Morticians And Funeral Directors Are Spilling The Creepy, Sad, And Uncomfortable Secrets No One Knows

It's part of life — losing a loved one and seeing them go through the funeral process, but few of us can say we truly understand what happens behind the scenes at a mortuary and funeral home. That's probably for the best, as we are preoccupied with grief and doing what we can to ensure our loved one is properly put to rest.

Still, many are curious about what it's really like to be a mortician or funeral director, and over on Quora , professionals from the industry are answering people's most burning questions. Here's what they had to say:

What would a funeral director or embalmer never tell a family about what goes on behind the scenes?

1. "There is a good chance I have broken your loved one's bones. Embalming is not a gentle process. I have broken forearms, broken fingers, dislocated shoulders, broken jaw bones, knocked out teeth, and torn skin. I've been massaging the embalming fluid down into the lower leg and then seen the skin from the knees to the toes slide off like a sock. It's a very sickening feeling to hear that crunching sound and realize that I have hurt a deceased person in my care. Much of this was back in my early days when I was still learning the finer points of how to break rigor mortis in the limbs (We break the rigor out to ease the distribution of the embalming fluid, as well as to position the decedent in the casket more effectively). Today, if the rigor is extremely tough, I won't even bother."

"I will tell families that embalming is merely draining the blood and replacing it with embalming fluid. It's quite a bit more graphic than that. The person who meant more than anything in the world to you will have all of her organs punctured multiple times and will have her legs bent nearly up to her face. I am glad I don't see ghosts because I imagine they would be extremely angry with me."

— Corinna L.O. , Quora

2. "As far as the general public is concerned, every person who passed through our facilities and their family was the best we ever encountered. The truth is no one wants to know what happened. For instance, we once had two bodies delivered for prep to our facility. We were in the process of a large funeral, so the bodies were left in the garage until we finished everything up. When we got one of the bodies on the table, we learned that the individual died during a stay in the hospital, and after death, the individual was simply wrapped up and sent to our facility. I remember this one quite well because when we started to work, we found that NOBODY had taken the time to remove any of the disposable medical equipment before the person was sent to us."

"The embalmer and I had to remove the materials ourselves, taking great pains to keep the blood vessels intact to help ensure a better embalming process. It was a painstaking, time-involved process, and it still changed how we were able to embalm the person. But there was NO WAY that any of us would tell the family or visitation/funeral attendees how hard we worked. As far as they were concerned, the procedures on their loved one were no trouble at all, and one of the best that we ever had the privilege to work with."

— Frank S. , Quora

Why do people look so different after being embalmed?

3. "When people pass, that's the first thing that makes them look different. Everything relaxes and comes to a standstill as opposed to when you're alive, and the beating of your heart constantly pumps blood and oxygen throughout your body. Once the deceased is embalmed, the embalmer does what they believe is best to bring their features back to par (since everything on the face sinks once someone dies). For instance, their cheeks slide back while lying down. So we are taught in mortuary school to shape them and build the cheeks up with cotton, or what we call an expression former, a plastic piece placed in the mouth to perk the lips up and to bring forth the facial part of the mouth."

"Once we embalm, everything firms up to preserve the skin. Without embalming, the body starts to deteriorate and decompose, making the body or features a lot more distorted. The process basically tries to shape the deceased's appearance back to a more lively way of being presented."

— Darla W. , Quora

Morticians, have you ever worked on someone you knew?

4. "I was insistent on embalming my grandmother and my father, and I was fortunate to be able to embalm others I knew. I found it comforting since I'm a damned good embalmer and restorative artist. I found that the time with the deceased was like MY time alone with them, and it gave me some time to grieve privately when I had to be 'strong' with the rest of the funerary activity. And, yes, there were many private things said and tears shed."

— Thomas C. , Quora

5. "Yes, I have had the unfortunate duty (and significant honor) of carrying out the funeral arrangements of friends and loved ones, which included my mentor. I live in a relatively small town and know a lot of people here, so it's almost inescapable that I will bury someone I know. Being a professional often involves keeping one's personal feelings under control to get the job done. It isn't easy embalming the familiar dead; in fact, it can be very difficult to see what disease, trauma, and time have done to once-familiar faces, but it has to be done. Every deceased person brought through my doors is a chance to connect with the intricate quilt of love and friendship he or she brings with him or her. My duty is to see that the transition moves smoothly, appropriately, and lovingly."

— Lawrence D. , Quora

What do they do to the body if its a closed casket funeral? Do they still dress the deceased up and such?

6. "How the body is dressed during a closed-casket service largely depends on what the family wants to do. However, the embalmed bodies I’ve seen usually wear a long-sleeved, zipped-up outfit that looks like a bee-keeper suit. The suit protects the deceased’s clothing and the casket from damage should there be any leaking of embalming fluid or other decomposition. It also protects anyone handling the body from any possible bio-hazard risks. If the body has extensive damage to the arms or legs, even from bone donation or an autopsy, the suit will cover these wounds, and may make an otherwise unpresentable body presentable. Any clothing the family wishes to bury their loved one in would be placed over the suit. Circumstances can change this, but in general, it’s up to the family."

"Most people in this industry have genuine respect for the body and the surviving loved ones and will do what they can to ensure the body is respected and taken care of to the extent that they can. They also must meet the legal requirements and regulations placed on them regarding the handling of and preparation of a body. They’ll do so whether or not the body is viewed."

— Avonlea M. , Quora

7. "Personally, I always wanted the person dressed just in case. There have been many times when someone insisted they have a last look, and I’m grateful that I insisted the person be dressed. If the family refused, I would wash the body, set the features (close the mouth and eyes), apply a little color to the cheeks and lips, and wrap the body in a clean white sheet. He or she would then be laid in the casket and the overthrow would be over the person like a blanket so that if anyone did look, there would be something nice to see. Just in case."

"If it was a traumatic death and I could not restore the body (or the family didn’t want me to), the body would be in a pouch, laid in the casket, and the bed cranked all the way down. The overthrow would be on top of the pouch so the family would see nothing but upholstery. I thought that was more respectful than seeing a black plastic bag."

— Timothy L.T. , Quora

Why is there a vial in a casket?

8. "These devices — called memory tubes — store a slip of paper with vital information about the person in the casket (name, date of birth and death, etc.). The purpose is so that if the casket is removed from its place of burial in the event of a natural disaster like a flood or some other reason, there will be irrefutable proof of who is inside it. Without that slip of paper, there would be virtually no way to correctly identify the remains inside the casket."

— Dan C. , Quora

Do funeral directors/embalmers remove gold from the deceased's teeth?

9. "It would be absolutely illegal to remove dental gold without authorization. When we are doing a cremation, and something such as a pacemaker has to be removed (the battery will explode), our authorization form requires that the next of kin specifically sign off on that exact provision with specifics. The penalties for getting it wrong can be pretty severe (in the USA, state law will control). In my 30+ years, I have never been asked to remove any dental gold — fillings or teeth. If I were asked, neither I nor my staff would perform the extraction, but we would allow the family to send in a dentist or dental assistant to do that work, equipped with proper signatures from the next of kin."

R. Eric S. , Quora

10. "I'm not going to take the time to mess with that. Honestly, dead people are gross. They look gross, smell bad, feel weird. I have handled thousands of dead people, and never once have I thought, 'Oh, I should dig through their mouth and see if there are any gold teeth.' There are probably some sickos that do that (because there are sickos in all aspects of life), but I've never even considered doing that. I've never heard coworkers talk about it, either."

— Tim B. , Quora

Do morticians get upset when they embalm children?

11. "Upset may be the wrong word. But most of us do find it emotionally difficult. I found toddlers and preschool-age children the most difficult. You may think this odd, but embalming was not the hardest part for me. That is somewhat technical. I could usually go into that 'technician' mode and just do what had to be done. What I found hard was dressing the body of a young child. I could do it just fine, of course, but I think that wrestling these lifeless but slightly resisting arms into this shirt, perhaps a pullover, was so similar to the struggle to get my own children dressed just a few years prior that it broke down the boundary of 'professional detachment' with very little for me to lean on in defense."

"The thing that did consistently help, in this and all the more unpleasant tasks (and some way past simply unpleasant), was looking on it as fulfilling the call to 'bear one another's burdens.' I could deal with this outward difficulty so that the parents might be spared to do their own, and much harder, inward work.

If I ever get where that is unaffecting, it will be time for me to quit and find something I can give myself to honestly."

— R. Eric S ., Quora

12. "I did it as a matter of my job, but I always felt, 'How would I get through this if it were my child?' One of the hardest was a little girl of 5 who had been abducted and tortured. Cigarette burns on her body. Thank God they caught the SOB who did it. She was like a little doll in her casket. I think the whole staff was just crying when we put her out for visitation. That was a hard one. And the age of the child doesn't matter. I think I grieved for my 32-year-old as much as the parents of a baby who died of SIDS. It's still your kid, and you never get over it."

Can you have an open casket funeral if the body is not embalmed?

13. "Yes you can, I have even done open casket unembalmed viewings for people who had full autopsies. Typically, a funeral home will only allow such a viewing on their premises if it is immediate family only. This is not due to state law but individual funeral home policies. An embalmed body on display is advertising for the funeral home. Unembalmed bodies, even if they die with no trauma or serious medical problems, just will not look as good, and the funeral home doesn't want to risk its reputation by presenting bodies in this manner to the general public. I practice in Washington state, where it is legal for a family to keep an unembalmed body in their own home and hold their own viewing, for whomever they wish, for up to three days. If you want a church service, typically, the church will not allow an open casket with an unembalmed body."

— Corrina L.O. , Quora

As a mortician/embalmer/funeral director, what is the worst case you've ever worked?

14. "I had to prep a young lady that I went to high school with, who was murdered and found along the highway in a ditch. It was a very tough case for me as I knew this young lady quite well. I did my best to make her look presentable, and the family was quite pleased with the results. She had been lying facedown for quite some time before she was found, and that was a challenge in itself."

— Franklin C. , Quora

15. "In over 25 years of funeral service, the worst was a Catholic mass funeral that NO ONE came to. There was the priest, organist, and me in the front pew. I generally sat in for funeral masses because many attendees didn't know when to sit, stand, or kneel so they could take my cue. I had pre-arranged this funeral with the nursing home social worker and legal conservator. It was pre-paid from the decedent's personal funds years before as part of long-term best fiduciary planning by the conservator."

"The lady (decedent) was a WWI medical corps veteran and outlived everyone. She had no family, and even the social worker and attorney had retired or moved away. No one was there except the three people running the funeral. I found the playing of the national anthem to be particularly moving that day."

— Dave C. , Quora