This might sound morbid but since I’m sitting here dressed like Morticia Addams anyway, plus I thoroughly enjoyed the post this morning by Richard Axtell, I’m going to say that if I could step into anyone’s shoes for a day it would be a funeral director.
It was actually a career I pursued at one time. I’ve always been sort of fascinated by what happens when you die and it doesn’t make me the least bit squeamish.
After high school I applied to work in several funeral homes, there were two in my hometown and then others in surrounding towns and cities. They were all family run businesses however and at that time, none were hiring outsiders. Especially those with no experience. I kicked myself that I didn’t take Cosmetology in high school because then at least I’d have those skills to offer, doing hair and makeup on the bodies.
In my twenty-four years of working as a nurse, I’ve witnessed many deaths. Held the hands of the dying. Hugged and comforted family members after the pronouncement of death. I really enjoyed that part of nursing, as I know it’s not for everyone, yet to me it really made sense.
Each death was a different experience. In the best case scenario, it’s a journey each person takes, not in pain and with loved ones around you. And physically, what happens to the body in death is, to me, really interesting.
Yet I never got to see what happens beyond the part where the funeral home people come and pick up the body and take it away. I imagine you’d have to be someone who can control their emotions and not turn them off per se, but really dial it down. I always thought I fit that description.
The embalming process itself I think would be interesting too. What exactly happens in the days between the body going to the funeral home on the stretcher and the actual viewing and funeral ceremony.
Maybe it piques my interest because, luckily, I’ve never had to plan a funeral for a loved one, or anyone. So it’s mysterious to me.
It does sound morbid but death is all around us. It’s not something that is waiting at a finish line, AFTER you get to do all the things you wanted to do in life. It doesn’t work that way. We’re all carrying an invisible number and when it’s time, it’s time.
I think it needs to be more of an open conversation and I think we need to live like we are dying. That’s not a dark and weird concept, not to me anyway. To me, it’s looking our mortality in the eye and saying yeah, I know you’re there, I know it’s going to happen, but in the meantime I’m going to make the best of it.
bloom.planted.north 
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