My First Day

Well today was my first official day as a funeral director. I started the day visiting the Cheltenham cemetery. There is a particular way to drive a hearse in to this cemetery and depending on which of the four driveways that you use, there is a particular way to exit as well. The council that is controlling this cemetery is participating in the destruction of Adelaide's history. In the oldest part of the cemetery there are graves that date back to late nineteenth century. They are digging these graves up and preparing them for new ones. The headstones and any concreting are removed and then destroyed. The unfortunate bodies in these graves are removed and then buried deeper. It is nothing sort of sacrilege. If these were war graves that were being dug up, the councillors in control would be lynched. The people in the graves are just as deserving of respect as those who fought in wars.

Our next port of call was one of the funeral homes that the company that I work for owns. I met the people that work there. They were very friendly and happy to see me. I will stationed there this coming Thursday. From there we moved on to Enfield Memorial Park.

I was shown the various sections of the cemetery and then we moved on to the crematorium which I found to be a fascinating place. The crematorium is basically two huge, computer controlled gas fired ovens. There was a small queue of coffins (with bodies inside) waiting to be placed inside. I was lucky enough to arrive at the time they were just about to put a coffin into the crematorium. All large metal objects need to be removed such as handles and the nameplate on top of the coffin, plus anything with a battery (pacemaker, defribilator etc) need to be removed. The coffin is placed on special motorised gurney. The gurney is then moved and then locked into place at the front door of the crematorium. At the flick of a button the door opens and the coffin is very quickly (literally within a second) rolled into place. The door closes. All this is automated. The coffin is then subjected to fire and heat in excess of 865 degrees celcius (1589 degrees fahrenheit). An average sized person will be burnt up within one hour. At the back of the crematorium is a little window to see the coffin if you so wish. The one coffin I had just witnessed enter was just a wall of flame, however in the one next door you could clearly see the remains of a spinal column and part of a skull. This did not disturb me however if it was your loved one it may be too much to witness. Once the process is complete the door on the otherside opens and a worker scrapes out the remains into a cooling bucket. Once cooled the remains are transferred into a plastic urn to be returned to family.

We then visited the administration area of the complex and then the funeral directors lounge. My boss then showed me one of the chapels. If you have been to a funeral you would know that the coffin usually sits on a decorated platform that symbolically lowers as the funeral concludes. I learnt that this platform is actually called 'catafalque'. You learn something everyday don't you? From there we moved onto Adelaide's largest cemetery complex - Centennial Park.

Centennial Park is very large and quite picturesque. Many of my own relatives can be found in this cemetery including my grandfather and grandmother. Like Cheltenham, Centennial Park also particpates in reusing graves after a certain time although it is no way near as obvious as Cheltenham. The boss showed me around the office areas, the funeral directors lounge, funeral directors pigeon holes, the three chapels, as well the underground areas. Unlike Enfield Memorial Park, when the coffin is lowered on the catafalque, it actually descends into the underground area to be picked up by a hearse. The hearse then travels to either the graveside service or to the crematorium (Centennial Park has five of them).

We then left Centennial Park and went to the engravers to pick up my new name badge. It looks very official and my name is actually spelt correctly! Bonus.

We drove back to the funeral home where I started my day to have lunch.

After lunch we drove to arrange a funeral for a family who had just lost their daughter. She was only 24. I didn't realise this until earlier this evening. There was a notice in the paper placed by the family.

When we finished up we drove back to the funeral home. On the way we got a call that a person in a nursing home had passed away. My boss arranged one of the other staff that I had met earlier in the day to come and pick me up. He arrived twenty minutes later and so I was off to do another transfer. When we arrived at the nursing home the deceased had been placed into a small holding room waiting for our arrival. She looked like she was sleeping. Rigor mortis had not begin to set in so she had only just died. Just like what I did on Saturday (and Sunday), we tranferred her to the body bag on top of the berouche. It was at this time my partner and I both could smell the unmistakable stench of the body purging. It wasn't overpowering but the smell was there. We placed her into back of the tranfer wagon and set off for home base.

This was essentially the end of my working day. On Thursday I will be stationed at another funeral home, which is only minutes away from where I live. I can get up a bit later on that morning. Yay. I will also be helping out in the funeral of the young lady who I mentioned previously.