Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs and Other Questions About Dead Bodies

Not for the faint of heart but as I do have a cat the title hadn’t ever occurred to me until I saw it, I thought why not? It’s a funny cheeky title and did make me wonder and know the answer. Doughty obviously has a following, a wicked since of humor and felt some comfort and strength in numbers that there are others, lots of them who bought it, so I picked it up.

Doughty is a professional mortician and researched answers to questions people have and only to happy to share. Weirder the better. I guess there are no such things as a bad question but people ask the strangest things you ever heard and find yourself wondering what the answer is.

She also has lots of videos out. She is simply a fun person doing what she has a calling to do. There have been a few famous stars who survived as “body” makeup artists before they made it. I once had a coach that worked as an assistant through college for extra cash doing whatever assistants do on the funeral home night-shift. It has to pay better than fast-food joints, customers don’t complain, and he said he fit studying in. Having said that, I would not have been caught dead anywhere near a mortuary other than being a valet maybe, depending on tips. Not my thing as a job or a hangout.

She demystifies what happens when we all die, spoiler alert, and therefor it helps when we are confronted with it a light way and come to peace with it. If your manage to live long enough you will. I wouldn’t say it’s a million laughs and reluctant to put this book in the humor category, but I did anyway, and it is very educational and answers a lot of questions that you will find interesting and didn’t know to ask, or care to.

I have had experiences with both off-duty morticians and pathologists (yes I know they are two different kinds of animals, one job involves no makeup, the other trowels of it) has been different. I went to a pathologist’s party (once) that had a good turnout and fine except he played rain and lightning sound effects. Only. And it wasn’t Halloween. He described to me with great tipsy relish something I would have preferred not knowing involving the cranium. And didn’t ask.

When I met a mortician through a mutual acquaintance that was fine too except he jumped right into his total hairless fetish and super encouraged me to give it a go. It seemed like he brought his work home a bit too literally, and enthusiastically. I also delivered flowers (once) to a mortuary and met Bloody Mary, her actual nickname. I was told later. Very elderly and smashed our of her skull first thing in the morning; a memory hard to forget. Let’s just say her customer service had no boundaries and way out of line.

So the fact that Doughty is a skilled storyteller delving into a taboo subject at least in the U.S. I think is great because we can all just learn to take a breath and get over it. It’s necessary to say goodbye. It’s a bitch and fact of life. It’s also a celebration that can help us relax a bit instead of mixing up respectful mourning, acting out, and fear at the after-party. Humor is an effective coping mechanism and those closest to us would want us to remember the good times.

We are robbed of our loved ones and miss them, but none us can feel we were robbed of their love while they walked this earth or forget they made our lives much better.