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I'm not the kind of guy who puts much
faith in fate. We won't wander into some sort of existential quagmire
here, but I think we pretty much determine what happens to us through
our decisions, as well as our reaction to things that happen around
us over which we – nor anyone else, for that matter – have much,
if any, control.
In my mind, serendipity, rather than
fate, plays a far bigger role in our lives. Was it fate that
determined I'd never find a woman with whom I'd spend my declining
years? I don't think so. It was good luck. In any case, here I am,
unencumbered with a joint decision maker gumming up the works and
complaining about hair in my ears.
Whether fate or serendipity, I have
returned to a period in my life that I never thought I'd revisit.
Here's the back story.....
My father was a Lutheran minister. This
was a late-life career choice that had our family moving every
three-or-so years as he completed college on the G.I. Bill, attended
seminary and took a call at the two churches in which he ministered,
the last of which was in Louisville, Kentucky. There was a funeral
home nearby that church. It was there that probably 3 out of 5
funerals my father presided over took place. To say he knew and was
friends with the staff there would be an understatement. He probably
officiated at a half dozen funerals a year there.
If I pondered it sufficiently, I could
probably remember whether it was during the spring of my senior year
in high school or my freshman year in college, but the precise time
reference is incidental to the story, and I just don't have the
motivation or energy to think that hard. The point is that in the
course of overseeing someone's send off to the afterlife, my father
mentioned to the owner and funeral director who had asked about me
that I was struggling to find summer employment. (Yes, this was at a
time when kids over the age of 16 were expected to have summer
employment.)
Thinking about it for a moment, the
funeral director told my father he was a man down and had a spot for
his young son, who he knew to be charming and hard working; a “highly
motivated go-getter” was no doubt bandied about more than once.
So began my three-month apprenticeship
at a funeral home.
A surreal period in my life, it was
both strange and fun. Because of my age at the time, I immersed
myself in the experience with a degree of irreverence. Not yet 21,
death wasn't on my radar. Like string theory, mortality was something
for someone else to consider and debate.
As I think about it, my three-month
stint was more than likely during the summer of 1970. Not only were
there no cell phones, Internet, answering machines and even beepers
were technologies of the future.
My primary role at the funeral home was
to spend every-other night and every-other weekend there. If a
late-night call came in regarding a loved one's passing, my job was
to phone whichever licensed mortician was on call that night, roust
him out of bed and have him come to the funeral home to get the meat
wagon, then accompany him to pick up the stiff.
I likened my workload to that of a
firefighter: Days of little action punctuated by sporadic activity.
That is to say, many days and nights I was there didn't produce much
in the way of activity. In the back of the funeral home was a two-bed
dorm where I and the other guy, who covered the nights and weekends I
wasn't there, slept, showered and so forth. It had a TV with cable
service. My evenings there were typically filled with TV watching. A
couple of times a week, one or more of my friends would drop by with
a pizza. Other nights, I was on my own. I occupied some of my idle
time thinking of different ways I'd like to answer calls when they
came in. The one that sticks in my mind is, “If you're soon to join
the dear departed, we've got the equipment to get you started.” I
crack myself up.
All things considered, it was a
positive experience, not only providing an array of war stories with
which to entertain friends over the next few years, but also
providing experience with death and grieving that you can only get
through facing it day after day.
So far behind me, I hadn't really
thought much about the experience for years. Not until I became good
friends with a couple who have become increasingly more involved in a
funeral home in which they were nothing more than mere investors
three or four years ago, did my own brush with the funeral-home
business surface among my memories.
In the past couple of years they have
gone from being behind-the-scenes money people in the enterprise to
taking over the day-to-day supervision of the business. Just a week
or two ago, they moved the business into a much larger space and
added a crematorium. Needless to say, bidness is boomin'.
I never ever thought I'd be back here,
but I will be helping them out occasionally. I'll be filling in when
their need for an extra hand coincides with me being in town. I've
run some errands for them and worked a funeral where – like riding
a bicycle – I easily reprized my apprenticeship role by standing by
looking solemn during a funeral viewing and service.
Fate or serendipity? Who knows. But,
I've purchased a black suit and am ready to go.
