An eighty-three-year-old New Orleans socialite was posed with a pink feather boa and a glass of champagne; a Puerto Rican man was placed on his favourite motorcycle; one woman was propped up with a beer in one hand and a menthol cigarette in the other.

  But there was no smoking or drinking here, alive or dead. This was a convent that practised ‘Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament’, which meant that someone had to be in front of that wafer, on their knees, 24/7; sometimes members of the congregation and sometimes nuns. There was a sign-up sheet at the front of the church with a timetable on it and any devotional gaps not filled by worshippers were taken by the inhabitants of the small convent. The reason I couldn’t see the singing nuns and only hear them is that they were a cloistered community and spent as much of their time as possible out of sight, somewhere to the side of the main altar. This was no upbeat Gospel Choir song and dance – it was first thing in the morning, yet their gentle, ethereal harmony was like a lullaby trying to entice me back to sleep. I closed my eyes and sagged against my chair but I didn’t fall asleep. I let the sound wash over and through me. I tried to make my mind blank – something I’d been practising a lot – and instead just absorb the melody. During the quieter parts of the refrain I could hear the birds singing outside, their dawn chorus joining with that of the nuns.

  I was completely at peace.

  * * *

  Every mortuary facility should have a place for patients to be viewed, in peace and privacy, if possible. However, some mortuaries are too small or too busy so funeral directors always have places for viewings, with larger firms having several rooms for multiple viewings. In all of these buildings the Chapel of Rest was the place in which viewings would occur. I say was because in our current, secular society we now call these areas Viewing Rooms. It’s less specific to certain religions so it’s less offensive, but the phrase still doesn’t have the same sense of peace that comes with ‘Chapel of Rest’. Peace is important for families viewing their deceased loved ones, but it had also always been important for me. From my very first days dozing contentedly at J. Ellwoods and Sons Funeral Directors in Worthing, via my time trying to obtain some distance from the Terror Trio, right through to me spending my lunch breaks in the tiny hospital church at St Martin’s after my miscarriage, these ‘chapels’ had been my sanctuary. I’m not a religious person, at least not in the traditional sense, and I embrace all forms of worship as well as respect people’s decisions not to worship at all. However, the solitude and silence of these solemn places – whether the magnificent Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul or that tiny yet phenomenal bone-strewn church, the Sedlec Ossuary, near Prague – have always been a comfort to me. I’ve often wondered if one of the reasons I wanted to work with the deceased was because I craved the silence, the stillness, the sense of something sacred.

  I was once asked in an interview ‘If you weren’t an anatomical pathology technologist, what would you be?’ and on impulse I replied, ‘A nun.’ I remember the writer of the feature practically spluttering down the phone, ‘I have never in all my years heard that one before!’

  Of course, I could never really be a nun – I love cocktails and silk nightgowns and red lipstick too much. And I knew that for sure after having had a short trial, while I was try
ing to gain a little bit of peace by proxy to take away. Just like the deceased, those who choose to be ‘consecrated religious’ exist at the periphery of both the mundane and the awesome.

  * * *

  Most mortuary viewing rooms have a comfortable sofa and sometimes chairs; they have soft carpets and muted lighting, and often fresh flowers. There isn’t usually a piece of furniture for the deceased in the room because they will be prepped outside it on a trolley, usually in the fridge room – a ‘transition’ or ‘orange’ area, depending on where you are. Only after prepping will they make their short journey into the womb-like comfort of the viewing chamber.

  It’s a stark contrast. The fridge room’s fluorescent lights are just as unforgiving to the deceased as they are the living (consider your reflection when confronted with industrial lights in public bathrooms: the horror … the horror). But in this situation it’s helpful for us APTs because seeing the decedent in stark light at their very worst means we can attempt to rectify every detail so the next of kin can view with peace of mind. We aren’t embalmers, though, and just as with reconstruction our techniques are limited. We don’t use cosmetics, and try to keep to minimally invasive methods to hide imperfections. For example, if the decedent’s mouth is gaping like Ghostface from the Scream films we avoid suturing them shut. Instead, we place extra pillows behind the head so that the chin rests on the chest and naturally closes the mouth. If that doesn’t work, we can use chin collars: thin pale plastic devices shaped like two rounded triangles connected at an obtuse angle. These press on the chest and push up the jaw at the same time but due to their colour and opacity they can barely be seen. Very often, we have to take forceps and place pieces of cotton wool into the nostrils to absorb fluids. It can’t be helped – if the deceased is ‘purging’ from their nose there is no way we can allow a viewer to experience that. Cotton wool is also handy for closing eyelids which won’t stay shut: we take tiny pieces and place them in the eye before closing – nowhere near as large as the pieces I’d use in reconstruction – and the friction stops the serous (slippery) inner eyelid membrane from sliding back up the eyeball. I know, I know, it doesn’t sound pleasant, but after viewing it can be removed and no damage is done. The eyes can still be removed for corneal transplant and vitreous can still be aspirated. Consider instead the embalmers’ apparatus, the ‘eye cap’, which is a plastic half-sphere covered in spikes which hook into the eyelid skin forcing them shut, never to be removed again. We do what we can with very little, and ultimately it means a decedent is left with a natural look of ‘gentle repose’ and nothing that we’ve done is permanent or invasive. That, as APTs, is our brief.

  Why do we carry out these viewings, particularly if we have little space, time and equipment for them? Sometimes, it is simply so that the deceased can be identified before they undergo a post-mortem – and that’s another reason we change the face as little as possible: we need them to be familiar to the person doing the ID. Other times, it really is a case of a family or friend or partner needing to see their loved one – needing to know they are dead – before they can move on with funeral arrangements and paperwork. It’s therefore not possible for us to recommend they wait until the deceased is at the funeral director’s because without this validation a funeral may never happen. We have to help some people work through their denial of the death, particularly if it was sudden.

  * * *

  In the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction, the protagonists, Vincent and Jules, retrieve a briefcase for gangster Marsellus Wallace. When the briefcase is opened using a numeric combination we, the viewer, only see a golden glow reflected on to Vincent’s face, never the actual contents. This has led to a lot of speculation about what the case contained: gold bullion, a small nuclear device, Elvis’s gold suit or something else? The most prevalent theory is that the case contained the soul of Wallace who had sold it to the Devil and wanted it returned – a theory backed by the ‘666’ combination of the briefcase and biblical passages peppered through the film thanks to the articulate and religious hitman Jules.

  Vincent’s experience happened to me one morning when I opened one of the fridges at St Martin’s and was bathed in a gentle silver light. This was unusual because body fridges aren’t like the ones we have at home: they don’t have a light in them for us to be able to reach to the back and grab a snack. They’re always dark. I was confused for a moment, blinking against the light and wondering, ‘Am I seeing a soul leaving a body? Is it a Guardian Angel? Could it all be real?’ But eventually my eyes adjusted and I realised the light was being emitted from a white body bag. Intrigued, I opened the bag and inside it I found a torch, the light of which was much stronger now that it was uncovered. Somebody had turned on a torch and placed it in the body bag overnight with the deceased.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ I heard, suddenly. Roxy, a young spunky APT with the most enviable figure I’d ever seen in real life, was halfway down the fridge room teaching our new trainee, Kathy, the process of measuring and checking bodies. She had seen the light – not spiritually, but literally – and started to make her way towards me, asking Kathy to ‘Bring that register, will you?’

  ‘It’s a torch, but I’m not quite sure why,’ I said as I racked my brain trying to remember why this would be in here. When studying to be an APT it’s imperative that we learn about various religions and their death customs so we can fully respect different families’ wishes. This is why, over the years, I had become more and more familiar with different paths and begun to ask questions of religion and existence myself. It seemed to be a part of advancing through my career, just something that came up on a daily basis. As a Senior it would look pretty poor if I couldn’t explain this unusual and rare death ritual to the other staff so I was relieved when information started to come back to me.

  ‘Kathy, does it say in the book this person is Zoroastrian at all?’ I could only think of two possible reasons for this unexpected light show, and Zoroastrianism was one of them.

  ‘It doesn’t say anything,’ she said. ‘But what made you think of that?’

  Zoroastrians from Parsee or Persian descent have one of the most interesting and elaborate death rituals in the world – the famed ‘Towers of Silence’. Because those of Zoroastrian faith believe that the decaying corpse can contaminate the elements (especially sacred are Earth and Fire), their traditional method of disposal in India is to allow the deceased to be defleshed or ‘excarnated’, usually by vultures, from these special towers. The process should leave only bones which are bleached by the sun, usually once a year has passed, and pushed into an ossuary pit in the middle of the tower. (Humans during the Neolithic era practised funerary cannibalism for similar reasons. It was seen as more respectful to consume our dead rather than leave them in the dirt or burn them – a case of ‘better in than out’.) In the UK at the moment there are no such towers, so Zoroastrians usually opt to be cremated and their ashes interred in a place specific to their religion: part of Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Brookwood is the largest cemetery in the UK, created in 1852 specifically for the Necropolis Railway to convey the dead from London to the outskirts. At the time, the city was so full of corpses people were literally tripping over them. The Necropolis train, unbelievably, had first-, second- and third-class tickets for the coffins – and they were, of course, all one-way tickets.

  Zoroastrian rituals do frequently involve fire, just not in the usual form of cremation, leading some people to call them ‘fire worshippers’. According to some information, after a death a fire is lit and kept burning for three days. I surmised that this torch was some form of ‘proxy fire’ to be kept turned on and to stay with the deceased for the next few days. I explained this to the girls, adding, ‘Also, there are two sacred garments associated with Zoroastrians: the sudreh and kusti.’ I opened the bag further and said, ‘Look. The sudreh is a sacred shirt, like a white vest, symbolising purity and renewal. The kusti is a long cord tied round the waist. It has seventy
-two strands, symbolising the seventy-two chapters of their holy book.’ Both of these objects were present on the deceased, so the mystery, it seemed, had been solved.

  As I closed the bag, leaving the torch on, Roxy said, ‘That’s a bit like the Sikhs with their Kesh, Kangha, Kara, Kirpan and Kachera, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, a lot like that,’ I agreed. She was referring to the five sacred objects of Sikhism: the bangle, uncut hair, dagger, shorts and wooden comb. ‘I’ll buy you a pint later if you can tell me which one is which though,’ I added, while winking at Kathy, who looked pretty puzzled. It was clear she had no idea what we were talking about but, as a trainee, she had begun her journey and would learn just as much as we had, in time.

  * * *

  I had seen a light associated with death before, but in a different context. In the Jewish tradition, for example, the deceased are not supposed to be left alone right up until the funeral: candles are lit around the body and the deceased should be accompanied by someone at all times as a sign of respect. These guards or keepers are known as shomerim and act in a similar way to those who carry out the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: they don’t leave the deceased’s side until someone else comes to relieve them. It’s a beautiful concept but one that isn’t practical in the modern era. Unfortunately, when a Jewish person dies and they’re brought to the mortuary they are placed into the fridge like everyone else to ensure the natural process of decay is delayed. Then the porters have to leave, locking up the facility behind them. They can’t allow family members to hang around in the closed dark fridge room because it contains multitudes of other deceased patients, as well as private information. A compromise seems to have been created in the form of night lights which I’ve seen some mortuaries plug into viewing-room wall sockets whenever a Jewish viewing is to take place, then moved to the fridge room once the deceased is placed back in the fridge.