Death: First Impressions
When I was eight years-old I saw my first dead body. My mother's side of the family were undertakers and as far as I know, they still are. On the day in question, I was attending a funeral for a relative I barely knew. For some reason I can't recall, my grandmother and I had to stop into the family funeral home in South Philadelphia on our way to the service which was being held at a nearby church. My grandmother had to use the restroom before we left, and this particular restroom gave onto a viewing room. Obviously, I had to wait for her just outside the restroom. Ladies only. The viewing room was cold and dimly lit. I saw the casket at the front of the room and thinking nothing of it, I wandered over and I looked inside at the old, shrunken elderly woman lying inside with her arms over her heart. I remember I didn't really know what I was looking at, only that the pallor of the skin looked tight and bore a slight shine to it. Like wax. A wax sculpture? That's what I decided I was looking at. Then, of course, I raced to the entrance to the restroom and I called and called for my grandmother to hurry it along. Poor woman, God rest her angelic soul! She did hurry along and I rejoined her. I asked her if the woman in the casket was made of wax. My grandmother, wanting to shield me from the stark reality of our shared mortal coil, told me that's exactly what the woman in the casket was made of. Wax. I don't do funerals to this day. And yet, I write pretty regularly about death and dying. It's cathartic and healing, but the fear of death is always there. I dream of stairwells that lead down into the earth where we lay our dead and bury them over. Stairwells that connect the living with the dead and conjoin their existences when in all reality, neither has any business mingling with the other. We toss the handful of dirt down onto the coffin and then we dust off our hands and we walk away from the grave because that is what we, the living, are supposed to do. Right? Or, if you're like me, you shiver at the sight of a funeral car-line as it drives by you on your way to work or the market. Death stalks you, demanding to be understood. Everytime I write, I feel myself drawing closer and closer to this submission to such a reality. But something tells me there is not enough ink in my pen, nor paper to scribble on, nor computer memory in my Dell to ever help me fully shed this fear. So...I write tales of terror. And one of these days, I'll make it to Madame Toussault's Wax Museum. Then, maybe it won't feel to me like some great mausoleum...who knows?
