Fire and drowning are still my easy top two deaths, but I've learned from working here yet another one to fear.
A slow one.
One that you know is coming and just have to lay in a bed, not even able to run from it as you feel it creeping closer and closer while doctors and your family keeps begging you to just hold on.
Cancer is a cruel motherfucker.
I end the final phone call for now.
"I don't know how you do it."
I turn my head to see Marisa, our hair and makeup artist, standing by the office doors.
"I could say the same to you." I point out.
My job may deal with the emotional side of things, but I can't imagine doing what she does. I'm not freaked out by bodies anymore, but I still shutter at the thought of what she does.
I don't know how she does it, but I'm glad that she does. She takes their broken flesh and recreates the life that once lived within them. Her job is just as important as every one else here.
She gives the families their loved one back, if only for a little while. She studies the photos of the deceased to ensure that she does their hair and makeup in just the perfect way to make them look like themselves again.
It was shocking to me the first time I saw her do her work.
The woman's name was Judy. She'd died of heart disease and by the time the body was brought to us, she looked nothing like the person in the picture stuck to her file.
It's insane what death does to a human body. How everything sinks and sags. How the skin turns leathery and hard, darkening and cracking.
Without the soul inside to animate them, they just look like sad casings. Until Marisa does her thing.
By the time she was done, Judy looked beautiful again. It's true what they say sometimes, how they just look like they're sleeping.
All of the cruel signs of their traumas or hard lived lives are wiped away and they look at peace again, ready to hear the goodbyes of the ones who loved them most in this world.
My heart breaks to think I may have to find another place to work. I know how weird people think it is. How morbid and macabre they believe it is. I see the way people scrunch their faces in distaste when I tell them what I do.
But being apart of this is so essential, so important. We do so much good here. I don't want to have to move on and do something just for money.
But money is important.
I hate just how important it really is. Without it, what can you really do? I know they say it can't buy happiness. But it sure as hell can buy electricity and food and transportation and medicine and water and all of the other things we need to be alive. If you didn't have any of that, would you really be happy?
I don't even know how much diapers cost. Or formula. What about car seats and strollers and whatever else a baby needs?
The weight of my situation creeps back underneath my skin. I itch to move. I bounce my leg beneath the desk, liking how the sound of my foot tapping off of the ground over and over drowns out some of my thoughts.
"Shelia in yet?" I ask Marisa.
"She's downstairs." She tells me, watching me. "You ok?"
I nod, waving a hand flippantly. "Gucci." I give her a fake smile.
"I'm gonna grab a coffee before I get started." She says, walking towards the back office. "Want one?"
I shake my head.
