Funerals and deaths have been infrequent yet powerful experences in my life. The first funeral i attended was that of my great grandmother at the age of 5 or 6. I knew her as well as any child could at that age. She was a very sweet, compassionate Irish woman who was all about family. It was a traditional multi-day Irish funeral, embalming, open casket, two day wake, church service, procession, the whole nine yards. The wake was the first time i ever looked death in the face even if i didn't quite understand it. At that age the casket was above eye level to me and i had to peer over the edge to fully see her. The image is very large in my mind but in no way disturbing. She was very natural looking like an embalmed body is supposed to look, rested and peaceful. I remember touching her hand and after i did i found my young brain feeling that it wasn't her, but an inanimate object like a doll. Within the next day or two the funerary service was held. It was a very large service held at a beautiful catholic cathedral. I remember most of the service seeming like any other Sunday being raised a catholic boy except that everyone was crying. When it was time for everyone to walk up to the casket and give their last goodbyes at the end of the service my father carried me up to the to the front. When we got there i remember him saying something along the lines of "say bye to granny". It seems now very apt because how do you tell a child to say their last goodbyes? I remember having a birds eye view of the open casket whit my dad carrying me. I felt a sudden flush of emotion i now identify as despair. It was the first time i ever really experienced it. We walked around the pews to the foyer of the cathedral. My entire family was standing around crying and consoling each other. The moment i saw this tears started flowing out of my eyes but not the way a 5 year old cries. It was an involuntary cry not wailing like a child that that want s a toy but a cry out of pure sadness. I still didn't fully understand the situation except that she was dead, what ever that meant. The pallbearers carried her out of the church and the procession started. We drove to a beautiful cemetery and she was laid to rest next to her late husband "paw paw", as my family calls him, who i never got to know. I left feeling changed for lack of a better word. It was difficult to identify as a child but looking back on it i can see it.
The next death i experienced was that of my father at the age of 13. The most loving, hard working man that ever existed. When i was in sixth grad we found out he had lung cancer and he had surgery and everything looked promising until it was discovered that a small remainder of the cancer had metastisized into his spine. It was drawn out not to mention that the same year our house had burned down and we were living in and out of hotels and rental houses for most of the advanced stages of his illness. We finally made it back in to our house when he was nearing the end stage and was put on hospice. His death was horrifyingly unglamorous. Almost all of his hair had fallen out, he was delirious and emaciated and his quality of life was at about 1%. I was downstairs when my fathers mother called my mother upstairs. I followed curious to see what was going on. When i got to to the room my father was in what i now know as the agonal breathing stage, the stage immediately preceding death. I stood in the door way just watching not knowing what to say or do as my father took his last breaths. The image is still burned in to my mind of when the moment happened. His jaw dropped open, eyes half shut, and let out his final breath. The look on his face was the personification of decrepit death. Shocked and not knowing what to do i ran downstairs and told my brother who was 18. I said the only thing my mind could construct "dad just died". After i told him a flood of anger and resentment came from his mouth, cursing cancer survivors and all of the people who told us that he would make it. We held his hand said goodbye and the funeral directors came and got him. God, that was hard to write.
I think these to experiences are major influences on me wanting to become a mortician. Seeing such a beautiful death and seeing such an unsettling death and experiencing the grief has made me want to help others through it and to give them a good last image of their loved one. That image of someone during their last breath is not the way you want to remember your loved one. It never leaves your head. No one should have to go through life with that being the last time they saw someone they really loved. It just isn't healthy, trust me.
