Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: Myriad

 

Once someone asked me what was the strangest Funeral Home story I had ever heard was and given I’ve been in a lot of positions where I was told stories or been part of a conversations where people were more then willing to talk about all kinds of experiences they’ve had with the dead, cemeteries or funeral homes- this one is my favorite because I am a part of it.

 

Years and years ago, I think it was in the 1930’s a local funeral director left in the company hearse to, as it’s put in the business ‘ do a removal’.

He left in the late in the afternoon, and because it was around late October it was already getting dark and it was foggy. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face.

But there was no way this Funeral Director was going to leave a family in emotional distress with a the remains of a loved one cooling in their house so he made the drive.

He must have driven slow in the less then half light and the fog in his big black hearse. He must have  inched his way slowly around the road that ran above the icy river below.

When he got to the bridge that lead to his turn off his car was completely  swallowed by the fog. Still,  I imagine you could hear the tires working their way over the wooden bridge…

and then all you could hear was the river.

He never made it to the other side.

It was quite a mystery,

The Funeral Director who disappeared, hearse and all on the way to a call.

It made a great Halloween story.

However, like some great stories ( that don’t get turned into a franchise )  this one came to an end.

Years later they found the hearse and the funeral director and the empty coffin still waiting for the corpse the Funeral Director was supposed to pick up when he disappeared on that October afternoon.

Strange, or not so strange depending on your point of view  was where they found them.

They  found them in the river, almost directly under the bridge they were crossing over all those years ago.

I drove over that bridge several times in a hearse myself over seventy years later, I made  my last drive over it two years before they found the Funeral Director, The Hearse and The Empty Coffin.

When I think of The Funeral Director, I think of him in the drivers’s seat, his hands clutching the steering wheel, his head tilted  towards the surface of the water and  when I think about all those times I drove over him-

I hope his eyes were closed.