The Buzz of the Crematory

I worked at a funeral for an Asian man in his twenties the other day. He died of unknown causes, which is the worst cause of all; the family had no answers, nothing and no one to blame, simply left with questions and memories.

This was perhaps the most interesting funeral that I have participated in. During the Buddhist funeral, the family burned images of money, cars and other worldly items to send to the afterlife with him. I'm accustomed to Catholic services, and this was on a completely different cultural plane. I enjoyed the differences, it was interesting to see how cultures across the globe express their grief. My co-workers were much less impressed. The funeral home smelled like smoke for the next few days, and whispered criticisms were heard that entire time.  My job is to park cars for the procession to the cemetery or crematorium, and I typically work with elderly people that work part-time after retirement. The man I worked with is a great guy, but I lost respect for him as he released a torrent of abuse on their entire culture. The language barrier, the foreign cars, the burning of paper, and anything else you can think of, he made insulting comments the entire time.

Anyway, after the funeral service we processed to the crematorium. With American funerals, the procession is typically to the cemetery. But with Indian and Asian funerals, it is always to the crematory where they have a small service and witness the cremation. The service wound down and the body was led to the gigantic industrial machine that burns bodies with extreme heat. The casket was placed on the rollers, pushed deep into the bowels of the machine and his mother pushed the big red button. The machine clicked on, and next thing you know there is this fantastically eerie, mechanical whirring sound as the body is incinerated. It's loud, screeching and actually very frightening. It was during this sound that I saw a particularly heart-wrenching example of grief. The guys' mother heard the sound and burst into tears, ran over to the garage door that leads into the building and started banging on it, trying to escape the horrible finality of that whirring. She slumped against it, in a state of complete grief but couldn't escape the sound of her son's death being finalized. Finally my grandfather was able to hit the switch and she got outside away from the sound. We packed up, returned to the funeral home and prepared for that night's visitation.

Working at a funeral home allows you small glimpses of the overwhelming emotion of grief. I'm sure that woman is still dealing with the intense grief that losing a son unexpectedly brings, and will be for a long time. But for us that work in the funeral industry we just move on, on to the next small glimpse into the world of broken hearts and human life extinguished forever.