Lady Bug Circus

I was a Removal Technician for an After Care Center for 10 Hours and 30 Minutes

My first day on the job...

Oh my god I saw so many dead people today. I handled them.They were so cold. One male body, late 20s early 30s, had blown his brains out. I saw old men with dried blue eyes wide open and their mouths agape like they were screaming. I had to move one on to a slab for embalming. I had to put I.D.s on the ankles of dead women, one reminded me of our daughter,Montana. One was too heavy for me to shove in the van. The stench of death and formaldehyde is stuck in my nostrils. One woman’s feet bent the wrong way because her bones had been removed from her legs as a donor making her jellyfish like and floppy. I saw one woman my age who had died clutching stuffed animals. She was still warm when we picked her up. She looked peaceful and I felt like I was taking care of her. I saw a body wrapped in plastic (actually called a plastic shroud, but it's more like a big plastic envelope) go into the retort (crematorium). I saw a 480 pound man in one of the coolers. 3 coolers have about 275 bodies and body parts total.There was a torso, a box of heads and  shelves of babies. A body was being delivered and the tech had to unwrap the bag to check the tag on the ankle. She unwrapped it and another tech said let’s have a look, I asked why and his answer was “morbid curiosity”. She had been autopsied and sewn up in a crude fashion and the fat underneath her skin was bulging out like dull yellow marbles, there was blood all over the plastic. One woman had been in some kind of accident and was sprayed with blood. I learned so much in one day.Seeing the first body was jarring. Then the next 3 or 4 all looked alike to me. Then I felt numb. Like I was in disbelief of what I was seeing and just acting in a movie and that it wasn’t real.

The person who was training me seems very level headed. They don’t believe in ghosts yet related two separate instances where they have seen them.

The next day...
I quit this job at 6:30 AM.It's not for me after all.

 

Editors note: The best thing about this experience is how much I learned in one day. I also know that I can die with peace of mind about how my body will be treated. The people who would have been my coworkers were kind, friendly and good natured. They carry out (pun intended) their duties with the utmost respect and dignity for the decedent and the decedent's family.

Random things I learned...

Obese bodies are cremated when the retort is first turned on because if a retort is already very hot a grease fire can in sue.

Muslim decedents are covered with a white cotton sheet rather than the plastic shroud. 

After a body is cremated the "ashes" are raked into a bin. The bin is then taken to a room that has a grinder. This turns anything that didn't completely disintegrate into power. If there was a titanium hip or knee the family is welcome to have it, otherwise it gets sent out to be recycled.

If a body has insect larva on it there is a symbol that gets drawn on the bag to let others know. No words for the larva are to be written on the bag out of respect.

 

 

Valentine for David, Bittersweet

David Ishii is the first friend I made when I moved to Seattle in 1987. We lived in the same apartment building in Pioneer Square. We had fun going for coffee in the afternoon, he'd close up his rare and out of print book store and we go to Torrefazione Italia on Occidental Park. During baseball season David would treat me to ball games at the now long gone Kingdome. Sometimes we'd go out late for noodles in the International District and occasionally the Opera or movies. He baby sat my cat when I'd leave for the weekend. He introduced me to his friends and included me when he went to their parties. For a few years I made Valentines and he sold them in his shop. Over the past few years I haven't made Valentines but this year I did. This is a special one for David. Sadly, this was the last valentine I would make David as he died shortly after Valentines (2012)

Foothills of the Mother Lode, Memorial for Bill Judkins

An alter was assembled, complete with Dylan music for my Uncle Bill. The painting was done by my grandmother Alice Lolita Rhodes Judkins. Most of his ashes have been scattered in the place he loved most. I couldn't make it but my sister was there and she took this photo. "Today was a good day to scatter ashes". A movie I saw with my Uncle was Little Big Man and we loved the Indian Chief who said " it was a good day to die".

My Uncle Bill Judkins

                                                                      Willard King Judkins

                                                                            1931     to     2011

My uncle was a fine wood worker and cabinet maker. He made wine and loved Bob Dylan. He was 6'8". He baked short bread and made spiced nuts. He hosted holiday dinners; served prime rib on a long carved wood table covered in white linen, china and silver. Toward the end of the evening he'd sing a song about the boll weevil. He collected oriental rugs. He made jewelry and at my request in 1969 made me a silver peace symbol to wear around my neck. He wore a Stetson, smoked a pipe and drove a truck. He embroidered on my sister's jeans. Took us to Disneyland when I was in kindergarten. He was the original recycled material artist creating a play horse for me out of a barrel, a rubber tire saddle and loosened rope mane and tail. He was a hunter and used every part of the deer. Antlers became polished buttons and buckskin became pouches, vests or part of a bellows. We'd go for pizza and as we drove through Berkeley he would casually point at an establishment (Ski Hut, Narsai David's...) and say, "I made those doors." At Easter he gave us each a 5 pound rocky road egg. He loved to have his photograph taken. This one was taken by Andy Stewart in the early '70s. He made everything he did look easy. He was an extra in The Gambler movie and had his own line of furniture in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a time. He grew up in Richmond and Mariposa. My mother told a story about him when he was little. She said he set a field on fire and when his mother asked him why he had, he said it was because he wanted to see the fire trucks. His punishment for this was to sit under the kitchen table and NOT see the fire trucks. I was also told that one summer he grew 6 inches and slept through most of it. In 1970 or so I introduced him to my junior high drama/English teacher. They married, had two daughters and became a tightly knit family. My uncle was an amazing man in life and in dying. He will be greatly missed by all who loved him.

Dentures as Collectables 2007

Okay, so this seems like an odd collection. In a way, it started when my mother was dying. She was in the hospital and my father took her dentures to the bathroom to wash them. When he came out he had the upper half in his mouth and was doing his best impression of Charlie Chan. It was my mother's last great laugh. Tears were streaming down our faces. At the funeral home they gave my father her dentures in a plastic container and he put them in a cupboard in the guest bath where I found them and kept them. The other set I "found" at a flea market in the Mother Lode of California last summer when my sister and I were back for a family reunion in Mariposa.They were $2. The dentist model was at Value Village yesterday for $3.99. It has the word crest on top.

Mom died 29 years ago this week and I still think of her every day.

 

Road Side Shrines to Lost Loved Ones

The first roadside shrine I remember seeing was on a car trip from Mexico DF to where the Aztec pyramids are when I was in first grade. Seeing it gave me the chills. It was explained to me that someone had died there, and if you were a good Catholic you left a few pesos for the family in the shine. Even back then I thought that was a bad idea because someone else would surely come along and steal it.

More and more I am spotting them from the bus as I drive all over King County. I want to stop at each one and find out about the people they were made for. Sometimes I see baby shoes or small ball caps.

Today I stopped at two of them. This person must have liked Honda motorcycles, beer and vodka and was loved by their friends. There is a snap shot of a couple but I don't know who the shrine was made for.

This shrine I pass on the way to work. The young woman who died here was very well loved and known by many. There was news about it in the local paper when it happened. She was a passenger in a car that was hit by a drunk driver.

The shrines are sad, sweet and haunting and hopefully a reminder to motorists to drive more safely.