Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential - Undertakers Spill the Dirt

The first story in this section is certainly a “curveball,” but not because of the preparation. The fireworks didn’t start until well after the body was embalmed, and the brother of the dead man came in to view the body. I think the problem was that he embalmed him too well; you can judge for yourself in “The Man Who Cheated Death.”

This section is a behind-the-scenes look at how we go about creating a suitable “memory portrait” (through embalming, dressing, casketing, and cosmetizing) of the decedent for the family. So come, join us for a little art, science…and makeup.

Contributed by a member of the Sunday Martini Club

Iremember well the first body I embalmed solo, but maybe for different reasons than other embalmers remember their firsts. I followed this particular call from the removal to the burial, and it was my first experience outside the classroom as a “real” bona fide undertaker.

The mortuary received the death call sometime in the early afternoon and I went with a colleague to the man’s house to make the removal. He died in a hospital bed set up in the living room. It had been a slow death; I could tell by the lines of pain frozen into the features of his face and the lines of worry etched into his widow’s face. The terminal illness had left a man dead and a woman not quite alive.

I offered my condolences. The widow wept. My co-worker and I did our jobs.

When we got back to the mortuary, my colleague had a bereaved family of his own coming in to make funeral arrangements and left me to my own devices. “You going to be all right?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I replied. “I know what I’m doing.”

He looked at me with concern. “You ever done one by yourself?” The man was a seasoned embalmer, and generally a nice person. The implication in his voice was: This could be a difficult case.

I sidestepped the question. “I’ll be fine. I promise. And if I need help I’ll just wait until you’re done with your arrangements.”

He nodded, seemed satisfied, and went to meet with his family. I had just recently gotten my license and had only started working for the firm two weeks prior. I had been closely monitored and trained during my first two weeks, but on this day we happened to be especially busy, so there was nobody to help me in the preparation room. This was to be my first solo embalming trip.

Death hadn’t spared this poor soul’s dignity—as it never seems to. “Death be not proud,” I muttered the line from Donne as I undressed the man on the embalming table, “though some have called thee—.” I had been a literature major at East Carolina, and after a brief, failed stint in the publishing industry, I had left disillusioned and broken. In the words of Wordsworth, I took a lesson from the dog and returned to what I knew; what I had grown up with—undertaking.

I washed the gentleman down and proceeded to embalm what was left of his earthly remains. Sometimes an illness can really destroy human tissues, leaving them difficult to embalm, but not with this gentleman. He took the embalming solution as though he had the vascular system of a man in his twenties. For my first solo job I was duly impressed with myself. His tissues were firm; he had good skin color and his facial features looked peaceful. Success. That night, I went home and made myself my favorite, an extra dry Kettel One martini with three blue-cheese-stuffed olives to celebrate my first solo embalming.

I made arrangements with the widow the next day. Together, we got all the details of the service set and then she proceeded to pour her heart out to me across the desk. Her husband had done everything for her. She was utterly lost without him. They hadn’t been able to bear children and he was all she had in this life. I felt for the woman; I really did, and I did my best to comfort her.

On the morning of the viewing, I dressed the gentleman in a three-piece navy blue chalk stripe suit, white french cuff shirt with gold engraved cuff links, and an Italian silk gold patterned tie. I laid him out in his solid-walnut, half-couch casket and arranged him so he looked comfortable in the plush champagne-colored velvet interior. I wheeled the casket up under the torchiere lights and applied his makeup, combed his hair, put his glasses on, and placed his rosary in his hands. I stepped back, and I remember thinking to myself, not too shabby for my first.

I set up the flowers around the casket and arranged the family photos so that visiting friends could mosey around the parlor and look at them as though they were in the man’s own living room. I polished his alto sax and placed it on its stand near the head end of the casket. After that, I filled in a guest book, printed up service brochures and memorial book marks, and lit a personalized vigil candle.

The wife was coming in to spend some private time with her husband before the viewing began. As the time drew closer I set out a fresh pitcher of water, put the dead man’s favorite CD on at just the right volume, and checked and re-checked all my handiwork. Everything was perfect. I headed back into the office for my tie and jacket before I met the widow. As I bustled out of the office into the lobby, there was the widow with…the dead man!

There he stood in all his glory. Three-piece navy chalk stripe suit. White shirt. Gold silk tie. Glasses. The dead man was standing in the lobby with his wife. Alive! Talking to her! I felt like I had been sucker punched.

He turned and smiled at me.

The room started to spin, and I got tunnel vision. I grabbed onto the wall as my knees buckled.

To this day I’m glad I didn’t faint because the widow walked over to me and said, “Joe, I’d like you to meet Adam’s twin brother, Carter. Carter, this is the young man who has been so helpful to me.”

I wiped the sweat off my brow with my suit sleeve and staggered over to the deceased’s brother and introduced myself. After which, I stepped back, somewhat recovered, and said, “Do you have ESP or something? Your brother is wearing the exact same thing!” I laughed nervously, still wanting to go in the parlor and check to make sure that the casket was occupied, because I was beginning to have serious doubts. This man looked exactly like the man I had injected with four gallons of formalin solution.

“Identical twins can just sense these things,” Carter said, deadpan.

I laughed nervously again until the widow scolded, “Carter, stop it!” She elbowed him in the ribs. “They both wore matching outfits to Carter’s grandson’s wedding six months ago.” Then she said in a conspiratorial tone to me, “They both have the same sense of humor.”

With that, Carter let out a chuckle. “You should have seen the look on your face, son!” he roared. “You thought—You thought—”

I started laughing and so did Adam’s wife, until we were all laughing like maniacs. After that, I knew Adam’s wife would be all right. With a family like that, how could she not be?

Later that evening, after the viewing, I called my former boss’s house. “Harper Mortuary,” my ex-boss’s wife chirped. I had worked for them in high school, earning extra money, cutting the grass, parking cars at funerals, and taking flowers to the cemetery.

“Hey Jen,” I said and proceeded to tell her the whole tale.

She laughed. “It took almost five years of Dale being in the business until that happened to him, but the twin didn’t wear the same thing to the viewing. Wait until I tell him! He’ll love it.”

When I hung up the phone, my thoughts still on Adam’s widow, I said softly to no one in particular as I mixed an extra dry martini, one of my favorite Shakespearean lines: “No longer mourn for me when I’m dead—”