For 20 years I was the director of a nonprofit called Funeral Consumers Alliance. Think of FCA as Consumer Reports magazine, but focused only on the funeral purchase. Our job was to offer education on funeral options, costs, and the legal rights of consumers. The goal was to “lower unjustifiable burial costs” by giving the buying public accurate information so they would be able to comparison shop, and not to be misled into overspending at a time of grief.
If you can make someone laugh when they're utterly miserable, that's a lovely thing. It's a great tension reliever, and funeral planning is certainly a stressful time, to say the least.
All sorts of ridiculous things happen at death, and many of them are really fucking funny.
My mother and her sisters spent the last two days of my grandmother's life (their mother) talking to her unconscious in the hospital. Grandmother died of congestive heart failure, which is a peaceful way to go.
She had been propped up in the bed for so long that when they lowered the bed, Grandma just popped back up like an unconscious jack-in-the-box. My mother and aunt were in hysterical laughter.
Then, my uncle saw the hearse with Grandma's coffin in it parked at the roadside cafe on the way to the cemetery before the burial. "Figures she got someone to buy her one last lunch!"
And *then*, my uncle drove by the cemetery and found them getting ready to put her in the wrong grave.
At this point, every single one of us was crying with laughter.
We are bombarded with crap that makes people think they and everyone they love can and should live forever.
We don't honor the process of aging; we fight it tooth and nail. Like somehow, we can beat the system and not age and therefore not die.
Death is often messy. Even if it's in a hospital succumbing to the effects of the shit operation they used to "fight" the pancreatic cancer that was discovered, it still comes. With attached lines and shrill beeping and the yellow flushing of the skin, it comes.
People don't want to talk about death and dying because they haven't been raised to understand and exposed to the reality that it really is just the final part of living in this existence. For some who believe there is more, it isn't the end. Others believe there is no more, and it is the end. Regardless, now, in this world, the body is just a useless husk.
We used to have our loved ones die at home. They were cared for and included, as much as possible, in the life that surrounded them. And the wake was there, in the home, too. A dead body was seen, but a life was remembered. We used to know how to deal with the part of life that is death. Now, like everything else, we've tried to sanitize it. Make it something it isn't. Let others deal with it. Improve it somehow, for heaven's sake. And definitely profit off of it.
I would be one who benefitted from your candor, Josh. It's something for someone who is grieving to latch on to and move forward. Candor can bring clarity. And humor definitely can ease the pain for a time until the mind can begin to process the loss.
I once lived in a house that had been built in stages starting in 1759. The seller was active in the local historical society and had done a lot of research about this house and the family that had owned it for generations. The rooms were laid out in a way modern people would find peculiar; in particular one very nice room, appointed as a formal parlor, had an exterior wall with no windows and a door directly to the outside. Jack explained that houses built back then always had one room with a wall long enough and a door wide enough to bring a coffin in and place it against the wall.
BTW -- the property came with a private cemetery. A couple of people buried in it were notables from the 19th C, the cemetery itself was charted on some kind of Civil War map, and we used to have people show up wanting to look at the gravestones.
I used to work in a veterinary ER. Same applies. The things I’ve said and laughed at would make most people’s hair curl, but when you put 10 pets on ice in the space of one shift, it’s necessary to stay sane.
Honesty with the owners is also very important. As in, “you’re being cruel by extending Fluffy’s suffering.”
Yes, I recommend them highly. I've used them for 2 of my 3 kitties I've had to euthanize. They're professionals, and the animals are much more at ease in their familiar environments than in a place that reeks of fear and pain and death, echoes with screaming puppies and howling cats, where strangers restrain and poke and prod them.
I honestly wish I could get a vet to prescribe the drugs for me. There have been times when I could have saved kitty many hours of suffering by ending her life, but no, I had to wait for a "pro."
This isn't difficult stuff. Anyone can learn it. I kept a diabetic cat healthy for years doing daily blood sugar test and insulin injections.
Palpating to find a vein really can be taught to anyone of normal intelligence.
May 11, 2023·edited May 11, 2023Liked by Josh Slocum
I have mixed feelings. It's a controlled drug, so even in the hospital, it's in a lockbox and only a few staff members have access. I have mixed feelings about how medication has to be prescribed in the first place, but that's a bigger can of worms.
Additionally, having seen dozens of student technicians (and even licensed techs) struggle to find veins, particularly in old, dehydrated cats, I can tell you it isn't always easy. I also think intelligent people like you may tend to overestimate the abilities of others.
I've only cried (edit: at work) once, and it was for a cat with a saddle thrombus we were trying to euthanize. It took over an hour (and dozens of pokes) for 2 vets and 4 technicians to finally hit a vein. I was restraining the cat with tears and snot streaming down my face, and it was one of the only times I was grateful that the owner didn't want to be present. Ugh, I'm going to cry now thinking about it.
Euthasol is typically administered after a sedative, like Propofol, because it does cause pain. If it isn't administered directly into a vein, or the vein ruptures, it can cause severe pain at the injection site.
I have too many horrible stories and exceptions. I think my experience is tainting my objectivity. This is at what used to be the best hospital in the Mid Atlantic. I can only imagine what it's like elsewhere. Sorry for rambling.
I'm so sorry about your kitty. I read your tribute to her recently. I've got 2 elderly cats now, and I've occasionally dared to wonder about what I would do if I were unable to get them prompt attention. I do own firearms, but I'm sure that would be a measure of last resort.
It's all so contextual. Having the means would have been a benefit to you and your cat in that circumstance, but probably not for the majority of people.
When Twix kitty died, my housemate and I wrapped him in a shroud with pink yarn like a little honey baked ham, then put him on the porch in an Igloo cooler for a week in January. The ground was too hard to dig a grave, and the crematory was backed up.
When I delivered his box to the back door of the vets where they keep dead pets, they looked at me like they couldn't believe I was willing. . I don't know. . .see death and be matter of fact about it?
I feel sad for the living who will no longer benefit from the service you so needfully provided. What a loss, maybe even as much as the family member or friend for whom those last arrangements are made.
Josh, I bet you have enough stories to fill a book. If you ever do write a book on this subject, I would buy it because you have a unique point of view and lots of knowledge in this area that most people would love to know about. It never even occurred to me that there was such a thing as the organization you worked for. And, btw, you cracked me up with your cremation story!
I went to the police station after my husband was killed to collect his personal effects. The cop gave me a wallet, phone and a red hazmat bag that he was holding as if it contained ebola. It
was my husband's clothes collected from the scene. I placed the bag in my trunk and there it stayed all winter. Come spring I was worried about possible smell. I expressed my concern to friends but they were horrified and would not continue the conversation.
Finally one morning I decided I'd peek in the bag and just pray there wasn't too much brain matter. As I'm standing there pondering the bag, agonizing over the fucked up reality of my husband's decomp in my trunk ,my neighbor pulled up and yelled " hey good morning! what
are you up to??" I turn around ,hold the hazmat bag up to her and she just burst out laughing. Then I start laughing, uncontrollable laugh attack , crying laughing so hard.
It was one of the most cathartic moments of my life. Still though, there aren't many people I can successfully tell the story to as they become very uncomfortable and do not find it funny in the least.
Dude had an easy bake oven, lethal (burns are a part of cooking-I have tortilla fingers) but loved. I bought my kids one now, and it's like a retarded pizza oven.
If you can make someone laugh when they're utterly miserable, that's a lovely thing. It's a great tension reliever, and funeral planning is certainly a stressful time, to say the least.
All sorts of ridiculous things happen at death, and many of them are really fucking funny.
My mother and her sisters spent the last two days of my grandmother's life (their mother) talking to her unconscious in the hospital. Grandmother died of congestive heart failure, which is a peaceful way to go.
She had been propped up in the bed for so long that when they lowered the bed, Grandma just popped back up like an unconscious jack-in-the-box. My mother and aunt were in hysterical laughter.
Then, my uncle saw the hearse with Grandma's coffin in it parked at the roadside cafe on the way to the cemetery before the burial. "Figures she got someone to buy her one last lunch!"
And *then*, my uncle drove by the cemetery and found them getting ready to put her in the wrong grave.
At this point, every single one of us was crying with laughter.
We are bombarded with crap that makes people think they and everyone they love can and should live forever.
We don't honor the process of aging; we fight it tooth and nail. Like somehow, we can beat the system and not age and therefore not die.
Death is often messy. Even if it's in a hospital succumbing to the effects of the shit operation they used to "fight" the pancreatic cancer that was discovered, it still comes. With attached lines and shrill beeping and the yellow flushing of the skin, it comes.
People don't want to talk about death and dying because they haven't been raised to understand and exposed to the reality that it really is just the final part of living in this existence. For some who believe there is more, it isn't the end. Others believe there is no more, and it is the end. Regardless, now, in this world, the body is just a useless husk.
We used to have our loved ones die at home. They were cared for and included, as much as possible, in the life that surrounded them. And the wake was there, in the home, too. A dead body was seen, but a life was remembered. We used to know how to deal with the part of life that is death. Now, like everything else, we've tried to sanitize it. Make it something it isn't. Let others deal with it. Improve it somehow, for heaven's sake. And definitely profit off of it.
I would be one who benefitted from your candor, Josh. It's something for someone who is grieving to latch on to and move forward. Candor can bring clarity. And humor definitely can ease the pain for a time until the mind can begin to process the loss.
I once lived in a house that had been built in stages starting in 1759. The seller was active in the local historical society and had done a lot of research about this house and the family that had owned it for generations. The rooms were laid out in a way modern people would find peculiar; in particular one very nice room, appointed as a formal parlor, had an exterior wall with no windows and a door directly to the outside. Jack explained that houses built back then always had one room with a wall long enough and a door wide enough to bring a coffin in and place it against the wall.
BTW -- the property came with a private cemetery. A couple of people buried in it were notables from the 19th C, the cemetery itself was charted on some kind of Civil War map, and we used to have people show up wanting to look at the gravestones.
I would live on this property happily.
I used to work in a veterinary ER. Same applies. The things I’ve said and laughed at would make most people’s hair curl, but when you put 10 pets on ice in the space of one shift, it’s necessary to stay sane.
Honesty with the owners is also very important. As in, “you’re being cruel by extending Fluffy’s suffering.”
Yep yep. Thank God for vets who do housecalls for death. I want to hold my cats when they die at home, not in some sterile office.
Yes, I recommend them highly. I've used them for 2 of my 3 kitties I've had to euthanize. They're professionals, and the animals are much more at ease in their familiar environments than in a place that reeks of fear and pain and death, echoes with screaming puppies and howling cats, where strangers restrain and poke and prod them.
I honestly wish I could get a vet to prescribe the drugs for me. There have been times when I could have saved kitty many hours of suffering by ending her life, but no, I had to wait for a "pro."
This isn't difficult stuff. Anyone can learn it. I kept a diabetic cat healthy for years doing daily blood sugar test and insulin injections.
Palpating to find a vein really can be taught to anyone of normal intelligence.
I have mixed feelings. It's a controlled drug, so even in the hospital, it's in a lockbox and only a few staff members have access. I have mixed feelings about how medication has to be prescribed in the first place, but that's a bigger can of worms.
Additionally, having seen dozens of student technicians (and even licensed techs) struggle to find veins, particularly in old, dehydrated cats, I can tell you it isn't always easy. I also think intelligent people like you may tend to overestimate the abilities of others.
I've only cried (edit: at work) once, and it was for a cat with a saddle thrombus we were trying to euthanize. It took over an hour (and dozens of pokes) for 2 vets and 4 technicians to finally hit a vein. I was restraining the cat with tears and snot streaming down my face, and it was one of the only times I was grateful that the owner didn't want to be present. Ugh, I'm going to cry now thinking about it.
Euthasol is typically administered after a sedative, like Propofol, because it does cause pain. If it isn't administered directly into a vein, or the vein ruptures, it can cause severe pain at the injection site.
I have too many horrible stories and exceptions. I think my experience is tainting my objectivity. This is at what used to be the best hospital in the Mid Atlantic. I can only imagine what it's like elsewhere. Sorry for rambling.
You make good points, and I'm glad you educated me. I'm still very sore about my last cat who suffered overnight appallingly while we waited.
I'm so sorry about your kitty. I read your tribute to her recently. I've got 2 elderly cats now, and I've occasionally dared to wonder about what I would do if I were unable to get them prompt attention. I do own firearms, but I'm sure that would be a measure of last resort.
It's all so contextual. Having the means would have been a benefit to you and your cat in that circumstance, but probably not for the majority of people.
When Twix kitty died, my housemate and I wrapped him in a shroud with pink yarn like a little honey baked ham, then put him on the porch in an Igloo cooler for a week in January. The ground was too hard to dig a grave, and the crematory was backed up.
When I delivered his box to the back door of the vets where they keep dead pets, they looked at me like they couldn't believe I was willing. . I don't know. . .see death and be matter of fact about it?
EZ bake oven! I love this!
I feel sad for the living who will no longer benefit from the service you so needfully provided. What a loss, maybe even as much as the family member or friend for whom those last arrangements are made.
Josh, I bet you have enough stories to fill a book. If you ever do write a book on this subject, I would buy it because you have a unique point of view and lots of knowledge in this area that most people would love to know about. It never even occurred to me that there was such a thing as the organization you worked for. And, btw, you cracked me up with your cremation story!
The one person offended by my approach was an attendee at a large public talk I gave on funeral planning.
Picture him. 65 years old, swishy queen with earrings wearing a man mu-mu and swanning about with his girlfriends.
He came up after my talk and spluttered.
"I work with funeral professionals and grieving families and I have never heard someone talk like this. This is not stand-up comedy!"
Me: "Yes, it is."
I went to the police station after my husband was killed to collect his personal effects. The cop gave me a wallet, phone and a red hazmat bag that he was holding as if it contained ebola. It
was my husband's clothes collected from the scene. I placed the bag in my trunk and there it stayed all winter. Come spring I was worried about possible smell. I expressed my concern to friends but they were horrified and would not continue the conversation.
Finally one morning I decided I'd peek in the bag and just pray there wasn't too much brain matter. As I'm standing there pondering the bag, agonizing over the fucked up reality of my husband's decomp in my trunk ,my neighbor pulled up and yelled " hey good morning! what
are you up to??" I turn around ,hold the hazmat bag up to her and she just burst out laughing. Then I start laughing, uncontrollable laugh attack , crying laughing so hard.
It was one of the most cathartic moments of my life. Still though, there aren't many people I can successfully tell the story to as they become very uncomfortable and do not find it funny in the least.
Oh, Jane. Jane. I'm sorry.
And I'm laughing with you.
Thanks.
The clothes were fine btw.
Dude had an easy bake oven, lethal (burns are a part of cooking-I have tortilla fingers) but loved. I bought my kids one now, and it's like a retarded pizza oven.
RETARDED PIZZA OVEN
I'm reclaiming it for retards and idiots since they're my people.