Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory

Corpses keep the living tethered to reality. I had lived my entire life up until I began working at Westwind relatively corpse-free. Now I had access to scores of them—stacked in the crematory freezer. They forced me to face my own death and the deaths of those I loved. No matter how much technology may become our master, it takes only a human corpse to toss the anchor off that boat and pull us back down to the firm knowledge that we are glorified animals that eat and shit and are doomed to die. We are all just future corpses.

Jeremy, the body on the prep room table today, was a fifty-three-year-old man covered in tattoos. Half of his life had been spent in prison. Many of his tattoos were self-inked and had faded into a dull green. Numbers and letters dotted his arms, torso, and back. Jeremy also had tattoos that were brand-new, from his time post-prison. They were colorful images of birds and waves and other metaphors for freedom. He left prison and sought liberation in a new, different life. The tattoos were stunning. The concept of the body as canvas becomes more powerful if the canvas is dead.

As I started to wash Jeremy, the bell at Westwind’s front gate rang. I pulled off my gloves and headed into the courtyard. Before I could even muster a “Hello, come in,” a woman, who subsequently introduced herself as Jeremy’s sister, squealed, “Hey there, six-footer!”

“Oh yes, well, I’m pretty tall, you’re righ—”

“My, my, my, what a big, beautiful girl you are!” she shrieked, wrapping me in a huge hug. I thanked her, even though her saying “big, beautiful girl” gave me flashbacks to Bruce explaining that deposits around the heart were the reason I shouldn’t be fat.

I showed Jeremy’s sister into our arrangement room, where she pulled out a lollipop and began grinding it down with her teeth while furiously tapping her foot. I didn’t want to make assumptions, but if pressed I might have guessed she was high on some manner of amphetamine. She would not have been the first family member I had spoken to in such a condition, the burden of selling low-cost funeral services in Oakland.

“Honey, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “I want a nice funeral for Jeremy in San Francisco, then he’s gonna be buried at the veterans’ cemetery in Sac Valley. I’m gonna drive behind you all the way.” The cadence of her speech synched up with the tapping of her foot.

“You’re aware the cemetery is two hours away?” I said.

“Y’all are gonna cremate him if I don’t keep an eye on you. I can’t be sure you didn’t do it already.”

“Ma’am, the veterans’ cemetery is expecting the body to arrive in its casket for burial. We’re going to deliver it there on Thursday,” I explained.

“You’re not listening. That’s what I’m saying; his body isn’t in any casket, you cremated him without my permission.”

I tried to explain in the nicest way possible that it made no logistical or financial sense for Westwind to cremate Jeremy and then deliver an empty casket to the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, but she wasn’t buying it.

Jeremy’s sister wasn’t the only one who assumed we death workers were up to no good. People had wild theories about what we did with the bodies. Elderly women would call the crematory, their voices shaky and slightly confused.

“Westwind Cremation and Burial, this is Caitlin,” I would answer.

“Hello, dear, I’m Estelle,” said one woman. “You are going to cremate me when I die. I have the paperwork with your company and it’s all paid for. But I saw a thing on the news this morning about you all burning the bodies together dear, is that right?”

“No, no ma’am, everyone is cremated on their own here,” I said firmly.

“They said you put a pile of bodies on a bonfire and there is big pile of ashes afterwards and you just scoop from that pile,” Estelle said.

“Ma’am, I’m not sure who ‘they’ are.”

“The news people,” she said.

“Well, I promise they aren’t talking about us here at Westwind. Everyone gets their own serial number and is cremated alone,” I assured her.

She sighed. “Well, OK dear. I’ve lived so long and I’m just real afraid about dying and being left in a pile of bodies.”

Estelle wasn’t alone her fears. One woman called to ask if bodies were kept hanging on meat hooks in the refrigerator like sides of beef. An enraged gentleman informed me we shouldn’t be charging for a sea scattering because all that meant was “dumpin’ the ashes in the toilet with a packet of salt and flushing.”

It broke my heart to hear them, even the ones who were screaming at me. Holy crap, you’ve been thinking that? I thought. You think you’re going to die and be hung on a meat hook before being thrown into a bonfire of corpses and flushed down the toilet?