Down Among the Dead Men_ A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician - Michelle Williams [38]
There had been a blazing row in the relatives’ waiting area between Lizzie’s mum, Josie, and her grandfather. Len, Lizzie’s grandfather, was obviously racked with guilt and was under no circumstances coming to terms with what had happened, and neither was Mum. I was starting to learn that bereavement can take many different forms. After the initial shock of losing her young daughter, Josie’s first reaction was pure grief, her body went into shut-down, her limbs refused to work and she could not speak. This turned to white-hot anger from what Clive was telling us. Josie had lashed out physically at Len and had slapped him hard across the face while verbally abusing him, too. Charlie, Lizzie’s dad and Len’s son, had to physically lift his wife away from the situation and take her, kicking and screaming, outside. Clive said it had appeared that Charlie was in complete control of the situation. He announced to his family that he wanted to spend some time alone in the viewing area with Lizzie. He made his wife promise him that she would sit quietly for a few minutes while he stayed with his daughter.
Clive said that what occurred next had never happened to him in all his years as a technician. Charlie had gone into the viewing area alone, while the rest of the family sat in silence in the relatives’ room. He had shut the door behind him, which was not uncommon, but it had opened only a few minutes later; he then came out with Lizzie in his arms and, before anyone quite knew what was happening, was making his way towards the front door. Josie had screamed at this sight and her body again went into collapse. Lizzie’s grandmother took control of Josie while Len blocked the door to his son and dead granddaughter. Clive said that he moved in as well at this point. He had tried to explain to Charlie that it would not be a sensible thing to do, and that Lizzie needed to stay with us. Len had confirmed this, but Charlie was a big bloke and began to try to barge his way past his father and Clive. Clive said it took around ten minutes of coaxing Charlie, with the distraught father eventually falling to his knees holding Lizzie’s small limp body in his arms until Len could take Lizzie off him and place her back on the viewing trolley.
Clive needed some quick thinking on this, and decided it was time to get Lizzie to the funeral parlour, but it was three o’clock on Sunday afternoon. Luckily, he knew which funeral service would be taking care of Lizzie and it happened to be a local firm that he had worked with for many years. He took a chance and rang the owner of the funeral parlour, who agreed to be there in an hour. Clive then sat with Lizzie’s family and talked them through what was going to happen now.
When Tony, the owner of Phelps & Stayton Funeral Services, arrived, Clive had shown him in the back way to the viewing area where Lizzie was. Once he had concealed the ‘tradesmen’s’ entrance to the viewing area with the curtain, he invited the whole family in and Tony greeted them in his gentle manner. They had met before when Tony attended Josie and Charlie’s home to settle the arrangements for Lizzie’s funeral just the day before.
Clive felt it was important for all of the family to be able to move on a step with Lizzie’s death as, in his experience, it helped them with the grieving process. This was something the family were not dealing with. Clive told me about how he once had a body in the mortuary for three weeks with a viewing every day because the dead lady’s husband did not want her to leave the hospital. In the widower’s head, if his wife left the hospital, and was released from our care, it would become final. Clive had to spend the last week of this gentleman