Working at a funeral home makes you think about your mortality. That statement sounds so incredibly obvious.
“Of course it does, how could it not? You’re surrounded by dead people and those mourning said dead people, you fool.”
Even in the smallest role you can play at a funeral home you’re always thinking about it. It doesn’t matter if you’re the person embalming a corpse or prettying them up for a visitation. It doesn’t matter if you’re the receptionist, answering phones and questions and taking messages. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the grounds crew, doing basically yard work for a giant lawn. By the simple act of being in that environment you’re already exposed to the second-hand thoughts of mortality that seep into your pores. You can’t not think about it.
In a way, it’s sort of liberating. You find yourself gradually letting small bullshit go. You start engaging in riskier behavior. You start driving a little bit faster than you probably should. Maybe you start drinking more frequently. You allow yourself to get twisted into knots about stuff much less frequently. We’re all going to die anyways, who cares?
The side-effect of that, however, is that you also start looking at your own life with a greater sense of urgency. A constantly ticking clock that you can no longer ignore because your paycheck depends on always being aware of it.
“I could fucking die tomorrow and all I’ll have to show for it is some paper that says I went to school. Big deal. I didn’t make the world a better place. I didn’t prove to the world that my existence was necessary. I didn’t make enough of an impact. Time is running out.”
I believe that having some perspective on your own mortality is necessary. Death and all the anxiety that comes with it is a morbid, but effective human motivator. It helps to remind yourself, at least drip by drip, that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Why keep being angry over some petty fight you had with your sibling or your friend? Why waste time on negativity?
Get too much of it though and you turn into some vain asshole.
You go to funeral services for families who have lost someone dear and special to them. You hear their wails and sadness of the people they’ve lost. Someone who mattered to them and who arguably did more for the world than some Twitch streamer fuck or some rich tech moron. You witness all this and what starts to become your default reaction goes something along the lines of:
“God, such a shitty service. Lame music. Even lamer way to honor someone that supposedly meant a lot to them. Really? No one is going to say anything? Depressing choice of cemetery. 80 years of life boiled down to this? Buried in some awful podunk memorial garden. Fuck, I can’t imagine a more depressing ending to a life. Buried and soon to be forgotten like the rest of these chumps.
How much longer is this going to be? I’m tired and hot. I still another one of these to do before I can fucking sit down. Barely anyone brought flowers either. When I die, people are going to know it. None of this amateur hour bullshit. When I’m gone, I want the whole earth to feel it.”
I want so badly for my life to mean something. I want to give it meaning. I think everyone does to some extent, whether they admit it to themselves or not. We want to matter and want people to notice when we do things, even if that thing is dying. These feelings are turned up to 12 when your job having to care for the deceased.
I feel myself having a mid-life crisis before I’ve even turned 30. I feel as though there are so many goals that I either didn’t accomplish or are too late to accomplish because I was stupid and made bad decisions. I feel stagnant and stuck in a job that I know I could leave at any time, but that currently feels like will be my only option for a very long time. I see everyone else making moves and changes that improve themselves in some way and yet here I sit alone and bitter.
I have no reason to feel this way!
My family grew up poor as shit and somehow, someway I managed to put myself through the hell that was community college and then a 4-year college and earn a degree. Even if a debate can be had about how useful my degree is it is still an accomplishment! I have a family who loves me deeply and would do anything for me. A love that they have demonstrated time and time again. I may not matter to Twitter idiots, but at least I mattered and impacted people who genuinely cared about me. Lots of people don’t even have that!
I have a partner who I love deeply and would do anything for. She has enormous amounts patience and empathy, even when I haven’t always shown her the same amount of care in return. She exceptionally talented, funny and has managed to do something with her life that has a positive impact on people’s lives. That I managed gain her affection on a level deeper than “friend” should have me thanking God every day for being so lucky! People wish so badly they could find someone who understands them the way my partner understands me.
Yet, I remain unsatisfied and bitter. Not towards the people who care about me, but towards myself. I work in a place that sees grief as a potential quarterly profit growth. Even if the people (myself included) have the best of intentions and try to go the extra mile for a family; working here still feels dirty. No one is (understandably) ever happy to see me, especially not when I have to tell them that grandma didn’t think to pay for a headstone, so they’ll need bring their checkbook to their appointment.
“There’s still time though…you’re young! [X INDIVIDUAL] didn’t become famous until they were 60! You still have your whole life ahead of you!”
Okay and what if I fucking die today? What if a stray bullet fired by some moron in the neighborhood comes through the window and strikes my fucking brain? Then what? My “whole life” will no longer be ahead of me.
What will my loved ones say about me? What will the world say about me?
I feel time is running out even though I have no reason to think it is. I am more aware of my mortality than anything ever since I started this job. I want to give my life meaning. I want to make people happy. I want the extinguishing of my light to be felt for just a moment at the barest minimum. Every second that passes where I don’t make some major move in life feels like time wasted.
Death is a powerful motivator, but also a powerful depressant.
I fear that even after I leave this place, I’ll still feel this way. As though the damage this place has done to me is permanent.
I know I’m not the first person in the world to ever question the meaning of their lives or to want their lives to matter. I know I’m not the only person to have existential dread. I know I’m not special in any kind of regard. I know I’m not better than anyone else. I know that my eventual passing won’t be any more or less sad than anyone else’s. I know only do a few lucky people ever get to have their deaths reverberate like a shockwave throughout the whole world.
And I don’t care.
Or rather, I do care, but at the same time I realize that I can acknowledge that I’m not the main character of the world while also righteously feeling that I don’t want my life to be pointless. Is it so wrong? Is it wrong for me to want that? Am I too vain or self-obsessed? Or is it a natural human desire?
Standing at these funeral services I hear a lot of speeches and quotes from families. Some of them are very personal and had some actual thought put into their creation. Others are incredibly goddamn corny and way overdone. I have no right or room to judge these poor families for whatever awkward decisions they make in the painful process of grief. The benefit of spending hours at these services as they play out is that you get a lot of time to stand around and think.
Often, I’m required to close out the service and say some final words to the family. I practice and rehearse whenever I have to do this. The awkward part of it isn’t so much standing in front of a large group of people (I’m well past used to that), but rather comes from what the fuck to even say to about someone you’ve never met.
There is no possible way to work in this field and treat every service as though it’s happening to someone you know personally. You can’t allow yourself to think like that. It will paralyze you. You can’t get caught up in well-meaning, but overly empathetic feelings. The family is counting on you to make sure the celebration of their loved one’s life goes off without a hitch.
I hate myself every time I have to do this. I feel like a monster. A representative of a cruel industry and even crueler world. It isn’t my fault this person died, but I feel as though the mask of pleasantries I put on for the sake of my job is just another twist of a painful knife lodged in a poor family’s chest.
“Mr./Mrs. Smith lived such a beautiful life.”
How the fuck would you know? You don’t! This person didn’t exist for you until 3 days ago! Their life could have been tragically cut short.
“Although I did not personally know them, hearing how much they meant to you all was very moving. I wish I could have had the honor of knowing such an incredible person”
You fucking liar. You say the same shit at every funeral! You’re such a fake. They see right through you. They hate you. Don’t you know who that was?
They mattered! They were important!
Why don’t you and the rest of the world feel the impact of their death the same way this poor family is feeling it right now? Why doesn’t the world stop for their grief? Why doesn’t the world stop and recognize the passing of this human being?
Isn’t that what you would want?
I’m concluding this with a poem I wrote. I’ve never written a poem outside of English class, but this was the only structure of writing I could find to express my emotions. Who cares.
I fear the night you are extinguished
that light which glows around you brings warmth and peace.I fear the night you are extinguished
that dark will be cold and frightening.I fear the night you are extinguished
that night will last forever.
