I Touched A Dead Body Yesterday

It didn’t scare me, or even freak me out. I was surprised. I touched the body while my wife and two men preparing her aunt’s body (who we knew as Na) for a funeral that was taking place the next day. They were struggling with her dress. The slip was hard enough to put on, but now the dress, with its zippers and lace, it required three sets of hands to lift the body and keep Na’s head in place. I wasn’t going to just stand by—I had visions of the body slipping off the table, bursting open and embalming fluids splashing on my legs. Better I help and avert a potential disaster!

The place where the body was being prepared for the funeral was described to us as a “private morgue.” We had visited the public morgue earlier that day and had identified the body for the death certificate. The sight of Na’s body wrapped in a sheet, with cotton in her mouth and nose, was almost too much to bear. I was not looking forward to a second encounter with Na’s body.

To find the private morgue, we were told to look for the large Edwin Hardware sign off the side of the highway. “You can’t miss it,” I was told. Who hasn’t heard that before?

But I saw the Fereteria Edwin sign and the rutted, dirt driveway that led to what appeared to be an open garage where cars were being repaired. A forlorn dog, skinny with sagging tetes watched us walk warily up to the building. The garage doors were open and we walked right in. Inside we saw the coffin we had selected earlier that day, and Na’s body lying on a metal table. The room was clean enough, but lacked the sterile, medical atmosphere I expected. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t nervous. Na’s body was being readied for her last public appearance in a garage! Fortunately she looked much better than she did at the public morgue. The cotton had been pulled out, her face was less puffy, and some makeup had already been applied.

The body itself was soft to the touch, but room temperature. There was no life in that skin. The faint aroma of Na’s perfume was evident, but her spirit had departed. I wasn’t scared, repulsed or nervous. We had a limited amount of time to make sure she was presentable. So my wife fixed the makeup, changed the earrings, combed her hair, and arranged her clothing and rosary beads. This was the best we could do.

The next day, 30 minutes before Na’s funeral, a hearse arrived at the church. It was not exactly a hearse, but a white minivan that transported the coffin. We were asked to find men to carry the coffin up the stairs into the sanctuary. For this funeral, the pall bearers really bore a burden, not symbolically accompanied the casket. So huffing and puffing, six of us carefully carried the coffin with Na inside up two flights of stairs. Once in the sanctuary, mourners crowded around the coffin to see Na one more time. My wife was grateful she spent the time carefully arranging the body the day before—fixing the makeup, choosing the right clothes and jewelry—because at this funeral people wanted to see the deceased—a closed casket simply would not do.

My wife said she wished she had one last opportunity to hug her Na before she passed. While they talked on the telephone almost daily, she hadn’t felt her warm embrace, smelled her perfume or seen the vibrant sparkle in her eyes in almost a year. While the corpse looked like Na, it was not her. You can’t feel love from a corpse.

My wife and I both touched a dead body yesterday. Fortunately, a life of warm memories is what we’ll remember.