
What It's Like Working for a Funeral Home - aaronbrethorst
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/what-its-like-working-for-a-funeral-home/Content?oid=21395567
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visakanv
The writer's use of imagery and contrast is pretty powerful. Here are the
quotes that stuck out to me:

> He was curled up like a fetus and in a white plastic bag. It's the same bag
> we put everyone in before we stick them in the cooler along with the others.
> The cooler is a bit like a triple-tiered dorm room, except it's coed and
> everybody in there is dead.

> A urine test later, I was interviewing for the position with the office
> manager. A week after that, I was officially an employee of the booming
> death business.

> Like all customer service jobs, most of the art comes down to language. In
> the death business, every tool has a public and private name. There is the
> "vinyl shroud." It's really just a plastic bag we removal technicians use to
> cover a loved one's body, but "vinyl shroud" makes us seem less like the
> overdressed movers we are.

> After we've got the body on the cot, we'll say our good-byes and go on back
> to the funeral home to tape, label, and store the deceased in a temperature-
> controlled environment. Also known as a walk-in refrigerator. Exactly like
> those you find in ice cream shops.

> Death, as you might expect, has boom and bust cycles. January through March
> tends to be the busiest season, while the summer months seem a bit slower. I
> only worked at the funeral home for a year, but I learned that during the
> boom months, it isn't uncommon for a funeral home to have so many bodies
> they don't know what to do with them.

> There are changes that come over you after you work with the dead. You see
> things differently. You notice weight in not only a cultural context, but
> also a pragmatic one. I can't count the number of times I've been in the
> grocery store and found myself thinking about how if this or that person
> died, how difficult it would be to get them into the van with just two
> people. There is also a sense of commonality that comes with it. You see
> people not as their class or title, but as what we all truly are, bags of
> slimy, gooey muscles and bones.

> And then there is the sadness. For me, my career in the death business
> lasted just over a year. In that time, I would guess I picked up more than
> 500 bodies. All sizes, all shapes, and all ages. There are the elderly, the
> middle-aged, and the young. The expected, the surprised, and the forgotten.
> The kids are the ones you never get used to. It was sad every time, and a
> year was just about as much sadness as I could take. Everyone in the death
> business has their own way of getting around the sadness. Religion, booze,
> and time are the primary prescriptions. Eventually, for me, all it took was
> quitting. And that works for most of us.

An important reminder that we all die. Thanks for sharing.

