Adios Motherfucker

Hello again!  Needless to say I've been extremely busy, and quite frankly, tired from working a lot and getting very few nights of regular sleep.  Believe me there have been a lot going on with me and choosing sleep over blogging hasn't been too difficult.  Nonetheless, I apologize for all the loyal readers who click on my little piece of cyberspace on a regular basis.  Let's jump right in, shall we?

Recently a mother gave birth to a girl who had placenta covering her face.  Surgeons couldn't save her.  The mom did not let go of her daughter and refused to let her go to the morgue.  Next day I was dispatched to meet the mom and dad and the nursing supervisor at the hospital chapel for the pick up.  So I went and waited a while.  Down came the mom carrying her girl and the NS had a makeshift box for the baby.  Both mom and dad cried while I held the door open on this windy day.  I told them that we'll take good care of their precious girl, but I don't think they heard me.  Once back in the prep room, the baby had on a tiny little white dress, shoes, a little white cap and was covered with an embroidered blanket that read, "Mommy and Daddy's Little Angel" and her name.  Fucking sad, although I have to admit that I don't get emotional as much as I used to on this job.  But...

Last month there was a tall, young guy who died.  How he died I don't know.  He was placed in a cardboard insert in a rental casket.  Families often rent caskets when their loved one will be cremated.  You can also buy a nice wooden casket and cremate the whole thing, but that is very expensive.  With cost of burials being so high, most families can only afford cremations.  After his service, I prepared to take the insert out of the rental.  I noticed cards and pictures that family members put on top of the young man.  One was a card from his grandmother.  Two hand drawn cards from nieces, and one from his parents.  I read the cards and saw pictures of this kid and I started to tear up.  I caught myself and wondered why I was getting emotional when I see these things everyday.

Also last month the Asst. and I went to a hotel.  A middle aged man collapsed on the floor.  He was huge, big boned and thick all around.  The police was there and the Asst. asked me if I wanted to do this, as opposed to dispatching a third party removal service.  I said let's do it, sounds interesting.  With his family in the next room peeking at us, we collapsed the gurney next to him and with all our might we lifted him onto it.  The Asst. and I have been doing calls together for over a year now and we don't really need to talk while moving bodies;  we have a nice efficient flow.  When we came back to the mortuary, we discovered the man had a large amount of cash in his pocket.  Over a thousand dollars, in fact;  apparently the family was on vacation.  We did the right thing and called the family's contact and returned the money.  Turns out this guy was in law enforcement and the family thanked the Asst. while I watched from the van.

Since the last blog entry, our lovely prep room manager left the company to live and work in Hawaii.  Her replacement is another old timer who just doesn't bring the same bright energy to work like she did.  We all miss her and we're glad she's happy where she's at.  I'll be taking a vacation soon and guess where I'm going?  (cue the luau music).  It will be nice to get away from here and snorkel everyday and hang out with her.  Also to hang out with a good buddy and his girlfriend and their son whom I've yet to meet.  Can't wait.

I went to a disinterment with the new manager at a sister cemetery.  A priest was being exhumed for cremation, and my guess is that the family is selling the plot for whatever reason.  The priest had been buried for six years.  Once the casket vault was unsealed, the smell was different than anything I've smelled before.  I've smelled all kinds of shit on this job but this smell was deep and complex, and yet interesting at the same time.  The body had been embalmed and the wooden casket held up remarkably well.  We lifted it into the van and off we went, windows rolled down.  This stench was deep and overwhelming inside and it made me cough.  The new manager told me that there is nothing like the smell of a decomposing human.

We drove directly to the crematory and popped open the lid.  The priest looked like he was buried yesterday, his skin and makeup were pristine, with only small spots of fungus on his nose.  He had on his priest robe and I was amazed at how fresh he looked, like he was just sleeping.  The stench was still strong when I went to lunch.  I had to prepare myself to reenter the van after eating a huge calzone.  Even after airing out the van the stench did not go away.  WTF?  I decided to sweep out the cargo tray of dirt and discovered the cause:  A glove of one of the pallbearers for the priest's service fell out after all these years.  I couldn't believe how a little glove can stink so bad.  The Asst. said he smelled it across the parking lot.

Recently I watched Saw 4 online.  The intro is a scene inside an autopsy room, and a body was being dissected.  I found the whole thing rather amusing, with the corny sound effects and all.

One morning The Asst. and I met up at a house.  Driving closer to the house I thought this street looked familiar.  It turned out to be the same house we had picked up from a month ago.  This time the wife passed away.  We sort of expected this since she wasn't doing too well when her husband died, but still it was odd for us to be back again so soon.  The house had some windy stairs and I mentioned that it's got to be easier this time, assuming the wife was lighter than the husband.  I was wrong.  The woman weighed twice as much and it took all the men in the family to help us move her down the stairs.  Once loaded into the van, the Asst. and I looked at each other, shaking out heads and being relieved that we won't be back here anytime soon.

Another time we went to a trailer park.  A woman died on the toilet mid-tinkle in her tiny bathroom, her granny panties around her ankles.  On another call we picked up an old man who collapsed face down on top of the nightstand.  He was fully dressed and had kicked off one shoe before kicking the bucket.  What is sad to us is when we visit poor families who had to endure financial hardship from taking care of their loved one and now must face more hardship in paying for services upon death.  Makes me believe life insurance is well worth it if you can afford it.

I've been getting funny looks from some of my newer neighbors in my apartment complex.  I guess they see the company van parked outside and lights on in my unit all night (I have a habit of falling asleep with the lights on).  I smile at them in the parking lot but they just pass by looking at me all weird.  What's up with that?  

All At Once

It's been just over one year since I started this line of work of moving dead people.  I wasn't sure if I could last one month when I started, but here we are.  What a year, what I've seen and what changes I've noticed about myself.  Now I can stand next to a body and eat anything, even spaghetti with meatballs (not that I've done that, but I know I could).  I wonder what friends notice about me.

It's been very busy at work, and with the holidays and all I haven't found time to blog.  But I'm back, with much to write about, hence the title that describes my blogging style while paying tribute to Whitney Houston with my favorite ballad from her.  RIP.

The other night I had a disturbing dream.  I guess I would qualify it as a nightmare.  I was working at a funeral home, unlike the one I am at now, and they were discovering body parts dangling from chains in the walls and ceilings.  Many chains, many skulls.  Some were cobwebbed but some were much fresher.  The police had come by.  I was walking up the stairs past all the chains and it looked like a horror movie set.  Just as I got upstairs, the ceiling cracked open and down came another chain.  This one was still bloody and the red skull had eyes in them, like it was just killed.  This freaked the hell out of me.  I then woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.

I tried to analyze why I had a scary dream.  I rarely have bad dreams, at least not bad enough to remember vividly.  I wonder if the bars I went to with friends last night had anything to do with it.  Some bars just have a bad vibe, and although I have visited these bars before my gut feeling last night was strongly negative.  I kept wondering why that was.  Was it the odd looks on people's faces or just my own mood?  Perhaps both.

Anyway...

I went to the nursing home I used to drive for to pick up an on lady who had passed.  This was my second time back on this job, but the first time was late at night so I didn't see anyone I knew.  But this time was in the late morning, a busy time for a nursing home.  I said hello to everyone I worked with and it was nice to see them, except for this one nasty bitch who doesn't do much of anything.  I went to say hello to an old lady I used to drive around town while blasting the classical music.  She looked the same and she was happy to see me and we chatted briefly about the nice drives we've had.  I visited another patient, a young quadriplegic woman with a real zest for life and we chatted also.  It was nice to be back.

Pulling in the gurney into the decedent's room, I realized the roommate was also another woman I've driven around.  She was bedridden and recovering from a physical setback.  I was saddened to see her in this state. We talked a bit but she was tired so I went back to the task.  The dead old lady was rather heavy.  Leaving through the back exit of the facility I ran into more people I knew.  The look on their faces was something.

There have been many suicide cases coming through the prep room.  Couple of high profile murder-suicides also, but I won't go into details as that may give away where I work.

At least a couple of cases were gunshot suicides in the chest.  One guy blew half his head off with a large caliber handgun.  The hole on his head was absolutely massive.  An embalmer stitched him up and his head looked like a giant softball.  This stitching style is called Baseball Stitch, since the technique is identical to that of making a baseball.  I made the gesture of grabbing his head and throwing a curveball to which the old ex-pro baseball player embalmer found amusing.

Last month I drove to central California to pick up a case from a sister mortuary.  The drive took six hours each way but I loved it, I wouldn't mind doing long hauls everyday.  The embalmers up there were even older than the oldtimers in our crew.  I mean they looked like 80+ years old.  And they do things slowly, not like us who are accustomed to doing things quickly.

One day at ME they brought out a giant blue body bag on a table.  I thought this couldn't be a body, but it was.  450lb. and then some.  It was absolutely huge.  Seeing another driver load it into his van was surreal.  I asked if this was the biggest body they'd seen.  Everyone said they've seen bigger, like a 750lb. body a while back.  I hope I don't get assignments like that.

On another night call, the Asst. and I went to a house where an old lady died.  Inside, the place was like a little castle, with marble floor and fancy paintings and sculptures.  The family was Sicilian and some elder family members looked as if they stepped off the set of The Sopranos.  Preparing to move the body down the stairs, the Asst. and I agreed that we better not drop this one no matter what, just in case these people have ties to the mob.  That may be a blatant stereotype but why take chances?  We've never dropped anyone but we were extra careful with this one.

Still another night, another old lady passed in her house in a nice inland area.  This was by far the nicest house I've ever made a scoop in, and considering the many nice houses in this part of state that's really saying something.  Twin staircases, marble all around, a very expensive acoustic/electric piano, chandelier, and sculptures even bigger then the other house.  The obviously affluent son, who seemed distant, was eager to get this over with.  Just then his uber-hott trophy wife came in, in heels and a sexy black cocktail dress.  We both stared at her a little too long, seeing her crying her eyes out over her mother in-law.

"Oh God!" she kept crying, balling uncontrollably.  "I've been drinking vodka since that was her favorite drink."  We saw her grab her giant glass of vodka and take another swig, her ample chest rising as she stopped to take a breath.

Well, that explains it.  I've seen people get hammered when their loved one pass away.  In fact, on the very first night call the Asst. and I did everyone was drinking tequila and beer, getting absolutely shit-faced.  And this broad was already lit up.  But what can we say?

We moved the old lady off her super-king sized bed and carried her in our arms down the marble stairs to the gurney.  The WILF started crying hysterically so we just went outside and waited.  After a while we decided to leave, but as soon as I turned on the van, both came outside.  The son walked up to me on the driver's side and shook my hand and thanked us.  You're welcome sir.  Then his wife shook my hand and held it for a while, staring at me.  That was awkward, with her husband watching and all.  On the way back, the Asst. asked me what if the wife was there all alone.  I replied that I was thinking the same thing...

Lately we've picked up several old men off the floor of their homes, dying suddenly from heart attacks and what not.  One old man fell as he stood up from the toilet, another lying in the middle of the kitchen, and yet another next to his bed.  It's almost always men who seem to die suddenly like this.

Tonight the Asst. and I went to a nursing home after a house call.  On the way up in the elevator he got another call about another pick up--in the same nursing home.  We call this the Daily Double.  He said he's done a Daily Triple only one time.