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Evasion of the body snatchers >> What happens to your body when you die by ROBBIE DILLON
Now, I'm as easy-going as the next guy--assuming, of course, that he is also being dragged by filthy youth-sucking vampires into the icy, black abyss of middle age--but frankly, I can do without this unsolicited reminder of my own mortality. The pamphlet of death gets tossed, along with a handful of municipal election thingies, into an already over-flowing trash can in the lobby of my building. I normally don't spend a lot of time thinking about death. Like anyone who's ever swallowed more than seven hits of halfway decent acid, I already know that when you die, your soul is spun into eternal oneness with The Giant Purple Egg and then transported to the Planet of Triangles. But lately, thanks to a certain insidious advertising campaign, I can't help but wonder what will happen to the rather attractive carcass that I will be leaving behind. Enter the embalmer
"In those days, there were no embalming or funeral homes," Lépine explains. "The bodies were washed by midwives or friends of the family and laid out for viewing on special raised beds in the person's home." Funeral directors, like Lépine's grandfather, prepared these viewing rooms by sealing off the windows and draping black and violet bunting over the doors. Modern-style funeral homes were created around the turn of the century to serve the needs of poor families whose houses weren't big enough to lay out a body. Today, embalming of all dead bodies is legally required under Montreal public health ordinance P-35. After you die, a certified technician wipes your body down with a facecloth soaked in a Lysol-type disinfectant. A canula is inserted into your carotid artery, giving direct access to your heart, and 23 gallons of formaldehyde-based embalming fluid are pumped into your arterial system, flooding your capillaries and forcing all the blood in your body out of your jugular vein. The blood is then unceremoniously flushed, along with any surplus disinfectant and embalming fluid, directly into the sewer system.
One more disinfecting wipe-down and your body is ready for dressing and makeup. The mouth and nose are swabbed out with moisturizing disinfectants and special gel-coated discs that resemble large contact lenses are inserted under your eyelids. "It's very important to avoid the drying of these tissues," explains Lépine. "If the face is not properly moisturized, the lips will crack and formaldehyde in the capillaries will cause brown spots to appear. Also, because the nose is not bone, but mostly gelatin, it can easily dry out, making it curve at kind of an angle and causing the eyes to sink into the head." Your face is now powdered and made-up and then, after being decked out in your Sunday best, your hands are arranged on your chest. It's all in the hands Traditionally, a rosary was entwined between the fingers of the deceased. This custom is less common today, but Lépine says the arrangement of the hands is still a very important part of the process. "A person uses their hands to talk, to work, to do a lot of things during their life. They are a reflection of the person's character. A body that is exposed without the hands in view lacks personality." From here on, it's pretty much a case of being all dressed up with no place to go. Quebec's Roman Catholic tradition has made for a fairly conservative funeral industry. Sure, you can always treat yourself to a hermetically sealed, stainless steel casket, but forget about 40-foot tall Balinese funeral pyres decorated with brightly coloured cloth and carried by up to 200 pallbearers. Congolese casket dances, where mourners chant and swing the deceased's coffin through the air in the belief that he should be partying when he meets his ancestors, are also out of the question. Dead in space But, if money is no object (and frankly, there isn't much to save for at this point), you can always join Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry and have your ashes launched into outer space. For $4,800 (U.S.), Celestis Inc. of Houston, Texas, will load your remains onto a Taurus rocket and blast them into orbit 300 miles above the earth. After about 10 years or so, the ashes re-enter the earth's atmosphere and disintegrate, appearing as tiny shooting stars in the sky. "Most of our clients are ordinary people who just love space for one reason or another," explains Celestis marketing director, David Alston. "They may have wanted to be an astronaut in life or maybe they really liked Star Trek. But one thing they all have in common is a taste for adventure." Celestis' latest project is Encounter 2001, a deep space mission that will carry a cargo of human DNA--as well as ashes--and will continue travelling through the cosmos until, as Alston puts it, it either smashes into something or gets captured. Meanwhile, in Utah, Corky Ra of Summum Inc. will mummify your body in rubber and fiberglass resin, seal it in a metal sarcophagus and bury it in an abandoned mine shaft where he guarantees it will be pristinely preserved unto eternity. Prices start at $50,000 (U.S.) and range as high as $3,000,000 for a solid gold sarcophagus. Personally, after a great deal of thinking and the kind of profound reflection that makes my brain hurt, I've come to realize that death is nothing to be afraid of and a carefully planned funeral can be the ultimate expression of one's existence. That's why I've decided to follow the lead of the anonymous master poet who scribbled these now immortal lines upon an ancient bathroom wall: And when my life is over And my time has come to pass, I hope they bury me upside down So the world can kiss my ass. Maybe me and the pamphlet guys can work something out after all. Celestis can be reached at 1-800-ORBIT-11
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The expensive-looking pamphlet that was dropped into my mailbox only a few days before my 37th birthday was not your typical piece of junk mail. Inscribed on ivory-coloured paper and accompanied by the poignant image of a wrought-iron gate, open and beckoning in the twilight, the offer was pithy and unmistakably to the point. With all the tasteful elegance of a peep show or a 2-for-1 pizza flier, it invited me to arrange my very own PERSONAL WAY TO SAY GOODBYE.
Luckily, André Lépine is able to answer all my questions. The former funeral home director is the coordinator of Collège Rosemont's thanatology program, where students learn every aspect of the funeral industry from embalming to the psychology of grief. His family has been handling corpses since 1845, when one of his ancestors, a cabinet maker who built coffins on the side, began renting out a horse-drawn hearse to families who lived further than pallbearing distance from the local cemetery.
After this arterial injection, an 18-inch needle, known as a trocar, is inserted through your belly button and manipulated until all the fluids and gases are sucked out of your stomach, kidneys and other internal organs. Another 16 ounces of 20 to 30 per cent formaldehyde solution are then pumped into your abdominal cavity.