*Note: Due to confidentiality reasons and plain old respect to the bodies and to my embalmer, I will not share in depth details or name anyone involved, other than myself*
Accounts On First Embalming
I got the call around 7:00 pm, right after I got home from work. I was asked if I wanted to see a body go through the embalming process. OF COURSE I did! I was ecstatic as I changed clothes and prepared to see my first unembalmed body.
About 15 minutes later, I arrive at the Funeral Home where the embalming will take place. I meet my Embalmer (this is what I will call the person showing me the steps of embalming) and I get settled in their office. While they do paperwork, I nervously await what is about to come.
“Will it be decaying?” “Is the deceased person old?” “How will they be laying?” “Will they be covered up or will I see them as soon as I walk into the embalming room?” “Can I handle this?”
A million questions run through my mind before I stepped into the embalming room.
Finally, the Embalmer took me to “The Room”. They asked me how I felt and if I had ever seen a dead body before. They asked if I will pass out on them. I told them I hope not! We step into the embalming room and there it is. The body I have been anxiously waiting to view. Now that it was actually happening, I was really standing in front of a cold, nonfunctioning body, I thought that I could not go through with it. I was scared — even knowing that there is nothing evil or upsetting about the body. After about 45 seconds of “What did I get myself into, I need out of here!”, I regained my calmness and my professionalism and did my best to view the body as a person, not just a “shell” of a person no longer living.
I decided that this person needs us to give it the respect it deserves and needs people like us to take care of it like they were somebody’s everything. Because they were, at one time, somebody’s everything. And if not, and nobody cared, I knew that this body and every body I come into contact with is a child of God and needs to be treated like it. I put on my “big girl gloves” and got down to business.
Overall, the experience was one I will never forget and I know there will be many more to come. I handled it very well and it did not bother me once we started working. I’m glad I know that this is something I can handle well!
It was, and is, a great feeling knowing that when I prepare bodies for burial, I am helping them get all spiffy for their last big celebration on Earth. I continue to hope that the soul of the person and Jesus are looking down on me and are happy by the way that I put love and care into the procedures that I do on the body.
I hope that the deceased person, wherever they are, sees that they were, and still are, loved. I will love every single “person” that I embalm and prepare for a funeral, knowing that they were a very important part of this world in some way and that they were God’s precious child. While their soul may not be inside of the body, I know that their soul can still feel my love, wherever it may be.
