“Are you at all squeamish?”

I will not think of earthworms, haggis, Mexican walking fish or toenails…

“No, not at all.”

“Are you comfortable dealing with highly emotional situations?”

Well I guess I’ve watched more than my fair share of Neighbours…

“Absolutely.  In fact I revel in challenging situations.”

“Tell us a bit about yourself?”

There is was, the seemingly innocuous query that scared me the most.

Well let’s see.  At nearly 24 I was experiencing what I now prefer to think of as a “slump.”  My troubled relationship of the last two years had finally heaved its last shuddering gasps leaving in its wake a series of disastrous decisions, memories in need of some series repression and a newfound fetish for all things carbohydrate.

During this particularly bleak phase I had also managed to lose my job, amass considerable debt and cultivate a general sense of doom and gloom.  I’d lost my mojo and it was nowhere to be found.

It was then that I decided something had to be done.  I had to rekindle my sense of what it was to be alive and take back the reins of my own direction.  When the role of “Client Liaison Officer” at the cemetery appeared upon my job search browser I knew I’d found the answer.  Death.

The discovery that cemetery life was not an oxymoron came as something of a revelation to me and indeed those around me.

“Isn’t it depressing?  I don’t know how you do it every day?” was the usual refrain.

“Don’t you get scared to be alone with the graves?  Aren’t you worried you’ll accidentally inhale someone’s ashes?”

The truth about the death industry is that it’s actually all about life – remembering it, honoring it and more often than not, marveling at those who possess such a profound sense of it despite incredible and seemingly unbearable loss. As someone who had wallowed freely in the murky sea of remorse, occasionally catching a wave of self pity, it was just the slap in the face I needed to expel those waters from my lungs and draw breath.

On any given day my range of tasks included, though were not limited to, issuing the cremated remains of a loved one to their family, advising said family of the types of urns best suited to their containment, writing the inscription on numerous memorial plaques or guiding people through the never ending mountain of paperwork required to secure a plot.  I sold graves and found graves, heard stories and explained terminology, attended exhumations and watched over interments.

I learned to predict the quantity of ashes a cremated child would be reduced to and how best to advise the family.  I learned that some cultures call for burial before the sun sets on the day of the death and that others must secure a grave facing Mecca.  I learned that family pride could be legitimately expressed through the purchase of a mausoleum crypt and that behind the smallest plaque could lay the remains of someone known to possess the biggest heart.

As for fear?  I can honestly say the greatest pangs of fear I ever experienced was when thinking that I might not be living my own life to the fullest because I came to truly understand how unpredictable death can be.

With this in mind I eventually left the job in search of new challenges but my time at the cemetery is something I still draw upon frequently.  Not to say that working with death makes you immune to it, in fact the opposite would perhaps be closer to the truth, rather my sense of the value in the everyday has been heightened.

It’s not about the dates on the plaque but what happened in between them.

Image by autumn leaf licensed by creative commons