by Todd Harra
I looked at her peculiarly and replied, “The Allen funeral.”
“Who?”
“The interment I’ve got here today.”
She looked at me for a second and said, “We only had one on the books for today and it’s already come in.”
As I uttered the words, “What are you talking about?” it hit me. I hadn’t ordered the grave! I could tell by the look on her face she was thinking the exact same thing. At that point, for a fleeting few moments, I honestly considered just slipping out the back door and hitchhiking home. But instead I said, “How quickly can you set up a mock site?” I asked her.
“I’ll call the guys right now. Give us fifteen minutes.”
“You’re a lifesaver!”
As I walked out to the idling procession stretching out thirty cars down the cemetery drive, a thousand lies swirled through my head, but were interrupted by the pastor rolling down his car window and shouting none-too-kindly, “What’s the hold-up? I’ve got other things to do today!”
I sidled up to his window and growled, “Take it easy. There’s going to be a slight delay.”
Obviously agitated, he shouted at me, “I told you I could do this funeral if it was over by one o’clock and it’s one now!”
“Look,” I snapped at him, “if you want to leave, go ahead. I’ve got the Book of Common Prayer in the hearse. I’ll say the interment rites.”
If looks could have killed I would have been dead and buried right there. He emitted a humph, crossed his arms, and stared straight ahead. I took that to mean he was going to wait.
I strolled back another car and motioned for the son of the deceased to get out of his car.
“What’s the hold-up?” he asked me.
He was a really nice guy, and I decided honesty was the best policy no matter how stupid it made me look. Imagine, one of the biggest parts of my job—ordering the grave—and I can’t even remember to do that! My face was scarlet and I thought my heart would explode out of my chest when I said, “Look, Brad, to be totally honest with you, I forgot to order the grave opening, so they’re arranging a false setup. Once everyone leaves I’ll wait around until they dig the grave and put your mother in.”
He chuckled. “That’s no problem, Rob. Don’t feel bad.”
“Well, I—”
Brad interrupted me. “Just last week I accidentally sent a shipment to the wrong location.”
“This is a little different,” I protested. Once again, I felt about six inches tall. “And not nearly as embarrassing.”
“Hardly. I sent a shipment of beef, the holy cow, to an Indian restaurant. Big customer. My boss was less than pleased.”
I felt better and laughed a little. “That sounds bad, but believe me. I am the king of embarrassment. I could tell you some stories.”
“So could I,” Brad said and rolled his eyes with an I-know-what-you-mean look.
“But this is inexcusable—”
“Like I said, it’s no big deal. You’ve done a lot for my family in the past couple of days. You’re allowed a mistake or two once in a while.” He pounded me on the back. “We’ll just hang tight until you’re ready to roll. By the way, once you’ve finished up, you’re welcome to come back to the country club and have lunch with us.”
“Er, thanks?” I stammered.
When I climbed back into the hearse my colleague looked at me and said, “How’d it go?”
“Considering the fact that we’re in the cemetery with his mother and no place to put her, he’s pretty calm.” I paused. “He invited us to lunch after we finally get his mother buried.”
My colleague laughed. “Sometimes I think you have a horseshoe up your ass.”
“I’ll tell you this much. I’m not going to that luncheon. I’m going to find a very small, dark hole and crawl into it and stay there for a very long time.”
After we wrapped things up at the grave and the family was leaving, I walked them back to their cars. Brad, as gracious as a human could ever be, sidled up to me. “So Rob, are you going to join us at the luncheon and regale me with reasons why you, and not I, hold the crown for embarrassment?”
As if to prove my point, I tripped over a memorial marker and face-planted.
CHAPTER 40
Third from Right
Contributed by a car enthusiast
I dressed up a woman like she was going out for Halloween when I wasn’t supposed to… but not really. It’s complicated. Let me explain.
I always ask the family for a photo of the deceased if it’s a woman. The photo helps with makeup and hairstyling. Men generally don’t require a photo. You don’t want them to look like they have makeup on so you just use a little color to give them a ruddy complexion. But with women you need to know what colors to use where, how much makeup they used, and what type.
A woman named Karen died and her family came in to make arrangements. When I asked about the clothes, the family told me that Karen’s best friend would be bringing them by the following day. I reminded them to have the neighbor bring in a photo of Karen so the hair stylist would know how to do her hair.
The following day, the friend brought in Karen’s clothes and a photo. The photo had obviously been taken some time ago, perhaps in the late seventies or early eighties. It was a photo of eight women who were obviously at a party. They were lined up in front of a fireplace; all bore the silly expressions of women who had indulged in too many libations and gossip over the course of the evening. I commented on what a great picture it was and the neighbor informed me that the photo was of the founding members of their neighborhood garden club. She added that she was the only living member left of the original group. We talked a little about her departed friends, and I could tell she loved reminiscing about them. As she was leaving, I remembered I had failed to ask which one was the decedent. I called after the neighbor, “Which one is Karen?”
“Third from the right,” she replied and ducked out the front door.
I was pleased that the woman in the photo enjoyed color, style, and fashion. Even though thirty years ago she was in her middle forties, she looked great. She was fit and tan, and leaning on her two friends flanking her, grinning a silly drunken grin. She had great big black eyelashes and light blue eye shadow topped off by a great big beehive hairdo that was Lucille Ball red.
The poor woman must have had a rough time near the end because she didn’t look much like her old self. Her flamboyant red hair had turned gray and she had let it grow down to her waist. I called the family and got permission to dye the hair to the color in the photo. They assured me they loved that photo. In fact, their exact words were, “That’s her. Do whatever you can to make her look like she did in that photo.”
I did.
Unfortunately, the dress they brought in was lackluster compared to the fashionable empire style diamond print mini-dress in the photo. The pastel colored short skirt in the photo featured her muscular legs, and the mint colored sleeveless blouse showcased her ample bosom. The dress the neighbor had brought in was a shapeless brown thing, not even fit for a woman of such style. To say it had no pizzazz would be an understatement; it looked like a monk’s robe. I picked up a mauve silk scarf at Goodwill and a big belt that I placed high around her waist in the typical seventies style to dress her up a little.
She was beginning to look like the photo.
Once the hair stylist dyed her hair, trimmed it up a bit, and styled it in a beautiful beehive hairdo, she looked almost like her old self. I added some fake eyelashes, thick mascara, and blue eye shadow to complete her makeover, but something was missing. I wiped off the burgundy colored lipstick the friend had brought in and reapplied a loud, light pink lipstick just like she wore in the photo.
Perfect! I thought, stepping back and taking a look at the finished product. The family is going to love the way she turned out!
The next day the members of the family came in before the viewing began. I assembled them in the lobby and took them all in. T
he two daughters and son walked up to the casket and I heard a collective gasp followed by a loud, “What the hell?”
I rushed up to see what was the matter and the eldest daughter turned to me and pointed a finger at me and wailed, “What did you do to my mother? She looks like a clown!”
“I—I—I tried to make her look like the picture! I’m sorry if you’re not pleased—”
The son roared, “We sure as hell aren’t—”
One of the daughters cut him off, “But her hair!”
“You told me I could dye it like the picture!” I protested.
“You idiot,” the son yelled. “It’s red!”
Then it dawned on me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But your mother’s friend told me your mother was third from the right.”
I pointed to the picture I had left lying at the foot of the casket.
“Oh God,” the son groaned, looking at the picture, “she’s third from the left! You made her look like Mrs. MacDonnell!”
I rushed over to get a closer look at the photo. The woman third from the left, though looking nothing like the decedent, had longish blond hair and wore a simple floral print dress. And though she had the same silly grin as Mrs. MacDonnell, she wore none of the thick makeup. In fact, she wore none at all, except for a trace of burgundy colored lipstick.
The neighbor who had given me the photo walked up to the casket to see what all the commotion was about and recoiled in revulsion. “Who is that?” she demanded.
“You told the undertaker mom was third from the right,” the son said quietly.
The look of horror that crossed the woman’s face was almost comical. I could tell she wanted to run and hide. “Oh dear,” was all she could utter. She looked at me with a look that said, Did I?
I nodded at her solemnly and put my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry,” I assured the three children and neighbor. “I can fix this. Give me fifteen minutes.” I ushered them out of the parlor and re-appeared twenty minutes later, my shirt soaked through with perspiration. She looked as close to the picture as I could muster, except her hair was the wrong color for the viewing.
The next day she was third from left. And her hair was blond.
PART V
In Our Private Lives
Do undertakers have a private life? Good question… I don’t know. Maybe you can answer that question after reading this section and weighing in on some of the contributors’ answers. But to be a little more objective, let me clarify.
As the handlers of the dead, we don’t get off Christmas Day, New Year’s, or the 4th of July. We may have some hours to devote to our family on those holidays, or on Sundays, but if you call us we’ll be over. We have 24-hour business hours. We never close for re-modeling, have a snow day, or cancel events due to inclement weather. We socialize with a pager attached to the hip and sleep with a phone next to our bed, and, as you’ll see in one of mine, “The First Date,” we sacrifice love for work.
I guess you could say that our private lives are inextricably intertwined with our professional lives. That kind of commingling can lead to some… odd, private moments. Ken still has the feather in his desk that you’ll read about in “Feathers and Fridges.”
Not only do we eat, sleep, and breathe our ministry—our calling—some of us, hell, most of us work with family and live at the funeral home. Can you imagine living where you work? Pitching a tent in your cubicle? It would be the same thing! Because it’s often hard to walk that line separating our business and personal lives, it is important for us to have activities outside the profession. That’s why we identified contributors by their outside hobbies or interests. And believe it or not, we do have interests outside of our thanatological (translation: death and dying) pursuits.
The stress of the job can sometimes lead to strained family situations and personal problems. Ken is a perfect example. The daily stresses of running the mortuary he started almost fifteen years ago gradually built up and manifested themselves in a disease that is common in a lot of high-stress jobs—alcoholism. In a recent conversation we had, he was recounting stories about both his grandmothers, who sadly died during the writing of this book. He told me one grandmother, to whom this book is dedicated, told him before he started in the profession, “If you’re going to be a funeral director, make sure you watch your drinking. Every funeral director I know is a raging alcoholic!” After their deaths, Ken had an epiphany and started treatment. He is now taking one day at a time and has a new, positive outlook on his life and profession.
I hope that if you take anything away from this book, it’s a new outlook on those of us that ply the death trade. When we come home every night (or, in some cases, upstairs in the funeral home) and take off our hats and kick our feet up, we’re just the same as you… but call us, and we’ll gladly put that hat right back on for you.
CHAPTER 41
Feathers and Fridges
Contributed by a community philanthropist
I began handling Mrs. Bingen’s family about ten years ago when her son unexpectedly died. I just happened to be assigned to make the funeral arrangements that day. It was a tough funeral, the kind that tears at the emotional fabric of the soul. Tragic death. Young man. Mrs. Bingen and I connected on an emotional level during the time we were together. It’s never a joyous occasion when you need the services of a member of my profession, but it’s nice to find someone you can trust to make sure your loved one is taken care of properly. Mrs. Bingen found me and from that point on I’ve been handling all of Mrs. Bingen’s family.
Those ten years since her son’s death were tough ones. I handled her parents, an aunt, and finally, her husband. I think the strain of all the deaths combined with her advancing age may have affected her mind. Towards the end of that ten-year stretch, I really didn’t even know her anymore; she got a little loopy.
One morning I pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home and I could’ve sworn I saw Mrs. Bingen leaving in the backseat of a taxi. I waved. The woman in the taxi didn’t. I pushed the thought from my mind and went inside.
“Hi Fiona,” I greeted the receptionist as I usually did.
“Er, Ken,” she said. “I have something for you.” She held out a battered shoebox.
“What is it?” I demanded. I was suspicious it was some kind of prank.
“Some strange lady just dropped it off. Said you’d know what to do with it.” Fiona shrugged.
“What was her name?”
“Mrs. Birmingham, I think.” She shrugged again. Fiona shrugs a lot, like she’s never sure about anything. “She was talking really fast, and not making too much sense. Kept saying, ‘Ken will know what to do.’”
“Was her name Bingen?”
“Could have been.” She shrugged. “Like I said, she was talking really fast.”
I took the shoebox and took a peek inside. There, lying in a bed of crumpled newspaper, was a dead green bird. It was pretty good sized, maybe the length of my hand. I showed the contents of the shoebox to Fiona.
“Eww,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “A dead bird!” The tone of her voice suggested that this woman had brought a dead bird to a bakery instead of a mortuary. I didn’t bother pointing that out to Fiona.
“Did she say what she wanted me to do with this?” I asked Fiona, who had now pushed her chair back from her desk to get as far away from the shoebox and the offending bird as possible.
She offered me one of her patented shrugs. “She said she was moving to Illinois and that, ‘Ken will—’”
I finished the sentence, “Know what to do with it. Okay, okay, I get it.”
I called the most recent number I had for Mrs. Bingen. The number had been disconnected. So I pulled up files from the past ten years when I had handled her relatives and found some phone numbers. I called a couple of Mrs. Bingen’s distant relatives listed in the files. Nobody had a forwarding phone number or address, but I left my phone number with each of them. I had no idea what she wanted me to do
with her bird, but I knew I’d hear from her eventually, so I left the bird in the box and labeled it and put it on a shelf in our walk-in refrigerator and kind of forgot about it. We got busy at work, I started some remodeling in the house, and one of my dogs cut his paw on a piece of glass and needed twenty stitches.
About six weeks after Mrs. Bingen dropped her dead bird off, something jogged my memory and I remembered the bird in the refrigerator. I couldn’t leave it there. If the State Board happened to do one of their inspections, they would fine the funeral home for having an animal in the refrigerator, so I went down and retrieved my little charge. The bird at this point was mummified. I took it home in its shoebox, put it on the windowsill in my garage, and once again forgot about it.
Another six weeks passed, or maybe more, and I arrived and greeted Fiona in the same manner I always did.
“Ken, got a message for you,” she said. “Mrs. Birmingham called.”
“Bingen?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. She sounds nuts.”
“She leave a number?”
“No. She just said that someone would be here tomorrow to pick the bird up and drive it to Illinois so she could bury it in a pet cemetery near her new house.”
I laughed, relieved, thankful I hadn’t taken the initiative of having the bird cremated or burying it myself. “Alright. Thanks, Fiona. We get all kinds, don’t we?”
“We sure do,” she replied.
I wrote myself a note, and when I got home that night I put the note under my keys so I would remember to retrieve the bird before I left for work the next day. In the morning I went out to the garage; the door was slightly ajar, almost like it hadn’t closed properly. That’s strange, I thought, and hoisted up the door. My two dogs greeted me from inside the garage. They weren’t supposed to be in the garage. The chocolate Lab ran over, panting and wagging his tail. He was pleased with himself. A green feather hung out of the side of his mouth.
