Life-Death: A Package Deal

“Death is always with us in the marrow of every moment,” writes Frank Ostaseki, a Buddhist teacher and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care.

You cannot pull life and death apart, and some think we cannot truly live without maintaining an awareness of death. My grandparents probably always lived with this notion. Maybe it was because they had losses in their early life, or lived through the depression, or maybe it was part of their religious faith. I am not sure, but I do remember during our family trips back east, always having to build in time for cemetery visits. We would drive out to the family plots and tombstones to pay resepect, hear stories and have our pictures taken. It was a ritual. The photo above was taken sometime in the early 80’s.

I was always comfortable with being in a cemetery or attending a funeral service (my first was at age 10). Maybe that is why I tried out a job as a funeral director intern. As a career move, it was my 46th paid job. My working career started when I was 13 years old. I worked for my father’s business as a “fill-in” receptionist during the summer of 1979.

My funeral director intern job lasted 90 days—the probabtion time-period companies and employees give each other to see if it will work out. In 90 days time a lot can be revealed. So, approximately 3 months ago I took the job in an unconventional, but necessary industry, the funeral business. I knew very little about the business. A dear friend had worked in the industry for years, and had mentioned to me numerous times that I would make a good funeral director. It did intrigue me, after all I was in the healing business and I have seen dead people (ghosts) and have assisted spirits that were stuck (psychopomp) and I like to help in anyway possible.

In my initial job research I found the one and only funeral home I wanted to work at. It didn’t seem depressing or ancient minded, but forward thinking with a good ethos. It was a small company, only 4 employees, with low overhead and offered good prices for arrangement services. I interviewed when there were no openings and was called back when there was an opening and hired quickly. I was excited to start and get trained by a sponsor, as you have to have a sponsor in the industry while you are learning, before you take the state exams for your funeral directors license.

Within a few weeks of my hire date, my sponsor gave her notice and moved on. Not optimal for me. Needless to say, the rest of the next few months didn’t fair well.

What I gleamed from my 90 day trial period in the funeral business was: the dead are dead. Which means, they do what they are supposed to do. They decompose. You and I will also decompose one day. It will happen even in refrigeration. Part of my training was to go into the field and do removals. I guess you can say you never forget your first removal. Mine was “Kimmel” not his real name. He was at a local hospital morgue. He had been there for 3 months. This hospital did not have a big morgue, so the women working down in the catacombs of the hospital were happy when he left the building. They commented on his being “ripe.” The smell of death is real. I can’t describe it, but it is strange and in a way, organic and familiar. Like a smell that we all know in our collective consciousness.

Kimmel didn’t look too bad, a little yellowish and a little moldy. In my training I had to do what any removal technician has to do. I unzipped the bag, tagged his ankle and zipped the bag up again. While I was there with him in the morgue, I asked his “higher self” telepathically how he was. I got the sense he was “free” of his pained body. I asked his body what he died of and I got the sense that his torso was compromised, primarily his organs in his torso, not his heart so much, but his organ filters. I also intuitively felt the dis-ease “all over.” Not like Cancer, but something else blood related. Later when I was back at the office, I had to process Kimmel’s paperwork. He was an indigent. Our funeral home sometimes received cases from the county medical examiner who were indigents. While processing the paperwork, I saw what he died of. It confirmed what I picked up intuitively from my initial telepathic conversation with him. So began my unconventional training.

In the industry you are faced with the over-riding task of monitoring, the disposition of human remains. What is to happen to the body? Cremation? Burial? Aquamation?

For 90 days, I was a good funeral director intern. I tried my best to learn the terms, to assist families in one of the hardest stages that we will ever expereince in life. My people skills and intuition helped me navigate the gray areas of the job. I wasn’t always correct in my assessment of the situation and that had its own backlash when dealing with human emotions. But I genuinely cared and overall made a good and memorable connection with families.

But after 90 days I quit. Why did I quit? I quit because it was not a good fit. It wasn’t because the company ethos wasn’t right, it was. It wasn’t because I didn’t use dark humor, or have jaded stories to add to office banter about the dead. It wasn’t because I didn’t have inking or tats of coffins or etchings of spirits that assist the dead, on my body like many people in the industry do. It wasn’t because I was afraid of working with a dead body in preparation for a service, or the cremation remains, or talking on the phone to grieving families, doctors or medical examiners. Which were all daily practice. But I think I quit because it consumed me. Funeral directing is 24/7. The dead don’t wait.

I have a lot of respect for people who care for our dead. I have not given up on the death care industry as a whole. There is a place for me in assisting and helping. I will keep you posted. Until then, think about this Japanese Zen word, “Shoji.” It means “life-death.”

From cradle to grave, it is full circle. So why not go after what matters most to you? Don’t wait until the end of life to realize what that is.

xoxo Talese