There’s No Place Like ( A Funeral ) Home

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Our weekly free-write is back: take ten minutes — no pauses! — to write about anything, unfiltered and unedited. You can then publish the post as-is, or edit a bit first — your call.

 

When I worked at a funeral home, my view on the death penalty changed

It changed the day I walked in and we were back logged and every cot and table were full. I saw all those dead people and thought:

” Why would anyone create one of those on purpose? Nature seems to do well enough on its own.”

People commit suicide in cemeteries. I’m not sure what their reasons are but this is how I felt about the Funeral Home in general.

The living  just visit there- to me it felt like a reception area to the next world, but in the end we didn’t belong there. No way would I want that to be the last place I saw before I go one to  meet my maker.

I always felt sad when I heard those stories, because cemeteries are lonesome places. Terribly beautiful but sad.

I used to eat a lot of Pez after I embalmed a body.

I still haven’t figured that one out.

Strange as it may sound, I did have a fun day at work now and then. Like the time I had to go do a removal at a retirement center.

It was a huge industrial looking place- and as we do in most places we go through the back door.

This time there were two old guys sitting there in lawn chairs when I came out with the deceased.

They reminded me of crows- at first.

” Hey.” said one old guy, ” he was my friend.”

“Was he?” I asked, sensing that these two guys would not appreciate polite banter. So I stopped for a little chat.  ” How long did you know each other?”

” Long enough to know ” his friend sitting next to him said slapping his knee ” that this is the only time in his life he was taken out by a beautiful woman”

” Oh come on now. “

” Look, promise me this when I go come and get me. Or if you got a good looking friend at work send her. But no matter who it is, wear that dress.”

I didn’t laugh…I roared with laughter. ” Hey. There’s laws about harassing women like this you Wolves you.”

” Yea. Sure. Whatever sweetheart. I was an attorney and he was a cop and our friend there did time for robbery in his young day. You’re surrounded by them.
“

I considered this. ” Ok. But you should know that nobody can hit an artery faster then me.”

” Marry me . ” said my talkative friend. ” Marry me now.”

I used to visit a grave in the children’s cemetery that we called Babyland. My baby cousin is buried there. He died from SIDS back in the late 60’s.

A row down from him is the grave of a baby who died on the year and the same day I was born. For each holiday that rolled around someone came out and put out seasonal directions.

I wonder if I would have ever met him had he lived.

Remember the Tall Man from the Phantasm movies? Angus Srimm? I had a picture of him and Anubis on my desk. And wind up lady bug toy that was the size of a quarter.

I used to find my pictures on different places on my desk because people would pick them up to look at them.

But they never touched that lady bug.