Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt

After I ushered Kristy and Mrs. Logan out, I loaded up the panel van and went down to the local forensics lab, where Mr. Morris had been transferred. He had been autopsied. I spent the rest of the afternoon carefully piecing his body back together so his young widow and two daughters could see their husband and father at peace. We laid him out in his uniform, and I even managed to coax a small smile onto his face during the embalming. Kristy liked the smile. The service was small because they didn’t have many friends here in California. We buried him in Riverside National Cemetery, a fitting setting for one of our country’s heroes.

I called Kristy a couple of days after the funeral to follow up. She asked me if it was all right to call me periodically—at work, of course—just to talk to someone. I offered to refer her to a grief counselor. She declined, saying she just needed another grownup to have a normal conversation with from time to time. I gave her my cell phone number and told her to call me any time she needed to talk.

And thus, our friendship started.

She, the newly widowed, lonely orphan and I, the young undertaker ten years her junior who had recently buried her citizen-soldier husband, became fast friends. We talked nearly every other day and began to “instant message” over the course of many an evening. What started as pity, on my part, blossomed into one of the most beautiful and fulfilling friendships I have ever experienced.

Our casual chats turned into morning coffee at a local café that turned into casual lunches that turned into barbeques over at Kristy’s house on lazy Sunday afternoons. I got to meet her two beautiful daughters, Cindy and Jacqueline, and took my “child,” Chloe, over too. The girls loved Chloe and fussed over her like she was their baby. Chloe loved the attention the girls bestowed upon her and would grow very excited when I loaded her in the car because she knew she was going to the Morris house.

I gave the girls rides on my bike around their neighborhood and began taking Kristy for long rides out into the Mojave. We both loved the loud silence and solitude a motorcycle can offer, the desert scenery whipping by. I think initially Kristy might have harbored some romantic feelings for me, but I made sure to steer well clear of anything of a suggestive nature. I didn’t want to complicate our beautiful friendship. The two orphans had found each other and now felt complete and whole. It was as simple as that. We were each other’s missing family.

I had the first Christmas I could remember that I looked forward to. It was the first time in my six years at the mortuary that I didn’t volunteer to work so others could be with their families on Christmas Day.

Then, six months after meeting Kristy, I got a call from Mrs. Logan.

Kristy had been killed in a car accident.

Just as suddenly as Kristy had appeared in my life, she left. I drove down to the forensics lab and picked up what remained of her body and gave her the last gift I had to give; I embalmed her.

Kristy’s was the only funeral I have ever cried at. I shed not a tear as my father’s casket was lowered into the ground or when my grandmother’s frail form lay in the front of the chapel. But I sat between Jacqueline and Cindy in the nearly empty chapel as the minister proffered his words and bawled harder than I can ever remember. Chloe sat crouched on the floor at the feet of the three orphans, her ears flat against her head. When we lowered Kristy’s simple wooden casket into the ground above her husband’s, I felt as though a piece of me was being buried in that hole.

The next day, I unloaded Chloe on my neighbor for a few days, called out of work, and took my Soft Tail out on the road. I wasn’t sure where I was headed, but I ended up at Death Valley National Park. The barren vista spread out before my bike as it ate up the open road as fast as I could push it. I could almost feel Kristy’s arms wrapped around my body, holding on.

Jacqueline and Cindy are now 18 and 16, having been taken in and raised by Mrs. Logan and her husband. I still take Chloe over to visit, and even though her muzzle is gray and she is a little stiff, she still jumps around a little when I open the car door. She loves those girls almost as much as I do.

CHAPTER 43. Date Destination: “The Morgue”

Contributed by a paintballer

When I served my apprenticeship I lived in an apartment on the second floor of the funeral home, a big old mansion that had been converted to its current purpose. The owner’s family used to live on the second floor, but they had long since moved out and the space had been turned into arrangement offices and the casket selection room—and, of course, my little dungeon room, referred to by the owner as the apprentice’s apartment.