"I Was An Embalming Technician"

This week, Madison joins us to talk about her time working in a funeral home, what death teaches the living, and why grief, absurdity, and dignity all seem to sit at the same table. Also: farmer’s market people-watching, Aldi dresses with pockets, and somehow, Fallout.

Super Familiar with The Wilsons 
Find us on instagram at instagram.com/superfamiliarwiththewilsons
and on Youtube
Contact us! familiarwilsons@gmail.com

A Familiar Wilsons Production

Transcript

Cold Open And Introductions

Josh 0:00

Familiar Wilson's Media. Relationships are the story. You are made of meat, my friend, all the way down. The following podcast uses words like and and also woo. If you're not into any of that shit, then now's your chance. Three, two, one. Run. Super familiar with you.

Amanda 0:27

Welcome to Super Familiar with the Wilsons, i'm Amanda.

Josh 0:30

And I'm Josh.

Madison 0:32

And I'm Madison.

Josh 0:33

And this is the podcast with some people on it talking about Marriage 2.0.

Amanda 0:39

You said you weren't going to screw it up.

Josh 0:41

No, I totally agree with you.

Amanda 0:42

This is the podcast about marriage 2.0 with children and all the side quests. I gotta say every single week. We say the same thing.

Josh 0:49

Gotta stop thinking about it, I think. Or have it written down. We welcome Madison here today. Thank you for joining us. And Madison used to work at a funeral home. So we're going to talk about death.

Madison 1:02

Yeah, yeah. It was uh definitely a huge part of my life for a long time. It's you know how I met my husband, ironically.

Josh 1:09

So I love that story. Um, but before we talk about that, uh let's talk about our visit to the farmer's market this morning.

Amanda 1:17

Yes, we went to the farmer's market. Have you been to the Hale Farmer's Market?

Madison 1:20

I have not. I uh absolutely uh love going to the farmer's market. So definitely interested. What'd you guys do?

Josh 1:27

Well, we usually go every Saturday morning and we get a couple of egg sandwiches, but mostly we go to people watch.

Amanda 1:34

Yes, the people watching is really it gets really, really crowded. We go like to go at 8 30. Our 19-year-old Muffy does not like to go until about 11:30. And actually, she just went and was upset that the vendors were out of her cannoli muffins. I was like, well, this is this is what happens. Yeah.

Josh 1:50

So but I do like to people watch, and a couple things I noticed today. First of all, I I I like to see the disparity between what people wear, the t-shirts they wear, and like how they're carrying their face. Yeah. For example, this one really grumpy guy walking down the street with a shirt that said, Be kind.

Amanda 2:07

Maybe people had not been kind to him. It's like, please just be kind to me. I'm having a rough day.

Josh 2:12

I see, I see. He comes with instructions.

Amanda 2:14

It's like an Andal with care stickers, you know.

Josh 2:17

Um, and then another person, I'm I've never seen someone not match themselves as much as this gentleman didn't match himself. When I was a kid, we used to take apart our action figures and then reassemble them with parts from different action figures. This guy looked just like the body of Homer Simpson with the arms of Hulk Hogan.

Amanda 2:36

Oh, that's weird. How do you do that? You just do arm day.

Josh 2:39

It was just it's always arm day. It's arm day and arm night. And he is the most appropriate use of a sleeveless shirt I've ever seen. That's so interesting. Good for him that he's putting in some effort. Like I match all over. Yeah. And I wish I didn't. You know, as do I, yeah. I would go for some some Hulk Hogan arms on this almost.

Amanda 2:59

There's a lot of commitment to just one very specific area.

Madison 3:03

I'm like, I think I would get bored after a while.

Amanda 3:05

Yeah.

Josh 3:06

He maybe he has a job that requires him to just be lifting, just just lifting things, though. Yeah, but just lifting things with his arms because there's no no chest action, even. It's just arms. Like, I don't know what you need to do. That was that guy, and if you want to go see him, hail farmer's market Saturday mornings.

Amanda 3:24

I've never we go every Saturday, I've not seen this gentleman.

Josh 3:26

Yes, I'm count myself lucky.

Amanda 3:28

I just go to see all the dogs.

Josh 3:29

That was our farmers market adventure this morning.

Team Outings And Small-Town Food Talk

Amanda 3:32

Yeah, my work is gonna start doing the Cypress and Grove one on Monday evenings as like a bonding experience. I don't know what we call that. Like a outside of work. What do we call these things? Team building. This is the word I'm looking for. Drudgery was the word. Drudgery. No, but Cypress and Grove is lovely, and also farmers markets are lovely. And I hear from Colin from last week that the bagel lady is there that does homemade bagels, which love homemade bagels. That's a big one. Yeah.

Why Death Makes Us Uncomfortable

Josh 3:58

So I that's gonna be my early recommendation, even though recommendations are later. Do that. Now, let us very smoothly transition to talking to Madison about why it is that you're here. And I will tell you on the off here that this topic, this subject makes me very uncomfortable. Yeah. As with probably a lot of people, most people.

Madison 4:19

Absolutely.

Josh 4:20

The idea of death, the idea of dying, the idea of what happens to the mortal coil after someone shuffles it off. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Madison’s Path Into Funeral Work

Madison 4:27

So I was a philosophy major in college. So that definitely um, I think tied into my pursuit in this field and and where the core I'm gonna say morbid curiosity because that's truly what it was for me. Um, I've always loved going to like oddity fairs, always been interested in anatomy and physiology. Um, so I I think for me it just I don't think it's for everybody because what you just said, you know, it's it is uncomfortable. And so often you are helping people process such complicated feelings, and it almost always acts like a mirror, and you have to be okay sitting with yourself in those moments. And that's that's was what was really hard was the self-reflecting aspect of this job because it does, it makes you self-reflect a lot. I'm sure okay. So the job was So I was a funeral attendant and an embalming tech or an embalming assistant. I kind of fell into the work because, like I said, I always had a bit of a morbid curiosity. I've always had weird pets, always loved questions about weird pets. Yeah, so I've had spiders. I currently have two tarantulas, I have a Sudan-plated lizard, and I just last year lost my my python. Oh, wow. Oh so he I had him for seven years, but he was a rescue. So he was already 14 when I got him. So I was really grateful that I got that time with him. Um is that an average lifespan for a python? Uh 25 years or so, yeah. So the reptiles are a long-term commitment. You know, I've had my lizard since I was a teenager, a young teenager, um, early middle school. Oh. And he's still with me. So he's been on many adventures with me.

Josh 6:07

Listen, I grew up in in Miami. I'm well aware of people not understanding the commitment. Oh, yeah, the long-term commitment, and taking their pythons that they thought that they would have forever after a year and dumping them in the Everglades, and now we're a real problem. Yeah, it is.

Odd Pets And Loving Without Return

Madison 6:22

Yeah, I I lived in South Florida um for five years, and it's the invasive species problem is real. Um, a lot of places won't even sell iguanas anymore because it's become such a problem. But I always felt myself kind of drawn towards animals, towards pets, things that people would say to me, Oh, that thing doesn't love you back. So people would say, Oh, your lizard, it's a reptile. It doesn't have that center in its brain, it doesn't love you back. People have such a hard time with the concept that I love things to love them. I don't do it to get love in return. So that was, I think, something a lot of people kind of didn't get about the funeral industry is it's a lot of outpouring of love without an expectation in return.

Josh 7:08

Give us your typical day.

COVID Surge And Pop-Up Morgue

Speaking To The Dead And Spiritual Care

Madison 7:10

On my day-to-day, I did a lot of transportation. I was a removal technician as well. So I would go in and and after someone died. We did have a third-party company that helped. They just would not do decomposition, which is something that I did. I told him I'm an expert at getting out stains. Um I I mean, I saw some pretty graphic things going into people's homes. I still am freaked out by like hoarder homes and you know, piles of stuff because I did have a pile fall on me in the removal process. This woman had unfortunately passed away in our back room. And so that's, you know, it was really hard on the family. It was hard on us as technicians. Our third party company wouldn't go in and do it. So on a day-to-day for me, I spent most of my time in the back of the house. I would come, you know, rocking in my jeans and my band t-shirts into the back. Um, I always wore rubber boots to work because you can hose them off and I'd go into the morgue. Um, I'd be with our head embalmer. Sometimes I would get pulled to do services, um, depending on what day of the week it was, what we had going on. During COVID, obviously, we had a lot of less services. Sure. Um, there was just not people gathering for that. So I think at that point was when I was really just, you know, I hate to say the phrase, but balls to the walls in the back of the house. You know, that's what I was doing. We had a pop-up morgue. We were always at capacity. Um, it was grueling work, but I found it so rewarding that it was worth it for me. Um, I don't think that it's I tell people I'm like, I don't recommend it, but it was a very life-altering experience.

Amanda 8:51

So when you were working, especially when you were embalming and you were working with, you know, with directly the the deceased, did you find it in any way sort of like a way of honoring this person or a way of helping to continue to care for them after they had passed?

Madison 9:06

Yeah, I was kind of the resident nutcase because I spoke to everybody like they were still very much alive. I would say, you know, hi, I'd introduce myself to them when I'd pick them up. Um, I'd explain to them where I'm taking them. And the entire process, no matter what I'm doing, I'm I'm talking in that person's ear. I love that. Um, it was very, very important to me spiritually. Um, I have a very complicated spirituality because there's I have three generations of witches in my family. Oh, how cool. Um, my grandmother's side, they were, you know, in Appalachia. So there's a lot of spirituality there. Yeah. Um, so for me, it was very critical that every person was treated with love and dignity and kindness. And as I said, you know, right before we started, it is easy to get jaded and that line of work and to kind of put up the white wall, so to speak. But when you feel yourself doing that, you know, I would always try to re-center and refocus on why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Boundaries, Trauma, And Compassion Fatigue

Josh 10:03

When you started before you were used to it, like like what was that like? I mean, surely you you came across situations for the first time where you were just freaked out.

Madison 10:12

It was usually when I saw something graphic. Um, I will tell you, I'm the world's safest driver. Um, if I had one piece of advice, never tailgate a semi, whatever you do in life. Wow. I saw a lot of things that were traffic accident related. Um, and those were really hard because it almost always felt like there was no rhyme or reason. That was when you would see younger people. That was what really got me. I never was able to work with children. That was just my hard cutoff point. I couldn't, I could, you know, I just couldn't do the babies or the children. That was that was a hard line for me. And there are people that are very talented and I have immense love and respect for those people that do offer that care. I just personally couldn't do that.

Amanda 10:57

Well, I mean, I think it's important to know your boundaries, you know, too, right? Because that would have, I mean, compassion fatigue is real, but and and uh above and beyond that, that's just a line of like, so I work, um, I mean, I was a teacher for 20-something years and I I work with teachers, but I do a lot of um trauma-informed professional learning for educators, and I can only dig so deep into child abuse and things that are in it, and then it's like if for me, it's like elder care, like elder abuse and child abuse. Like, I can't like that those are spaces that are really, really hard to to exist in. And there are people who do it and they are incredible, like you're saying, they are angels walking the earth. But I mean, it's important, I think, to know also like what your because I I don't think I'd come back from it.

Madison 11:45

Yeah, like I think I really had to set that boundary for myself because, like you said, it is so easy in that line of work, you want to extend yourself, especially when we were going through a pandemic. Yeah, everyone on our team, I mean it was a joke, but it wasn't. We would sit around on Fridays after you know, we had closed the funeral home and we would pass around a flask and we would sit there and discuss. We have 18 services next week. Oh, usually our funeral home at its busiest would have five. Wow. So we were going and going and going. Um, you see, we want to help the team.

Amanda 12:24

Yeah.

Madison 12:24

Um, it was a really hard decision for me to come to, but you know, I'm very blessed. My embalmer, the head embalmer I worked with, was brilliant and great at what he did and understood completely.

Josh 12:35

I want to talk a little bit about embalming. So, what does that entail?

Madison 12:38

Embalming obviously is the process of preserving the body. Um, so different chemicals are used in that process. We tried to do as minimally invasive as possible. You know, I joke about I at put different points handled like caustic chemicals and things like that. But um, embalming fluid has come a long way historically from where it was, where it was basically cancer in a bottle for embalmers for a long time. My responsibilities were a lot of washing, cleaning, dressing, makeup, hair. And in very, very dire situations, I did help with facial reconstruction. Um, because you do have to have a lot of situations, you have to have two sets of hands. You have to be able to position the person. There's obviously like blocks, um, which are kind of like a styrofoam pillow, I guess would be the way to put it. And that helps to a point, but you really do in some situations have to have just a second set of hands. Um, so that's what I did. I was always under the superinvision of our head and bomber, or if I was working a service, a funeral director.

Josh 13:43

And I would guess that like the family would give you pictures as reference, and then you would just do your best to Yeah.

Mortuary Makeup And Family Participation

Madison 13:49

Yeah, I had a very strict policy about doing men's makeup. Um, I will not put lipstick on men. Um, you know, it I kind of uh came in, I love doing my own makeup. I do a ton of cosplay makeup. So I had a kit, so to speak, of makeup, but embalming makeup is actually different. Mortuary makeup, um, you know, you're you I don't know if you wear a lot of makeup, but it melts into your skin. Oh, yeah, yeah. The warmth of your skin plays a part in typical cosmetics. Yeah. And that's what creates a more flawless look, is that the warmth of your skin actually mixes the product. So obviously, when you're deceased, you're not warm anymore. We've been keeping you in a fridge. Yeah. Um, the makeup we used is is a wax base, and that was a definite learning curve for me. It was very different than applying my own makeup in some ways, and then in other ways, it was just the same as doing my own.

Amanda 14:42

Oh, I wouldn't have thought about that. Do you did you have um family members who wanted to do it or wanted to do hair or come to do makeup? And is that a space that they're allowed to or no?

Death Is Not An Emergency

Madison 14:54

Yeah, we would have a we we had a preparation room that was separate where we would be handling um the biohazardous material. Um, because we do, you do have to get rid of people's blood and things like that. So we had a room for that, but then we also had a very clean, sterile room where we would do dressing and casketing. So the families were welcome to come in and do their own loved ones' hair and makeup. Um, I jokingly say this, but it is very dead serious. Dead bodies are not dangerous.

Speaker 2 15:21

Yeah.

Madison 15:21

Um, it there's actually almost no diseases that can survive when you die. Your immune system is incredible. And when you take your last breath as just this final act of love, your immune system fires everything it has, and almost no known diseases can survive that except for like Ebola. Oh wow. Okay, so it's like very, very contagious, highly evolved diseases can, but most of the time, once the person passes away, you can hold their hand, you can kiss their face, you can be with your loved one. There isn't a switch that got flipped when they took their last breath that suddenly made them unsafe to be around or to touch. Yeah. So um, there is an embalmer out in LA named Caitlin Doty, iconic in this field because she does YouTube videos, but she's also revolutionary in this field and has introduced a lot of new technologies. She always says death is not an emergency. And I love that. Um, it's true. When someone has taken their last breath, the worst thing that could happen has already happened. Yeah. You don't have to rush anymore. There is no emergency. You can wait as long as you want, pretty much, to call a funeral home. Um, you can take with my own grandma, we took several hours. We did her hair, we dressed her, we let family come in and visit her. We had a small home wake for her.

Josh 16:45

Yeah. Which I mean, wakes used to be a thing. Yeah. And they I don't know that. Well, in Western society, I'm quite certain they're not a thing anymore.

Home Wakes And Civil War Origins

Madison 16:53

You know, I think it's so interesting that you talk about the home wake going away because there is a very specific point in American history where that happened. And it was actually during the Civil War. So in the 1860s, at the time, the standard was you would have someone in your home for three days. There'd be a family, you'd have Paul Bearers, they'd take them to the cemetery, and the whole family would be there for three days. What happened during the Civil War is for the first time we had a need to preserve people on an everyday basis. Up until then, true embalming and preservation was kind of saved for royals. A great example would be um Vladimir Lenin. He was actually preserved and kept on display for 93 years. Oh my gosh.

Amanda 17:38

I thought you were gonna say 93 days. And I was like, no, I didn't know that's a long time to look at someone.

Madison 17:43

Yeah, he uh he had a team of scientist embalmers that were dedicated to just preserving him specifically.

Amanda 17:50

Like it is it's the thing that you have to like continually do.

Global Rituals And Cultural Distance

Madison 17:53

Yeah, so they would give him special baths, and exactly what concoction of formaldehyde they used is top secret. Um, I kind of joke with embalming. You'll hear a lot of like it's top secret. He had a secret embalming fluid. Embalming up until then was kind of safe for the elite. It was costly, it used a lot of resources. But then during the Civil War, you had people dying over the Mason Dixon line. Yeah. You had people that were from Georgia, North Carolina, and they were dying up in the Northeast. Yeah. So all of a sudden, we had a need to preserve. Oh, okay. And it's kind of tacky. But um, embalmers used to walk around behind battlefields and they would have member, they would have to see soldiers on display to show off their works.

Speaker 3 18:43

Oh, wow.

Madison 18:44

One of them notably um had the same gentleman with him for like five years. He just carried this guy's body around with him during the Civil War to show off his embalming techniques. Wow. So yeah, it was a very tactless art when it when it first started in America.

Josh 19:01

So like for this guy though, did did do you change his outfit every every every week? You got to keep up with the latest fashion trends.

Madison 19:09

Yeah, it so it really depends. And I I think it's so funny because it the most extreme example of embalming that I know of that is used in a regular practice is actually a group of people that are a tribe in Indonesia. And every year they exhort their loved ones, take them out of the grave, and they will have them in the home with them for some months, sometimes years, depending on the circumstance, because they're waiting until they have enough money to have this giant elaborate funeral service for the person.

Speaker 4 19:40

Oh, wow.

Madison 19:41

So one gentleman grew up with his grandma in the home, and one of his first memories is sharing his bed with her. Oh, wow.

Amanda 19:49

It's like a rose for Emily.

Josh 19:51

I I don't know that reference.

Amanda 19:53

It's a sort of story about a man who keeps his wife's corpse. And that's based on a true story.

Madison 19:59

Yeah, and that happened in the Florida Keys. And then it did.

Josh 20:02

Of course it happened in the Florida Keys.

Capitalism, Pre-Planning, And Plots

Madison 20:04

Yeah, he did not and the saddest part is like she wasn't his wife. She was a cancer patient that was getting treatment. He was not a doctor, he was a janitor there. Oh, um, and unfortunately, I it's kind of like lost in translation exactly how this came about. But he started offering her experimental procedures and multiple times came onto her romantically. There's like a 30-year age gap between the two. She refuses his advances. When she passes away, unfortunately, from her cancer, she's young, and he offers to pay for a mausoleum. The family agrees. He turns out he has a key to the mausoleum. So right after she was put in it, he took her out, brought her back to his house, and then lived for three years in undead marital bliss before the police found him.

Amanda 20:55

I think I have actually heard that story on probably some sort of murder, true crime podcast. Um, it was William Faulkner. I don't know why I couldn't recall that, but yeah, it's it's yes, very yeah.

Relief And Risks Of Pre-Planning

Madison 21:06

Yeah. So embalming, there there are like cases where, you know, culturally, we are so separated from our death and we are so separated from the process that for us, this keeping the dead one in your home, letting them share a bed with you is so outrageous to us. But it really wasn't that long ago that we were having home wakes. It wasn't long ago that that was the norm here, too. But then during the civil war, you had this industry start to crop up. And like most things in a capitalistic economy, um, even after the war, when there was no longer technically a need for it, they started to push it. So then they started to push misinformation, that it made it safer, that it made your loved ones safer to be around, that um you were staying off decay. Decay for millennia has just been a It's just an inevitability. Like death itself, decay was just accepted as a part of the process. So whenever you had these men stepping in and saying, We're going to stop this natural process, to a lot of families, it felt like doing something out of love. It felt like I'm preventing this person from slipping away from me further. And they really capitalized on that. Um, to the point where pre-planning becomes massive, it starts to get pushed everywhere in the 1960s to 70s following the world wars. We had that great economic boom right after World War II. So then the idea became market this to soldiers as something you can do for your family. Well, if you know soldiers get free services, um, that that's something that they they are given. Um, and their immediate family, their spouse, but what about their children? So that's where the cemetery industry really became focused is on the family plots, um, the mausoleums, the benches, the you want to sell as many spaces as you can.

Amanda 23:06

Oh, I currently own plots that I mean, like as I I was mentioning earlier that my brother passed away from when I was 11, and my mom just went ahead and bought up the row. Yeah.

Space Ashes And Dark Humor At Home

Madison 23:17

And that's what they were told to do. Yeah. I mean, that you had a this professional that you, you know, really trusted, and not for nothing, but that's this is what my husband did for 11 years. So this is not a criticism of every person that does this for a living. Um, you just obviously, when you're dealing with someone that's grieving, it's so much easier to be taken advantage of.

Amanda 23:37

Absolutely, because you are not in the space to make any sort of now. I will say the one thing that my mom, when my mom was sick, we I went ahead and pre-planned everything and pre-paid for everything. And that was because I actually by that time I had lost both my brothers, my dad. Like I've had so much death in my in my lifetime that I was doing it by myself. And so it was such um just a relief to me that when the the care home called and set and set and actually what they said was your mom expired. And I like it took me a minute to figure out, it was like, wait, what? Because they called at like four in the morning and it, you know, it was during COVID. So they were on lockdown. Like no one, we we you know, it was so uh comforting to me to just be able to say, call this person, and then everything was taken care of.

Stories From The Hearse

Inventory, Piercings, And Absurdity

Madison 24:27

And that's what pre-planning is supposed to be, like that, that's what it's for. Um, especially if someone has a diagnosis. Um, I lost my father when I was 15, and even though he had had cancer, he was very avoidant of his own mortality. Yeah. So there was not really instructions for me and my sister, who was she was only 17, I was 15. We didn't know what to do here. And my parents, unfortunately, have been separated, so my mom didn't know what he would want. Um, so I I do understand pre-planning has a place and it it definitely can make somebody's worst day of their life easier. Yeah. Um, not having to make decisions and choices, and there's already so much you have to do when you lose someone from getting the information for a death certificate. You know, I tell people all the time, I was like, you may know your mother's maiden name, but I promise you, you don't know your grandma's maiden name. Yeah. Yeah. And you might need that information depending on um insurance and things like that. Um, so I I encourage people, you know, my husband and I obviously coming from this profession, meeting in this profession, we each have a notebook and it just and it's notarized, but it basically just says what we want, where my services are. And I'm young, I'm in my you know, mid to late 20s, and I still have my arrangements done. Um, I'm gonna be launched into space when I die. My my cremated remains will be put in a capsule and launched into space. I kind of love that. So um I found it and it's so it'll orbit the earth for like three to five years. Yeah. But when it re-enters the atmosphere, it burns up and looks like a shooting star. That's so lovely. So I loved that concept of just kind of getting to see the world for a couple of years and then going out with a big blaze of glory, you know. Yeah. Um, my husband still jokes that he's gonna be taxidermied. Um, and now we've added on to that that he wants a motion sensor in it. So it'll say stuff as I walk by it, you know. He wants it to say like go bills. Yeah. Um, and I was like, absolutely not. I love it. Absolutely not. That's so great. Um, I joke, but it's a joke, but like you don't taxidermy people. Yeah, that's a that's a very strong professional recommendation. It doesn't look right. Yeah, just don't do that one. Yeah, you you can think you want it, but it doesn't go well. I'm not taxidermying you. Do you hear me?

Josh 26:54

Yeah, no, that's that's good. Although I'll probably look better than I have in a while. Um, so surely as you've gone through all of these things, there there are stories that that you that you brought with you.

Grief, Humor, And Coping

Madison 27:06

Yeah, I uh I reached out to families um and I got some I got very close with a couple families in my time. And one of the gentlemen I worked with was actually a 60-year veteran of the industry. Um, he was still working part-time in his 80s. He was one of the kindest, most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And we spent a lot of time together driving a hearse and you know, sitting there in awkward silence. You can only take that for so long. Yeah. Um, and so he would tell me stories. And one of my favorite things he always talked about was where he lived in upstate New York. There was a large population of Romney gypsy people. Okay. And um, so the Romney people, when you die, believe that you need everything with you. So they had this little skinny woman, she was like 120 pounds, but they were asking for an oversized casket. And, you know, he's a funeral director, he's new, and he's looking at them like, why she she was so small. So I promise she's gonna fit in the normal casket, you know? And they're like, No, you'll see why we need it. So as the wake is progressing, he sees family members going up and he notices them leaving things. They have put a working radio, they have money, jewelry, um, food, gold, anything they thought that she would need socks, flashlight. The flashlight I thought was he thought and I thought was very ironic because they said she was afraid of the dark.

unknown 28:36

Okay.

Madison 28:36

So they wanted her to have a flashlight and a pack of batteries. And I was like, they are so considerate. They included the triple A batteries.

Amanda 28:43

She may need to recharge the thing. Yeah.

Madison 28:46

Um, so he talked about how though it was such an outpouring of love because to a lot of us, it's like, oh my gosh, that's such a waste of wealth, that's such a waste of money. But to them, this is the kindest, most loving way that they could honor their grandmother was give her everything she could possibly want or need in her next life. Um, and then that sounds very reminiscent of like the Egyptians.

Josh 29:10

The Egyptians, I was gonna say they would bury them with also their servants. So right.

Amanda 29:14

Well, here's your servant.

Madison 29:15

If you were important enough, yeah. And your priests if you were important enough, if you had astronomers or you know, yeah. Obviously, being in this field, I of course had a fascination with Egyptians when I was a kid. I mean, come on.

Bagpipes And Farewell Music

Amanda 29:27

Yeah, of course, it's gotta start somewhere.

Madison 29:29

I I oftentimes though in that field would find myself sitting there thinking about the absurdity of a moment. And I do have this woman's grandchildren, their their permission, her two grandsons, who I'm still friends with to this day. Their grandmother raised them, and she was the quintessential flower child hippie. She was peace, love, never wore shoes, always had beads in her hair, always had belly beads on. You know, she was in her 70s. She looked fantastic, I have to say. And she just always had that kind of personality. When you die, we take a full inventory of everything you have on you. If you come from the hospital and you still have a medical ban, we will be writing that down on your inventory log. Um, that is how we keep ourselves transparent. Sure. So jewelry obviously is a big thing. Well, I noticed upon cleaning her, she had her nipples pierced. All right. So I had to put that on the inventory log and offer the family them back if they were so inclined.

Amanda 30:29

Did they want them back? Yes.

Take The Picture And Choose Family

Madison 30:31

Yeah. So then the absurdest Thursday of my life to date was me standing over this woman with two pairs of pliers, unscrewing her nipple piercings and sanitizing them to give them to her grandsons. And then I asked them, I was like, what are you guys like to do with them? And they're like, we have like a little memorial thing for her in her house on the mantle. And so they were like, we just want to put them with some of her things. And I was like, I hope neither of you ever plan to bring a woman into that home because I need you to tell me you're gonna look on a first day and say, and these are my grandma's nipple piercings. Um, as I said, there were many moments of just absurdity that goes into dying. And I think that that got missed a lot. And it's easy to miss, but there were so many moments of just pure irony for me that I sat there and I leaned back and I was like, and of course I'm the Gen Z. Yeah. So of course, you know, my bosses were like, she's the one that's gonna know. I have, you know, piercings and tattoos. And so, like I said, I would go in unprofessionally when I was embalming. They'd seen my leg tattoos, and they're like, She's gonna know how to do the bombing jewelry. Just gonna know how to take off the nipple race. This is the one we need for this. And when they asked me to do it, I thought it was a joke. I really thought the embalmer was teasing. Sure. Um, and I was like, you can't be serious. And he was like, Oh, I'm I'm deadly serious. So I was like, don't make that punch.

Amanda 31:56

Oh, right. Now I'm like, what about like genitalia piercings?

Madison 32:00

Or like, yeah, we have to inventory them. And we are required to offer them back to the families.

Speaker 4 32:07

Oh no.

Madison 32:08

And that's the worst way to find out that your dad has that piercing. That's right. That's right.

Josh 32:14

I mean, probably your dad would prefer that you find that out after he's gone, though. Right. You want to find out, you know, in the moment. Oh my goodness.

Madison 32:23

So I I there's definitely moments that were so funny. And like I said, I met my husband in this environment, and he and I often would find solace in joking together. We have to, right? Absolutely. Funeral directors have amazing senses of humor. Yeah. They're some of the funniest people. Um, I have a friend that's a funeral director and a comedian. Oh, he does comedy, and he that that's what he does for two weeks at a time. That's good shit.

Amanda 32:49

Services or like outside.

Madison 32:51

Outside. So we we we banned him from doing stand-up at the services. The families didn't appreciate it. I think it was a little too soon to make that joke, you know? Yeah.

How Managers Should Handle Loss

Josh 33:00

Have you seen the the clip online of the Irish gentleman who uh pre-recorded something to be played at his funeral? Have you seen this? Yes. Have you seen this?

Madison 33:11

Oh, it's so good. It'll bring you to tears. It's so funny, but so good.

Josh 33:15

I'm gonna play the I'm gonna play the at least the audio. I don't know if we have rights to do this or not, but I'm gonna play the audio anyway.

Amanda 33:21

He's not gonna sue you.

Josh 33:24

So they're they're at the funeral, right? Yeah. Standing around the thing. And then all of a sudden, they hear this pre-recording.

Speaker 4 33:33

Hello! Hello! Let me out! Hello! Hello! Let me out the fucking bag in here. I love that. Is that that bleach I can hear? Let me out! Hello!

Amanda 33:56

Hello! You're laughing and crying at the same time.

Madison 34:00

Yes, I've seen that so many times. It's so funny that that started with bagpipes because that is a service I would have to arrange for people. And it is surprisingly hard to find a quality bagpiper. Oh. Like it was genuinely, it was something we had as an option. And it like never got picked as an option. Nobody was having the bagpipes at their funerals. Oh. But we did have one gentleman that was Scottish that did want them. So then I had to find them. And I didn't know it. That funeral director that I was talking about. I guess he has a very serious aversion to bagpipes because they're very loud. They are meant to be like um parade instruments that can be heard. So he sees the bagpiper and he looks up and he goes, The bagpipes and me without my pistol.

Amanda 34:47

Bagpipes played badly is like, yeah, it's just awful.

Madison 34:52

I'll be honest, I don't know um always what they're supposed to say.

Amanda 34:58

Probably from far away.

Madison 34:58

Yeah, so I was very rarely critical. I would not make a comment because I was like, I'm not qualified to speak on the intricacies of the bagpipe.

Recommendations And Dress Pockets

Amanda 35:07

I have I have a cousin who had a bagpiper at his funeral. So he um he happened to have just been playing golf with somebody the week before, and they were talking, and he said, you know, when I die, I want Amazing Grace played on the bagpipes. And then he died a week later in a car accident. And so at his funeral, there it was up in um I think Tennessee somewhere. They had a bag bagpiper, but up on a hill. Yeah. So like that was quite lovely because it was like Amazing Grace from afar. So yeah, that was that was nice.

Josh 35:38

What have you learned from from having this job? Like what will you take with you?

Madison 35:42

There's a couple of things that I carry very close to me, but one of them is take the picture. Always take the picture. I don't post I don't post um most pictures on social media, um, but I definitely have albums of just my mom when she's not looking. I have albums of my husband when he's just laying there with our cats. Um, those I have seen the comfort and the joy that photographs can bring to people when you're gone. So I always take the photograph is one thing. And then the other one, um, I say it as a joke, but it's it's again, I I think I've said that so many times today, but it's really not, is that um your work family is not your real family. Um, we lost an amazing co-worker of mine during COVID, and he worked at this funeral home with us and he had had cancer, so they already had all of his arrangements, his obituary. Um, but they had posted his job before they posted his obituary.

Amanda 36:42

Oh wow. Yeah.

Madison 36:43

And it was a humbling moment that even in an industry that is so close and so aware of death that they could be so tactless.

Speaker 4 36:50

Yeah.

Fallout, Vintage Vibes, And Closing Thanks

Madison 36:51

So I tell people, you know, your coworkers, if something happened to you, they would miss you. And they would miss you and they'd feel your absence, but they're not gonna miss you every birthday. They're not gonna miss you every Christmas. They're not it's not the same thing as your family, you know. Prioritize that time because it really is limited. And I know people say that all the time, YOLO, you know, but I was like, it's it really is about the quality of the time you have, not the quantity. That's really yeah.

Amanda 37:19

Thank you for that. That's really, really poignant and and timely for us. So yeah.

Josh 37:25

Yeah, because we're old.

Amanda 37:26

Because we're old, but also we're close to death, is what you mean.

Josh 37:30

It's basically what you just said, we're close to death.

Amanda 37:32

No, death has just been hanging out with me since I was 11, and we just like we've just been hanging out my whole life. But yeah. Um and this is not the time in the podcast, but there's also a lot of research around how actually toxic it is to call your people that you work with, your work family. There's like a ton of research on that.

Josh 37:49

Okay, that'll that'll be another.

Madison 37:55

What Madison is saying is and there's a ton of research that talks about how, you know, usually the second or third person you call when you lose your loved one is your boss.

Speaker 2 38:05

Yeah.

Madison 38:05

You know, and so I think one of the other things that this has taught me in being in management and having people work underneath me at different points in my life is how important that moment is. When you get that call, really try to be intentional, stop what you're doing, listen to your employee, ask them what they need.

Speaker 2 38:24

Yeah.

Madison 38:25

Um, because you know, yeah, that there's gonna be policy. Yep, you get three days company policy, whatever. Um, but the reality is that it's something like 60% of people leave their job the first year after a major loss. And a lot of that has to do with how that first moment an interaction is handled. So I encourage people if you have someone that calls you and says, I lost my mom, or says, I lost my my wife, be intentional, take a minute and think before you speak because you will define that employee's relationship with this company going forward.

Amanda 38:58

Yeah, that's really that's a really important um distinction and one I don't think that I've heard before. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, the day, the day my mom, my mom died. I, you know, I was telling you on a break that my mom died, and it was we got a call at like four in the morning. I got up the next morning and took a Zoom call because I mean, we were, it was COVID, we were locked down, we weren't going anywhere, and I needed to kind of push through anyway. And, you know, I just got on the Zoom call and they were like, How are you? I'm like, my mom just died, and like everybody on the call was like, get off the call, like go, please. Why? It's like, no, I need to be here, and we were okay, but they were very, and I will always be grateful because when my dad, my dad was in um long-term care as well. Um, my sister called and said, and my dad was in Charleston, and my sister called and said, you know, that they're saying, like, it's, you know, in the next couple days, um, you need, you know, you need to come. And I wasn't, it was like a Thursday and I wasn't gonna go until Saturday. And my supervisor was like, You need to go. Yeah. Because if you don't, you'll regret it. Like, please go. And we got there, my dad died a few hours later. So had she not have said you need to go. Yeah.

Madison 40:07

Um, and that's a moment when that leadership was was life-changing for you. Yeah, and I I know it's so easy if you work like in a say a retail setting to think this is just close. Yeah, but you also have to remember you work with people, yeah, and human moments happen. Um, and when it does happen, you know, you can choose kindness and you can choose intentionality, and you can choose to give that person that moment and that time. Yeah.

Josh 40:33

Well, thank you, Madison.

Madison 40:34

Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a lovely conversation.

Josh 40:37

Okay, well, we're not done yet. And now is the time in the program where we tell you what to do. Amanda, what should we do?

Amanda 41:27

You should go to Aldi and buy a dress. Um, I've bought two dresses from Aldi this week. I'm just here to say that if you shop at Aldi or you don't shop at Aldi, don't sleep on the clothes. I have so many pants, sweater, cardigan. Now the dresses right now, Aldi, they're probably gone, actually, friends. But Aldi has the anthropology the $200 anthropology dress dupe for $14.99. And I love it with my whole heart. And people were commenting on on it online saying, like, oh, it looks like a candy striper dress, or oh, it looks like a pattern from McCall's from like the 50s. I see nothing wrong with that. I love it very much. And it has pockets. So my recommendation for you this week is go to all DM Pie dress.

Madison 42:10

I love that it has pockets. My my my wedding dress, the one adjustment I made, I added pockets to my wedding because it's so underrated.

Amanda 42:17

It no, I will not buy a dress anymore if it does not have a pocket. And I think, and we can talk about this later because I'm curious what the Appalachian witches, but I do think that the removal of pockets from women's clothing actually can be traced back to maybe like Salem Witch trials or something where women were keeping like potions and like I mean, things in their pockets.

Madison 42:38

A lot of skirts, like from what I know, did have pockets well into like the 30s, the 1930s here in America. And it really was the purse industry. I mean, that's because we started having the Italian purse and the Italian leather, and it was becoming a more popular import right after World War II. Oh, damn them. So it it was literally just a people, fashion designers had leather and they wanted to find a way to sell it. I mean, that's why we shave, is because they needed to market us razors.

Amanda 43:08

I was ready to blame the patriarchy, but now I'm gonna blame the purse industry. I mean, I'll pretty much blame the patriarchy for everything, but yeah. Wow, that's really interesting.

Josh 43:18

Madison, do you have any recommendations for us this week?

Madison 43:21

Yeah, I my husband and I have been obsessed with Fallout. The it is a show on Amazon Prime, and you know, I know what we talked about here today is a little bit heavy, but that show has such a beautiful humor and spin on the apocalypse. And if you like retro, you like vintage styles, um, the music, the set design, the costuming, it's fantastic. It has a really like 1950s feel to it and highly recommend. Very cool.

Josh 43:48

All right. Well, you all go out and buy yourself a dress with pockets and watch Fallout.

Amanda 43:55

Well, you're then go to the what did you recommend? The flea the Not the flea market, Lord. The farmer's market, very different places.

Josh 44:04

Farmer's market, yeah, that's right. All right, Amanda and Madison, that's all there is. There is no more. What'd you think of that mess?

Amanda 44:18

I'm just happy to have um have Madison here and um not be the only person who has to put up with you.

Madison 44:25

Yeah, I definitely understand that. I say the same jokes to my husband constantly.

Josh 44:31

All right, so Madison, thank you for uh joining us today. We'd also like to thank the following people in no particular order. Actually, I take that back. We want to thank them in just this order. Thank you to Antonio, to Matt, to Josh Scar, to Daniel J. Buckets, to Justin, to Leo, to Chicken Tom, to Joey, to Ryan Baker, to of course Refined Gay Jeff, Mark and Rachel, and also to Dan and Gavin wherever you are. Thank you, of course, to all of our various music, to Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors for our theme song, to Ricky Kendall for our interstitial music, and of course to our son, AJCW. Those are all my words, friends.

Amanda 45:15

Alright. No more for the rest of the weekend.

Josh 45:19

Alright, y'all uh have a great week and be kind to each other.

Amanda 45:22

That's my line every single week. My line, you say have a great week, and I say go be kind.

Josh 45:29

All right, y'all fire you.

Amanda 45:30

I'm gonna hire Madison. Fires.

Josh 45:33

All right, then I got nothing to say. Bye.

Amanda 45:35

Go be kind. Bye.