Inspired by WP Prompt: Write a Letter to your 100 year old self.
Forty years from now, will I be 100 years old?
Or will I be a box of bones
or a jar full of ash
taking up space that nobody wanted?
Will my name matter, will the time I made people angry or happy matter?
The truth is:
When I am 100 years old, and I am NOT a box of bones or a jar full of ash
I hope that none of that matters to me anymore.
Artist Unknown
Inspired by: FOWC With Fandango — Version
I used to work in a crematorium- not as fancy looking as the Bradford Crematorium- but I can tell you what could be behind the wall in this picture.
I’m sure that room I worked in exists in all crematoriums, but in different versions of course.
Besides the obvious and less decorative machinery involved in this process, at the Crematorium I worked in there was an easy chair for you to sit on ( or a bars tool at the work table ) and next to the chair was a little shelf stock with Stephen King paperback novels and Archie comic books.
Down the little hallways was a room where we kept the unclaimed cremains on sturdy metal shelves ( some of them in very fancy urns, some in plain and dignified urns.)
Behind that room was a place where, stored in plastic totes- were the toys that we collected from graves after they had been there for awhile and the elements were beginning to take their toll on them.
And now you have an idea- what was behind this wall- and what you could find if you ever have the chance to peek behind one yourself.
Bradford Crematorium, 1889 – Photographer Unknown
The first time I was left alone to embalm and dress a dead person, I looked down at the table and tried to decided-
was I an artist or was I a seamstress?
It must be one or the other, I thought to myself.
It was my job to repair, to erase the marks that death had left on this person.
I went about it slowly, methodically, gently and when I was finished I I thought I a happy mix of artist and seamstress.
But if truth be told, I’ve never been much of an artist, I don’t have the ‘eye’ for it. On the other hand, I used to make my own clothes and like both of my Grandmothers I was pretty good- no, actually I was very good at it.
I do believe we are all blessed with gifts, little gifts, big gifts and I suppose my little gift was that I am very handle with a needle and thread.
When I was a Mortician’s Apprentice and I used to dress the departed, I remember two things.
The clothes that their families brought in- no matter how well worn the outfits were- were always in really nice garment bags. Sometimes the garment bags were brand new. I thought that was sweet, it seemed like they were packing for a trip- maybe to Hawaii or Victoria BC or Disneyland.
The second thing was, when I would put the shoes on the departed, I always did it carefully and gently because it reminded me of the times when I was teaching my sons- and even my younger brother and sister- how to put their own shoes and socks on and tie their laces. When I think back on it, if I talked to my client when I was preparing them for their funeral it was always when I was putting their shoes on or covering their feet.
Death is cruel, it’s a cheat, it’s scary. But sometimes it is undeniably kind.
Photo A.M. Moscoso
Oakwood Cemetery.
Beaver Dam WI USA
October2023