The Undertaking

The curriculum for the four-year degree is mostly science and business. After prerequisites in general biology, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, psychology, sociology, public health, financial reporting, and public speaking, students move on to more specialized courses: death and dying across cultures and religions, the history of funeral services, business and funeral law, funeral service marketing and merchandising, funeral business management, embalming and restorative art, counseling the bereaved.

Starry does not use the words “call” or “vocation,” though she does have a sense of reverence about her work: “It’s such a privilege to do what we do—to be let into a family at a time like that. Whenever I’m having a pity party for myself, I walk into work and feel humbled. This place puts things in perspective. I feel I’m blessed to be here.”

In the basement, there’s a white door at the end of the hallway marked “Private” in raised gold letters. Starry walks through it into a long, narrow room, maybe 20 feet by 8 feet. The space is stark white and smells faintly of disinfectant. It’s the “prep room.”

There are two empty portable biers parked along the walls, a rack for hanging clothes, and wooden cabinets that hold dyes and other embalming fluid additives. (Different mixtures are used depending on the cause of death and condition of the body—edema, dehydration, jaundice, Starry explains.) There’s also a ridged porcelain work table—a “body tray.” It angles down and drains at its foot into a sink that flushes into the treatable sewage line. The body tray is also empty.

Next to it, tools are laid out on a blue cloth as if for a surgery: scalpels, “aneurysm needles” that help in locating veins, locking forceps for clamping off blood vessels. Others are for grooming: razors, nail trimmers, scissors, tweezers, combs. There’s also a large machine that looks like an oversized blender with a five-gallon container that pumps embalming fluid—basically, formaldehyde.

Two things seem out of place in the room: the TV mounted in a corner and the stereo system alongside a portable bier. Starry watches the news when she prepares bodies, “as background, not entertainment.” Sometimes, she listens to country or faith music. Other times, she prefers to work in quiet without any distractions. “It’s my time,” she says. “Reflective.”

She explains how she makes a two-inch slit near the neck and places a cannula inside the carotid artery. The embalming machine simultaneously drains blood and replaces it with formaldehyde. The process takes about two hours. Once the embalming is finished and the body is dressed and groomed, it waits in the prep room for the reviewal or funeral.

Starry says “the person” waits in the prep room. She does not say “body” or “corpse.” She says, “It’s very important for someone loved by others to be treated like you want your loved ones to be treated.”