The Funeral Director

John Fitzgerald, the town funeral director, was a man that was easy to miss. This is not a consequence of a forgettable countenance–in fact, most who knew him agree that upon first meeting, he was rather unusual-looking. He had a broad, fleshy forehead and frame so thin, so skeletal, that it was almost remarkable his threadbare pants remained seated upon his bony hips even with his leather belt fitted to its tightest notch. In that way, he did not look so dissimilar from the corpses he regularly embalmed. 

Instead, Mr. Fitzgerald was easy to miss because most people in the community can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there. He simply always was. He dutifully stood at the back of every Saint Peter’s church ceremony, ushering churchgoers to lead the passing of the collection basket. He volunteered at charity collections, local schools, and town council meetings. He consoled the grieving with firm hugs and gentle words at every funeral the Fitzgerald Funeral Home hosted.

And slowly, without realizing it, countless people began to depend on Mr. Fitzgerald. He was so competent, so steadfast, that it was difficult not to. He drove Bob Burns to his doctor's appointments after he had his leg amputated. He brought groceries to Elaine Stevens when her husband passed and she became too ill to leave her home, but too stubborn to move into a retirement community. He did such favors for anyone who asked, and many who were perhaps too prideful to. The priests at Saint Peter’s came to rely on his financial counsel. And whenever he raised his voice to speak at parish council meetings, even a disagreeable crowd quieted to a hush to respectfully listen to Mr. Fitzgerald’s ideas. 

In every way, Mr. Fitzgerald was reasonable, helpful, and precise. When asked how he managed to fit so much into a day, he waved the compliment away with a kind smile. 

“Unlike the energizer bunny, I only need a cup of coffee to get by,” he used to joke. At this, people would return his smile and not think much else of his remarkable diligence or the long hours this man kept. 

And, though most didn’t realize it, no one knew very much about Mr. Fitzgerald’s life. If you were to ask who Mr. Fitzgerald was, a person would probably smile in remembrance at something kind or thoughtful he had done once for them, and mumble a vague, “That John, he’s a really good guy.” 

This wasn’t entirely other people’s fault. Mr. Fitzgerald was careful to focus on the factual events of his days. He did not respond to gossip and spoke little of feelings that were not others’. He had a remarkable way of turning conversation politely back towards you if he sensed someone inching too close to his personal life. 

He dated a woman, Kathleen, once four years ago. She was very beautiful, and the town was excited to see old Mr. Fitzgerald have a companion.

“You’re a difficult person to get to know,” Kathleen remarked one evening over dinner. 

“It’s the Irish in me,” he told her. 

To many onlookers’ dismay, the relationship did not last long. But like most things in Mr. Fitzgerald’s life, it ended amicably, and years later he still greeted Kathleen and her new husband pleasantly whenever they attended Sunday mass. 

No one knew about Mr. Fitzgerald’s older sister, Sarah. At the end of his long days, he returned home to his tiny house on the edge of town. 

“Thank you, I’ll take over from here,” he would say to Rosa, Sarah’s daytime caretaker.

Some days, he found his sister and caretaker in the living room, Sarah propped up on an armchair and watching television, wearing her hollow, empty expression. These were often the easier days when she was able to get out of bed, the ones when she accepted the occasional mouthful of food. 

Other days—the ones when she didn’t leave bed—were more difficult. She shouted when she saw him, insisting she didn’t know him, demanding that he leave her house. Inconsolable, she pushed away all food and rejected his attempts at comfort. 

This was not the Sarah he remembered from his childhood. That Sarah was intelligent with a mischievous smile, forever pushing him to bend a rule or push a boundary. That Sarah never made him feel lonely as they moved to another part of the country every couple of years, chasing their father’s newest and best job when he wasn’t able to hold down the previous one. That Sarah threw herself over his thin body to protect him from their mother’s frantic, angry blows as she punished him for his newest small transgression against her. That Sarah was the one brave enough to call Child Protective Services on their own mother when their mother’s rage spells became increasingly more violent against them. 

That Sarah was the one who taught him how to shoot fowl when they moved to Texas and woke him up in the early morning to go hunting. That Sarah taught him how satisfying it was to help others, how to be honest without being cruel, and how to express care for life events while avoiding gossip. That Sarah was well-read, understood the importance of education, and eventually didn’t allow her parents’ indifference stop her from attending college. That Sarah wasn’t creeped out when he expressed his desire to become a mortician, when he said it would help him manage his fears around death and that he had a demeanor suitable to comforting the mourning. 

This Sarah was but a feeble, mocking shell of that Sarah. He tried protecting these old memories of her, not allowing her present state to slowly erode away at them. But the more time passed, the more difficult it became. 

It was easier in the beginning. When she first got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, she had all of her motor functions and could largely joke with him in the way she always did. But hanging miserably over every conversation was the forgotten name, the misplaced house keys, the phone call from the previous day she could no longer recall. As time passed, John got the impression that her memories were blurred together like watercolors, distinct shapes losing their edges. Her mind flitted between the past and the present, eventually no longer distinguishing between the two. 

As her condition slowly worsened, Mr. Fitzgerald withdrew from his usual community activities, devoting all his steadfast competence and diligence towards a solution. When doctors said there was nothing more to do, he turned to nutritionists and alternative medicines, exclusively cooking ‘brain-boosting’ meals, pushing more and more pills into her palm every morning to swallow, and flying her out to doctors across the country who offered promising experimental drugs. But all was to no avail.

“John, there’s nothing you can do for me,” she said once, several years ago now. 

“Don’t talk like that,” he told her. 

“You have to listen,” she said, her gaze soft but steady, “this is going to progress however it chooses to. There’s nothing you can do about that. Don’t give up your years for me. Let me go.” 

At the time, Mr. Fitzgerald found such a suggestion intolerable. Her grim acceptance of her fate only made him grow more desperate. He redoubled his efforts, isolating himself even more from those around him, determined to find a solution.

Then one day, she looked at him with deep sadness. “I know I really care about you and you’re important to me, but I can’t remember who you are, and that makes me sad.” 

He took her hand and squeezed. “I really care about you too, and maybe that’s enough,” he said. 

It had been months since the last time she had recognized him. Most evenings were spent easing her out of her confusion, sometimes frustratingly searching for glimpses of recognition in her vapid gaze. He didn’t think she had much time left. She had difficulty swallowing, and rapid weight loss left her appearing as little more than skin stretched over bone.

Sometimes he imagined Sarah dying. He thought of the bodies he embalms, and how one day he would need to do the same thing to her. Securing her lower jaw with wire, never to open and speak to him again, her eyelids held in place with plastic eye caps. He thought of watching the blood creep out of tubes fed by her artery veins, replacing blood with pungent-smelling formaldehyde. The embalming process that the years had hardened him to suddenly revolted him. How clinical it would feel subjecting her to that process, deconstructing her even more than her disease already had. 

But these days, deep down, it felt as if she was already dead. The words she spoke to him years ago were right; there was nothing more he could do for her. The time at night he spent bathing her, brushing her hair, feeding her, whispering comforts to her, and putting her to bed felt like respectful tribute to someone that was already lost. It was like placing flowers on a grave, day after day, paying relentless homage to the memory of who she once was. 

So slowly, Mr. Fitzgerald resigned himself to the fate his sister asked him to accept many years ago. He began pouring himself back into the community and the people who had grown to depend on him. Where there was no opportunity to help his sister anymore, there was opportunity in helping those around him. It didn’t make anything easier. The nature of his work was that even if he was engrossed in another’s problems, he was often just exchanging his grief for someone else’s. And while sometimes he forgot himself in a story, a good conversation, a joke, or a happy moment, Sarah was never far from his mind. 

The best he could do, he realized, was honor her in a way that the old Sarah would want to be honored: not with dutiful agony over her loss, but with compassionate investment in the lives of others.