Friday, August 26, 2011

The Mortician's Daughter

Growing up the daughter of a mortician is an interesting upbringing. I saw my first dead body at age 5. Dead bodies just weren't a big deal to me. I would often go to work with my dad and watch him work (embalm bodies). My dad was very funny and strange, and so were the other morticians.  I guess you would have to be, to be in that business. Being there was always a lot of fun. When I was really little they would all let me try out all of the coffins and lay in them. That is really sort of creepy if I think back about it.

There were some things that happened that were a bit odd though...for example, I remember one time my dad bringing home some white sneakers with flecks of blood on them. A woman was wearing them when she was hit by a car and died. My dad thought I would like the shoes. He said to me, "Mom can get the blood right out of those..."

One other time he brought home a pair of grey sweatpants. He held them up to me and said "Looks like they'll fit." Turns out they were worn on a teenaged boy who hung himself in his parents' basement. Those grey sweatpants sat folded on a table in the laundry room for 2 years because no one wanted to touch them. My point is, what totally freaks out a normal person, is an every day sort of occurrence to a mortician...you know, perfectly good clothes that shouldn't go to waste. Ewwwww!

I remember one of my first dates with my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, was spent at the mortuary. We were hanging out there while my dad worked and embalmed bodies. We were playing cards and there was a ROW of feet in front of us - dead bodies waiting for their turn in the embalming room. My dad even let me put makeup on a corpse that night. It was creepy doing her nails and putting on her makeup - she was stiff, like a doll, not human... My dad was a big jokester and would have a blast at work while he worked on the bodies. But, then the phone would ring and he would immediately become another person because the person on the other end of the line was most likely someone who had a family member just die and need someone to come pick it up. So, he would immediately switch from the jokester to a sincere, soft spoken and caring man. It really was amazing to see...like a light switch.

One other time I was clearing out the garage of my parents' home and I found an actual body...ok not a real body, but a cremated one! I found the ashes of someone in a box with their name and dates of birth and death. It had been there since the 1970's. I asked my dad about it and he said he must have put it on the shelf for some reason and forgot about it. He said that a lot of people would not pick up ashes of loved ones, or that person didn't have relatives, and so those ashes would just sit on a shelf in the mortuatry forever. How sad. He must have had it in his hearse and then set it on the shelf for some reason. So anyway, that "body" was returned to the mortuary, and there she will sit for probably, eternity.

I'm trying to think of more interesting stories and I realized there are just too many and this blog could go on forever. It certainly was an interesting childhood growing up the daughter of a mortician. Have you ever seen My Girl (the movie)? I always loved that movie because it reminded me of my life.  So anyway, maybe I will share more stories someday about being the Mortician's Daughter. I even wanted to be a mortician when I grew up but then I realized how hard Science and Chemistry are and I said FORGET THAT SH*T! :-)


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