Grandma Henke

I have only one sister, Ann.   We have had several bizarre harrowing unusual experiences together throughout our lives and have unfortunately acquired a reputation similar to that of Lucy and Ethel on the “I Love Lucy Show”. Without even trying, and usually with the best of intentions, we find ourselves in situations where even we are afraid there is no way out.   Our father loved us dearly and quite enjoyed the fact that we fumbled around trying to do good.    I remember when he was on death’s door, practically unable to speak and laying still in his bed.   Ann and I were standing on either side of him and I whispered, “Don’t worry, Dad, Ann and I are here to take care of you.”   Without opening his eyes he whispered back, “Oh brother, brother, brother.”

Mother was a beautiful woman, as you can see from this photo of her at age eighty-nine.   When she passed away this last April,  Ann and I were under strict orders from her to make sure she looked nice in her casket when the time came.   These are orders that we took very seriously.     We checked on her earlier in the day at the mortuary and commented to each other how “beautiful and natural” she looked (because those are the things you are supposed to say when you look at someone lying in a coffin).    So you can imagine our surprise when we arrived that night thirty minutes prior to the actual viewing and saw a couple of blatant flaws in her makeup.   I pointed out a blob of makeup on her left eye that Ann immediately felt needed touching up.   She asked for a Kleenex, which I supplied, and she wrapped it around her finger and attempted to dob it up.   About this same instant I spotted a black dot on her lip that I attempted to remove with the tip of my fingernail.   I was horrified when the whole left side of her lip lifted up and moved to the right, leaving what looked like a very large, dark cold sore.    I gasped and tried to push it back into shape but her lips would not meet together again and her smile looked more like a nasty sneer.   I was just sick.   At that same time, Ann was anxiously trying to repair what she had done to Mother’s left eyelid, which she had moved somewhat to the left.      Poor Mother was about to receive guests for the last time and we had not only ruined her makeup … we had given her a black eye and a fat lip.

By then, we had drawn a bit of a crowd around us … family females who were all in absolute shock.   We were all whispering together trying to decide what to do.   I don’t know why we were whispering, perhaps we didn’t want to wake up Mother.    Some of us quickly pulled out our tubes of lipstick to compare colors, thinking we could use it to fix her up, but about then my daughter, Kimberly,  flung herself in front of the casket and said rather loudly, “NO DON’T FIX HER ANYMORE!”    Everyone was glaring at us like we were the two wicked witches of the west … and there was no one else we could blame it on.   We had been caught red handed, so to speak.    We imagined Mother wringing her heavenly hands and tugging on Dad’s white suit saying, “Oh Lewy, look what the girls have done to me!”   And we could almost hear him saying, “Oh brother, brother, brother.”

Kimberly stood in righteous indignation in front of Mother’s casket as I hurried out and found an older gentleman from the office and asked him if he could repair Mother’s face.   He told me no one was there who could do it until in the morning.    What kind of answer is that 25 minutes before the party starts?    Ann and I were beside ourselves with guilt and worry knowing Mother would know it was us who had messed up her beautiful face.   She certainly didn’t look “natural” anymore.

Another younger man, Quinn,  with his arm full of flowers came by and I grabbed him and said, “Oh we have done something terrible to Mother’s face.   Please can you fix it!”   He started to tell us there was no one there who could do it when he saw what we had done and his mouth fell open in astonishment.  Without hesitation he said, “I’ll go get some make up!”   He worked on her for a full twenty-five minutes and kept saying, “I’m so sorry.  This isn’t my job and I’m not doing it very well.”   Ann and I were not particularly picky at this point but he actually did a fairly decent job of it, other than her smile looked just a little strained (which at that point was probably how it would have been had she actually been there) and her lipstick ended up having to be a darker shade of orange rather than the original light pink we had requested.    We figured that was a small price to pay and it would be a lot easier to face Mom in the hereafter with orange lipstick rather than no lip at all.

Quinn then quietly explained to us that they use soft wax to mold the faces to make them appear more natural and rounded, particularly the lips because they need to be filled out some.   I was so relieved to know I hadn’t actually pulled her lip off as I had first thought!   It was a horrifying experience!   We were both very chagrined and sorry for the commotion and stress we caused and vowed we would never, ever do something like that again.   My brother told us we would be forgiven as long as we promised to keep our arms folded or our hands behind our backs for the rest of the night.   He needn’t have worried.   The rest of the family made sure we didn’t even reach out to straighten her clothing!  

There was certainly a buzz going through the room as the story was passed from person to person while Ann and I tried so diligently to look dignified and respectful standing as close to Mother as we were allowed.   Each guest was quickly greeted at the door by someone eager for their chance to repeat the tale … and oh how it grew with each telling.    The newcomers could hardly wait to get through the crowd so they could look at Mother’s  face, which they would view from several angles.      The aunts and sisters in law promised each other that Ann and I would not be allowed anywhere near their caskets should they go before us.    But all was not in vain.   Almost everyone who attended told us that night was the most fun they could ever remember having at a mortuary in their entire life.     It was probably the most successful event Ann and I have ever put on.     Dad would have been proud.

Technorati Tags: Morticians, Makeup, Viewing the Dead, Mortuaries