I got a call from a funeral home in a town about a half-hour drive from here asking if I could help them out. Apparently they have a case that was in a pretty bad car accident and have heard that I work miracles when it comes to facial rebuilds. Now, this might be tooting my own horn (okay, there’s no “might be” about it) but facial rebuilds are what I live for, and for as often as we see tragic accidents on the tv, they really aren’t that common. Now, I’m not trying to say that doing the hair and make-up of the little old ladies that pass away is not enjoyable, it totally is, but accident victims, come on? It’s the best part of what I do, allowing a family to not realize the trauma that their loved one suffered before death because they cant see the evidence.
In mortuary school I specialized in Restorative Art, and was the best in my class for it (which sorta makes up for the total crap performance I gave in accounting). I even have awards in it, and wish I could have kept the exams we had (exams consisted of being given a type of modeling clay used in the mortuary and a model of a body part (from the neck up, ladies…) and an hour or two, and then being graded on them), as I was very proud of mine. The final in the class was to bring in a photo of someone and re-create their head (using mathematical formulas to determine how big it should be, yay math!) in a week. Then, the really cool part: we got to make death masks out of them, which I had never done. Actually, I’m still waiting for someone to request a death mask of their deceased loved one so I can try it…
Alright, so back to this other funeral home. I wasn’t really sure how they heard of me and so I asked. They told me that Jane, embalmer extraordinaire (whom I think might be the best fluid pusher in the world) told them about me. So, Jane happened to be in the prep room at my funeral home just then (and is now too) so I went back to chat at her. Turns out she really thinks I should go help out over there (and warned me that they aren’t really into having women in their embalming room, which must mean this guy is in bad shape for them to call me, a female and a young one at that) and to remember to bring my dental floss and good needles, as their equipment isn’t that up-to-date.
Then I started thinking: Is my boss going to let me work for another funeral home? So I texted him (he’s on a funeral service and I didn’t want to bug him) and he told me that I should totally do it and that I could leave early if I needed to. You know, this business could be a lot worse, I mean from funeral home to funeral home, but it’s freaking awesome.
The funeral home that I am going to help out emailed me photos and I am super excited. I think I am going to need some wire though, so I have to go to a hardware store first, but I’m like bursting at the seems right now with anticipation. And guess what? Restorative Art is $100 an hour, so while I might miss tae kwon do tonight, I will have a pretty check in my pocket when I leave.
Fascinating! I once worked with someone who had previously worked for a funeral home. She refused to give any details yet had a picture of a guy in his coffin as her screen saver.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I always thought blogs that used fake names for people were kinda silly, but I can't do it any other way, just like your gal friend not giving details... funny though about the screen saver.
ReplyDeleteyou had me at "might need some wire". I am absolutely enthralled. wish we could hang out.
ReplyDeleteI honestly couldn't understand how someone could be so excited about restoring a dead person's face - until I saw $100 an hour.
ReplyDeleteThis is on my top 4 blogs to read. And I only read 4 blogs, so... keep it up. This is great stuff.
TCG- I almost didn't mention the wire, thinking that it might be disturbing. But then I thought, who cares, it's my job, and it isn't like I said I needed a drill and superglue to go with it, right, lol?
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