Decomposition: When Time Is Against You By Jessica Mouck There are days when it seems like your worst enemy’s time. We’ve all been there. Unknown to me, my clock began to tick the moment I was informed we would be receiving a decedent from out of province into our care. The family wanted a viewing as soon as possible, but I didn’t know at the time how soon that would be. The funeral director who was looking after the family phoned the out of province funeral home to check on the condition of the decedent and make arrangements for him to be shipped to us. The funeral director then phoned me to tell me the situation and his condition. I was told that he was not in good condition, but that it was important to the family to see him one last time. The father had been the one to identify him so he was aware of how he looked and I was told to do anything necessary to achieve a natural appearance again. Now when I am told that I can do whatever is necessary to achieve a natural appearance a little warning sound goes off in my mind. How bad is their condition exactly? Then the full story came out. This young man had been a gang member and had been involved in something that had gone bad. He was killed, beheaded, dismembered, and left in the woods for two months before being found. The director asked me to phone the other funeral home to explain to them exactly what I needed.
I gave them a call and when I explained to them that I was going to restore him for visitation, there was a long silence on the other end of the phone. For a few seconds I thought the call had been dropped. Just as I was about to hang up and call back the silence was broken by a hesitant question of whether or not I knew what he looked like. I had heard descriptions of his appearance and I knew what I was getting myself into. At least that’s what I thought at the time. When I told them I would need him embalmed waterless they told me that this was a practice they did not subscribe to, plus they did not have the necessary chemicals. In the end we agreed to double bag him, place him in a sealed liner, and send him as he was. Their final words were, “Good luck, you’re going to need it.” There’s never been a case that I’ve turned down yet and I wasn’t about to change that. We received him into our care late Saturday evening. First thing Sunday morning I removed him from the shipping box and placed him on my table. No one had come close to describing what I
