Like a Flamingo
When you’re embalmed they fill you up with pink dye. Don’t worry, though. You don’t look like a flamingo or anything, but when they suck all the fluids and stuff out of your body you either get a fake rosy blush or look like a corpse.
My uncle told me last night that the undertaker takes out your brain and guts during the autopsy. Sometimes they get put back in all jumbled and sometimes they don’t care at all, just putting filler and putty in to make you look normal and not like you died in a car accident or anything.
I wanted to reach over and touch my mom’s chest to check if they left her intact or just crammed her full of Styrofoam or something, but my grandma started nudging at me so I just leaned forward to give her Frankenstein face a kiss and move down the line. Mom’s face was cold and I didn’t want to lick my mouth after that until I could get a drink of water but Grandma’s hand was still so tight around my arm that her rings felt like they were going to cut.
“Why do they call it a Wake if we know she’s not going to wake up?” I asked her when we sat down, and my eyes watered up when I forgot that I wasn’t going to lick my lips and licked them anyway. Grandma gave me a pinch and told me not to be disrespectful then started dabbing at her runny mascara. My mouth tasted like clay.
