We Cannot Fathom The Dirt Sky

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Well this was quite a tale here. It started off on a note of depression there and at an all time low and it goes on beautifully to show this person and how he lived a full life after all one that might have been far from perfect but perhaps still satisfying. Its quite beautiful.

Anyway let's get right to it,

The lab has always been cold but nothing beats the chill of the operation table, yet what else could you expect in a room full of dead bodies? It’s all too familiar, the ringing of the phone in the office, the sound of the cart being wheeled down the halls, the zipper of the body bag. When I first started I would cringe at every face I looked down on, someone spent their whole life pouring love into this person. After a while it all became numb to me, I worked with dead bodies so much that I finally became one. Being a mortician often leaves more questions than answers, like when you put all your loved ones in the ground who will be there to lay you to rest? It pleases me that I will be getting this answer.

The question rang in my ears “What will be done with the body?” The answer should be easy “Bury him next to his wife” but now I appreciate a good cremation. It’s so much smoother that way, all the memories and life of one person handed over to the family in a neat little box. This made me think of how I cremated my brother Charlie. Unfortunately for him, this was later in my career when I no longer spoke to the dead, not even family. I did however try to muster up some words when it came to Charlie, but all I could say was “Farewell then” as the cremator turned him into ash. Now Charlie sits on a shelf in my office, when it’s all said and done I wonder whose shelf he’ll sit on next.

The body begins to change immediately after you die, the joints and muscles stiffen, and I’ve seen toes curl. This is why It’s important to bathe and disinfect the body, wash the hair, and make it smell nice for the family. I had to do this with my mother. My mother suffered a much quicker fate than Charlie, her heart quietly sputtered out in her sleep. It was a bit strange bathing my mother, she would’ve scolded me if she could. The thing is it felt very wrong to work on my mother, she hated my work. We would fight about it all the time, she’d say I was “Sucking the life out of everything and everyone.” I would try to tell her that I was helping the families in a way no one else could but it all was the same to her. Most parents would be proud if their son had a medical degree but to her, I was no different than the Grim Reaper. I still don’t know if that scowl on her face was from the stroke or all those years of frowning not wanting to leave her body.

Embalming has always been my favorite part of the process, I find it much more calming than meditation. However, embalming Lewis was the most disappointing and uncomfortable experience in my life. Not only because he was my best friend, former business partner, and the wealthy successful son my mother wished she had. It was because Lewis once told me his blood was made of liquid gold and I believed him, he could make any nonsense sound true. As I was draining his blood and replacing it with the Formalin solution I remembered a conversation we had. It was right before he quit and moved to Chicago to build skyscrapers. He said to me “Willy, you’re a perfect example of what happens when a man has no dreams he dedicates his life to chasing. In 5th grade when Mr.Mills asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, you shrugged your shoulders and went your whole life without answering the question. I’m begging you to answer the question, Willy.” I never knew what he meant by all of that. Looking back on it I think it was some sort of metaphor, one I was too idle-minded to understand. Lewis has always been as straight as an arrow, he knew what he wanted and he went after it. That’s what spooks me about Lewis, he was just like me until he decided to be better. When watching all that blood seep out of his body, my tears turned to laughter. All of that money couldn’t stop the car from crashing, and all the pocket change in the world couldn’t buy him a second chance. We couldn't've been more different than Lewis and me but we both will meet the same fate, I can’t help but find that comforting.

“What suit did the family want him dressed in?” asked the doctor. His assistant didn’t even look up from his paperwork “The family said to dress him in whatever.” The doctor shook his head and pulled out an old suit, three sizes too big “the poor devil.” It’s always sad when a family doesn’t leave anything special for the dead to dress in, this wasn’t the case for my wife April. April didn’t want to know what she’d be buried in, she thought she’d live forever. I still curse the grave for taking her, If anyone deserved to see how the world ended it was April. Her mother picked what she was buried in, I had absolutely no say in the matter. The family settled on an old sundress that she’d always wear to special occasions. Even though she was my wife, I was sitting at the back of the funeral and could barely see her in the casket. Though I didn’t complain, she had so much life left in her that her warm glow blinded me from twenty rows back.

It’s a very lucky thing to die of natural causes, but how incredibly boring. It made me sad because April always talked about how she wanted to die extraordinarily. She deserved to die riding a motorcycle over an active volcano or zip-lining through the Grand Canyon. Instead, death took her in her sleep. I felt the exact moment when she was gone and I was cursing like a sailor under my breath. How cowardly of death to take her in her sleep, the only time when she wasn’t fighting.

April was always a mystery to me, I thought of this when I was slipping her shoes on. I could never quite work out why she chose me over someone like Lewis, clearly the better option. I didn’t understand why she stayed in Ohio instead of dancing the night away on some grand Broadway stage in New York City. One day, a week or so before she died I gathered the courage to ask her. This was the question I’d been meaning to ask the day she agreed to go on a date, the day she kissed me in front of all her friends and family. “How could you love someone so sad?” She didn’t answer right away, the question hung in the air and began wrapping itself around my neck. Then she took a sip of tea and looked me in the eyes “Because I’m sad too, but it makes me so incredibly happy to know I’ll never have to go through it alone.” And at that moment I knew I made the right choice marrying April, I was lucky to get to spend the rest of my life with her. Depression is just as deceitful as it is comfortable and familiar, making you feel isolated in a room full of people begging to love you. I spent my life without a lot of things, but I was never without April.

And now here we are, the grand conclusion, the answer to my question. I will say that my life was a good one, even though I spent most of it wrapped up in death. I didn’t get to travel the world or meet the president, but I got to wake up every day next to someone who loved me. I had moments where I got to live, really live, and for those I am grateful. In my time, I’ve bloodied and bruised my knuckles fighting depression. I had a whole crowd of people cheering for me when I finally won. While the doctor and his assistant were preparing me, I couldn’t help but reflect on everything, reflect on the man I was and the people I knew. I was once them, looking down on some poor person who held so many memories that I would never understand. Now I’m the one looking up at those bright lights and feeling the chill of the operation table, and those doctors will be next one day. The line between life and death is very uncertain.

There was no one left to go to my funeral, no one important. Not a single aunt, uncle, or distant cousin shed a single tear. This didn’t upset me, sometimes people die and it’s no big deal. The mailman will still come on Thursdays and the bills are still due next month. I bet you’re wondering what it feels like to die, I bet you have so many questions. I must apologize in advance because I can’t provide all the answers you’re looking for. But I will thank you for giving an old man some company as he reflects on his life. We all wonder, “What happens after you die?” Let me provide a bit of insight, think of it as a thank you for letting me tell my story. We can not fathom what happens after death, we’ll never be ready to stare at the dirt sky, but we must have faith in the uncertainty. We must take this small window of time we’re given and step out with the utmost love and confidence, this is where we get our answers. I lie here six feet deep, the world bursting above me, and I rest.

I'm in awe of this piece. I have to tell you, your ability to elicit an emotional reaction is astronomical. I may be biased, because I'm generally an emotional person, and I relate in a way to the mortician (even though I'm not a mortician myself), but there is so much power behind the way you describe his thoughts, recalling his departed loved ones. The lines that got me tearing up immediately were "someone spent their whole life pouring love into this person" and "Now Charlie sits on a shelf in my office, when it’s all said and done I wonder whose shelf he’ll sit on next". There is something so heartwrenching about these two lines that it makes me want to cry.

You portray love in its most raw form—love that remains after the recipients of our love go. And the way that you write this, it makes me think that love doesn't die with us—it's one of the things we don't take into the next world. It's just part of the human experience. And I think that's so beautiful.

Bravo!

I don’t know what it is about this story but it is really heavy but it is fricking amazing. I thought it was really cute how he spoke about his wife and it just made the character feel so much more real. The way you write is so interesting to me and I can’t help but wonder how you came up with the idea, but maybe this is how some morticians feel in real life. I loved the ending how he started thanking the reader and how he talked about his funeral, I think I'm gonna come back to this story a lot because there's something about it that catches my attention. That also might be because I'm striving for something in the medical field.