Read Online Winter Birds by Jamie Langston Turner - Free Book Online Page B

back door. I have read about what goes on in the inner sanctum of a funeral home. When Eliot died, I was oblivious to the details of the funeral industry. It was years later that I read The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford, a book that informed me of the procedures to which his body had been subjected—by that time, the same procedures already performed on my father, mother, and both of my sisters. Death American style is a gruesome prospect. In Eliot’s case, however, it was no more than he deserved.
    I did not know, when I was responsible for planning the funerals of my husband and, later, my mother, that embalming is a custom common only to North America, but that even in the United States and Canada no law dictates the practice. This curious tradition is routinely carried out for one purpose: to prepare the body for yet another curious tradition, that of placing it in an ornate box for the living to “view.” At no time is the family consulted about whether they wish these procedures to be performed on the body of their loved one. The funeral director merely goes about his business, then collects from the family the standard fee. Apparently no one raises a protest.
    The steps of “preparing the body” may be summarized briefly. First, it is interesting to know that a mortician learns the craft that is to earn him his fortune by attending an embalming school for a year at any point following high school graduation. Here the student, who may still be a teenager, handles the tools of his trade—the needles, scalpels, forceps, clamps, scissors, basins, pumps, tubes—and is instructed in the proper administering of the customary fluids, plasters, creams, oils, powders, pastes, paints, and waxes. As in medical school, the aspiring “doctor” practices on cadavers. Unlike genuine surgeons-in-training, however, he will never, thankfully, progress to performing his skills on living humans.
    There is no way to be delicate about this. In the embalming room the mortician drains the body of blood, by means of a small incision in a major vein or artery, and injects a solution of formaldehyde, alcohol, borax, glycerin, phenol, and water. With needle and suture thread, the lips are literally sewn together and the eyes closed with small caps and a special cement. The body cavities are invaded by means of a long, hollow needle, then emptied with tube and pump and replaced with yet more chemical fluids.
    To restore the body to a normal, restful appearance, the mortician, after allowing the body to lie undisturbed for ten to twelve hours, then reaches into his bag of cosmetic tricks. Whether the challenge is to reduce swollen features or plump up emaciated ones, the modern, well-trained mortuary scientist is equal to the task by way of various methods of surgical trimming, padding, injecting, and so forth. He may need to make creative use of splints, wires, drills, anchors, patches, masking creams, and parlor lighting to achieve the desired effect, but the ambitious mortician will go to almost any lengths in his efforts to make available to the family an open-casket funeral.
    I sometimes wake during the night with visions of a dark shape hovering over me, something sharp and metallic in his hand. At times I have heard voices: “Let’s push that left shoulder down a little; she’s lying crooked,” or “Hand me the suntan tint; this pink blush shade doesn’t match her skin tone,” or “She looks too glum. Can we stitch up the corners of the lips a little higher?” Once I heard, “Maybe we ought to dislocate the jaw to fix her mouth.” This is a method sometimes employed to keep stubborn lips together. The mortician simply unhinges the jaw and then wires it shut. For less serious cases he may keep the mouth closed by pushing a straight pin through the inside of the lower lip and angling it upward through the two front teeth. I awake from these dreams trembling.
    I have written down clear instructions concerning the