Panic

  Maybe it's sleep depravitity mixed with a little bit of adjusting to a tiny, new person in the house added in with a different schedule, but the past few nights Boots and I have flipped out a little. 

  We sleep soundly, without worrying if he's still breathing since we have a fancy pants baby monitor that will sound an alarm if it doesn't detect movement for 20 seconds.  There's no hovering over the crib with one hand close to his face to detect breath.  But if one of us rolls over in bed pretty hard and bumps the other one who was previously sleeping soundly, the bumped person will sit bolt upright in bed, most likely in a terrified sweat, "Where's Mayhem?!  Did you put him back in his crib?!" 

  The offending person then has the job of reassuring the other person that Mayhem is in fact, fine, and has not been in our bed at all. 

  I'm not sure where this fear comes from since everytime Mayhem has ever fallen asleep with one of us looks like this......

 

or this.

 

  Then again, I do know where this fear comes from.  In my five years in the funeral business, I have tended to so many dead babies that have died because of co-sleeping or family sleeping or whatever you want to call it, but it amounts to sleeping in the parents' bed.  I've always thought about how sad it was because this death could have easily been prevented. 

  If I'm terrified now, what will I do in 16 years when he gets his license and starts driving?  I'll probably have to be medicated!

  Before he was born, one of the many times Boots and I were trolling the baby aisle in Target, I saw this which made me feel a lot better about the families that still choose to sleep with their baby.  Maybe when he starts driving Nerf cars will be real and not something I made up, if someone can figure out how to make Nerf water resistant.

I've always said that I wasn't sad because she's in my head, but today I miss my Dee Dee.

Everybody's Got a Story. This One's Mine.

Three Februarys ago, I started learning what it's like to be on the other side of the casket.

I was nineteen, in my first year of college, and one semester in mortuary school.
I'd bugged him for over a month (I've bugged someone for every job I've ever had!) for an apprenticeship and finally got an invitation to work my first funeral.

I wore one of the only two suits I had.
It was black with purple pinstripes and purple collars and had one of those "false shirts" which I didn't think needed backup with a "real" shirt.
Mistake!

That was the absolute coldest day of my life.
(Since then I've experienced the second coldest day of my life but, that day takes the (frozen) cake.)
I had no coat suitable for a funeral so I went without, telling myself I was "conditioning" in case someone asked, "Aren't you cold?!"

He gave me a tour of his funeral home and taught me the code for the back door.
I sat in his office and read everything on his walls over and over as he sat at his desk and talked on the phone or read the paper or just stared into space.
I would have killed for a nap, I was so bored!
I was wondering if I had it in me to be a funeral director after three hours of mind-blowing self-reflection boredom when Hallelujah! it was finally time to go funeralize!
(My word, not the Urban Dictionary's.)

At the church, I pretty much did nothing.
He said carry flowers, I carried flowers.
He said seat these people, seat them I did.
He said hold this cord and I did.
For the whole funeral.
That elastic cord never left my side!
I was on top of this funeral business!

I froze my nose off at the cemetery.
I was starving to death and mentally exhausted.
I was so glad to finally be "in" and couldn't wait for the next one!

That was the only funeral we ever worked together.
The next week I got a call from the funeral home I work for now and decided I had to take a sure job rather than an occasional experience.
He understood and there were no hard feelings.

I tried to keep in touch with him and keep him up to date on my accomplishments in the funeral world.
At times I wondered if maybe I should have just kept part-timing with him but, since then he's sold his funeral and changing hands mid-stream would have probably been harder.
His health problems started becoming pretty serious and eventually they took over.

He died a few days ago and today was his funeral.
I didn't work his funeral, I only attended.
I'm terribly uncomfortable in situations I don't have defined roles in.
After spending so much time on the working side of the casket it's hard to go back to being on the mourning side.

The funeral was just great.
Great songs, great readings, great eulogies, and a great job by the funeral directors.

I'm sure he'd be happy.

Today I have a heavy heart.
I do not mourn as they do but, even funeral directors cry.

Scenes From a Parking Lot

Me:  "Are you a pallbearer?"
Man:  "No, I'm a Smith."
Me:  "A pallbearer!!  Are you going to carry the casket?!"

$$$

I could teach that Alanis Morrisette or whatever her name is a few things about irony.
I watch Food Network while walking on the treadmill.
I work for the funeral home but I don't like going to funerals and/or visitations.
Let's focus on that one.

Apparently the sad stuff's not so fun when you're not getting paid for it.
I'm an excellent actress.
I can put on a sad face with the best of them.
When it comes to having to attend one of these events off the clock my heart goes into hysterics.
I get all nervous and flippy-outy inside.
I ask myself, "Self, you do this for a living.
What's the big deal?"
I get in line.
I walk to the casket.
I proceed to cringe and look away.
Its like this big humongous dancing pink elephant in the room that I'm trying my hardest to not get stepped on by.

Don't look at the body, don't look at the body.
Relax.
Be cool, you're a pro.

I shake the hands, hug the necks.
I ask, "How are you?" like an idiot when I know how they are.
They say fine but nobody who's at the funeral home is fine unless they're dead or getting paid to be there.
And sometimes the ones getting paid to be there aren't fine.

This stuff is not fun unless there's money involved.

(At first, the title to this post was a complete accident.
I have a squeaky trigger finger and my computer is equipped with a separate "$" key.
After writing this I thought the accidental title fit better than anything I could ever come up with.)