Thursday, April 22, 2010
Lingering effects
It was the night shift at Warren-McElwain Mortuary, 120 West 13th St., that Zach Kastens still can't get over.
The mortuary doesn't pay an hourly wage to the night attendants like some other funeral homes. Instead, two students receive free rent in their own apartment at the funeral home in exchange for being on call to retrieve bodies from homes, nursing homes and hospitals.
Kastens, a senior from Atwood, took the job as a freshman, enticed by the prospect of free rent. He quickly realized that being surrounded by death was more than he could handle.
For Kastens, keeping the families and the deceased at a distance proved to be too difficult. Kastens still thinks and worries about his own death often.
"It brings deaths to the front of your mind," he said.
Seeing families being pressured to show love through spending on funerals also turned him off.
Now he works as a DJ for weddings, a job that seems like the polar opposite to the funeral industry, but he sees an eerie parallel to how customers are pressured into spending.
For the dead, the funeral was "this is the last thing you'll ever do for this person," he said. "And in weddings it's 'this is the most important day of your life.'"
THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The job of undertaker is a lot like a doctor — always on call.
But in this business, no one is ever saved.
At Rumsey-Yost, Todd Miller and other students trade off nights sleeping in a small room on the third floor. When a nursing home, hospital or family calls, they throw on a suit and tie and quickly retrieve the dead.
Miller moves the corpse onto a stretcher and covers it in a maroon velvet body bag. Overnight, the body will stay in the coolness of the basement until Foley or another embalmer arrives in the morning.
Only a few feet away are the two options — the crematory and the entrance to the embalming room. Not a long journey.
Local funeral homes see this 24/7 service as part of their duty in serving bereaved families.
"We're always here," funeral director Patty Dardis said. "It doesn't matter if we were just sitting down to Christmas dinner."
Dardis says funeral directors must find a way to separate grief and sorrow at work from the happiness of home life, just as doctors can't bring every patient's illness home with them.
To the embalmers, this level of separation is also vital to their success.
After letting the body firm up, Foley and Miller now set out to beautify the corpse — the last step.
Once the cadaver is completely sealed, the two dress the body, usually in clothes picked out by the family. Underwear, socks and a bra are all draped on the deceased. No detail is left out. The shirt, jacket or dress is cut down the back to make manipulating the stiff arms easier. The same goes for the pants. The shoes can also be cut if there's any trouble getting them on.
The face and hands are then stained a more lifelike color. They fix the hair just as the person wore it in life and apply makeup. A lift lowers the body from the table into the casket, the head cradled by a plush pillow, tilted slightly to the right for easy viewing. The elbows rest on blocks hidden under the casket lining to keep the arms from falling. The hands are set on the abdomen, one over the other. The goal is to make the body look as though it's enjoying peaceful sleep.
Miller says he treats every body as respectfully as if it were his own grandmother, but it's not as if he is actually caring for a living person.
In the embalming room, Mr. Smith is no longer Mr. Smith. He's an object to be preserved and dressed up.
Though they don't know the person in the coffin, Miller and Foley take great care in this process. This is their gift to the family, the most important result of their labor.
Regardless of what critics say about embalming, cremation and the financial and environmental costs of the funeral industry, this is what a majority of grieving families choose.
Embalmed, buried, cremated or donated to medical science, the physical body remains the centerpiece of American death rituals. It allows them to grieve the loss of a loved one and perhaps to catch a glimpse of what inevitably waits in the future.
The truth is, this entire process isn't for the dead.
In the end, the dead won't see the embalming room in the basement. They won't feel the blood being sucked out of their bodies or smell the formaldehyde as it's pushed through their veins. They won't feel the pain of sharp tools jabbing into their abdomens or the searing heat of the cremation oven.
They won't enjoy the comfort of the lush, silky mattress that lines their polished coffin. They won't see their precisely styled hair or marvel at the granite headstone over their grave.
By the time the mourners gather, the dead are no longer present, at least not in this world. But they have left behind remains for others to mourn and remember as the body is shown, the casket is closed and the grave covered with dirt.
No, this process is all for the living.
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