Mortui Vivos Docent
This April I attended my first RavenCon, my new local convention (and one of my favorite avian psychopomps.) I was very excited to share the joy of death with a new audience. Here are a few of the questions I was asked.
What’s the licensing process moving state-to-state as a mortician?
So, you’ve graduated mortuary school, taken your local state law exam, and passed your National Board Exam. Congratulations! You’re a licensed mortician. Now you want to move on, experience new places, new people, new corpses.
Specifics vary by state, but in general, the first thing you need to do is find a job. The days of embalming in your own basement are sadly* behind us. To be licensed in the field, one must be employed by a licensed funeral or mortuary establishment.
When you begin your job search, make sure to research state requirements–many states require periods of licensure in your original state before they will reciprocate, and some are longer than others. Louisiana requires at least one year; California requires three; Maryland requires five. New Mexico—which, when last I checked, had no in-state mortuary programs—does not have any time requirements.
Once you find a job, you can then apply for a reciprocal license in your new state. You’ll probably have to contact both the American Board of Funeral Service Education to have your National Board scores transferred and your original state’s governing body to have your license verification sent over. Once that has been accomplished, you’ll be eligible to take your new state’s funeral law exam. Once you pass the law exam, you’ll receive your new license.
The Texas law exam is pretty darn easy, by certain standards. It is—or was several years ago—online and open book. You receive the legal guide before you schedule the exam. The test is timed, however, and if you have not studied you are unlikely to find the correct information quickly enough.
Virginia, on the other hand, requires you to take your exam at a proctored testing center, with no notes available. And…who hurt you, Virginia? Why do you ask so many questions about pre-need contracts?**
* My housemates and any plumber I may need to call are not sad.
**There is a reason, of course. There is always a specific reason when laws like this are passed.
Two questions go hand in hand: Does embalming include reconstructive work? and What is your favorite part of the embalming process?
It does, and restorative work is often my favorite part of the job. The amount done varies by the embalmer’s comfort and skill level, but Restorative Art is a major component of most funeral service programs. This ranges from using cosmetics to mimic natural color, to sculpting a nose or ear out of wax, to piecing a skull together like a jigsaw puzzle and then stitching up the skin on top of it.
The two leading causes of jigsaw skull and dental floss sutures, in my professional experience, are gunshot wounds and motorcycle accidents. Suicide and gun violence are their own serious issues, but dammit, people, don’t be stupid on a motorcycle. At high enough speeds, a helmet does not stop your skull from shattering, let me assure you.
Jigsaw skulls are miserable work, and I have a permanent ache in my right hand these days. (Yes, I see a physical therapist.) But piecing a calvarium back together and then repairing the face on top of it is one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever experienced. There is no fixing this unfixable event, but making a person recognizable again is a powerful thing.
Are there red flags for identifying an unscrupulous funeral home, and by extension, can you say “I’m taking my business (and dead body) elsewhere?”
The biggest red flags I can think of are a funeral director trying to pressure you into something, or saying that something—often embalming—is legally required. Embalming is not required by law in any state that I know of, except in cases where refrigeration is not available. Also, a casket is not required for cremation. If you want to have a public visitation with an open casket, then a funeral home can require embalming; cemeteries may also require it for mausoleum entombment. Pricing should be very clear, and by law the funeral director needs to give you their prices lists up front.
Most of the directors I know will work with families to the best of their ability. Sometimes I wish they would say “no” more often. (Say no to tube tops; say no to 24-hour turnarounds; say no to letting someone sit in our cooler for six months and then asking us to get them dressed.) Prices are frequently horrific, as I’ve mentioned before, but there should be no hidden fees or upcharges, and families are not required to purchase anything they don’t want.
And yes, you can absolutely take your business elsewhere. A funeral home cannot hold a body hostage.
Can we sit in on your class?
I would love to invite you, but the college might frown on it. For those of you who missed my last State of the Necromancer address, through a truly serendipitous chain of events, I am now employed as a professor at my local mortuary program. I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl. (Wednesday Addams, at least.)
And via our portal to the void, Aria asks: “Hi, what do you think will happen after the light shuts? Or what do you hope will happen after we die?”
My answer remains, I don’t know, and I’m fine with not knowing. I grew up believing in the human soul, and in a vague notion of reincarnation. It has become harder and harder for me to believe in the soul as any sort of foundational identity, however, the more I learn about human brains. And while I try not to discount other people’s experiences, I myself have never witnessed anything that required a supernatural explanation.
On the other hand, caring for the dead is profoundly important to me, in a way I can only describe as spiritual. Any funeral director will tell you that funerals are for the living, and that we do what we do for the families. But in my heart, that’s not why I do it. I still hope there is some new adventure on the other side. But if it’s just a beautiful, peaceful nothing, I’m okay with that too.
And finally, an anonymous shade writes: One of my aunts passed away when I was a teenager, and I still remember seeing the dress she would be buried in hanging in our kitchen after my mother pressed it, awaiting the trip to the mortician. It was such a strange feeling to realize that this was not the last thing she ever wore. Instead, this is what her corpse would wear. That somehow made it feel even more important. During the viewing, the body in the casket did not look like my aunt to me, but her dress was so vivid, so real. Do families ever tell you why they have chosen the clothes they pick for their loved ones? What other kinds of things do families sometimes leave for you to include in their loved ones’ final viewings?
Families do tell us stories about clothes and other grave goods, though I don’t hear these stories often. Sometimes the narrative seems obvious—military uniforms, sports memorabilia, stuffed animals worn real with love. Other items are inexplicable without context. Photos and letters are common inclusions, as are cigarettes and candy. I’ve seen all kinds of keepsakes placed in caskets after a visitation.
If the person is being buried, anything that fits in the casket is welcome to be interred with them. In the case of cremation, there are limitations. We frequently cremate people with incense, money, extra sets of “traveling clothes.” We recently cremated someone with several pounds of loose leaf tea. (That was the nicest our dressing room has smelled in quite some time.) Metal or stone items, however, or anything that doesn’t burn, a crematory may politely decline. Also, anything that explodes. Adding a bag of popcorn to your dad’s cremation container is a harmless joke; adding shotgun shells is not.
If you have questions for the necromancer—Professor Necromancer now!—you can submit them through our portal, or via social media.
Amanda Downum is the author of The Necromancer Chronicles, Dreams of Shreds & Tatters, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated collection Still So Strange. Not content with armchair necromancy, she is also a licensed mortician. She lives in Austin, TX with an invisible cat. You can summon her at a crossroads at midnight on the night of a new moon, or find her on social media as @stillsostrange.
