Shades of compassion
Growing up as a mortician’s daughter offered plenty of lessons about life
Next to the toolbox was my father’s makeup kit. Dad could build or repair anything, but that was just to keep busy. My father, Bill Styles, was a mortician, a skilled makeup artist for those in a horizontal position.
When I was in kindergarten in 1954, we moved across the street to our family funeral home. Death was always present, but so was life. I would run to the top of the stairs when I heard my father’s footsteps. Dad would pop me on his shoulders to touch the ceiling — a grand ritual for a little girl.
One rainy morning when Dad was out and Mom was busy, I whispered to my older sister. “I saw an art box when we moved. Maybe it’s downstairs.”
I knew it was a quiet day — no flower deliveries, no people in black. My sister and I checked behind the drapes and the couches in the funeral parlor, then in the kitchen, where we grabbed a cookie, and finally in the office, careful not to touch the important black phone. No luck. There was only one more place to search — Dad’s workroom, the morgue.
I opened the door and looked around. “Found it,” I yelled to my sister. Together we slid the drawers and peeked inside. My sister read the cursive labels, Skin Tones.
“You’re wrong,” she said. “It’s not paints, it’s makeup.”
I was fascinated by the colors — creamy golden shades, tans, deep browns, blacks and pinks. Apparently, not everyone had Irish white skin like me. I never questioned why Dad would have makeup.
My sister and I smeared blobs on each other like we would later do as teenagers sampling cosmetics in Woolworths. Mortuary makeup was thick, similar to theatrical makeup, I suppose. We giggled as our hands smudged with colors hard to wipe off.
When my father returned and caught us exploring his cosmetics, he was unusually quiet. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but wasn’t there a tiny smile under his stare?
“Girls,” he said, “We need some rules, but first, we’ll clean up.”
After the makeup was removed, Dad sat us down on the funeral parlor couch and gave a pint-sized lesson on diversity and respect for the living and the dead.
“People come in all colors, and that’s why I have so many creams. But the morgue is my workroom; you are not to enter again without permission.” We nodded. With that message we were sent upstairs.
Morticians are often described as somber or cold-hearted, but I remember my father whistling in the morgue when I returned from school. Death was as close as my father’s voice. And my father’s voice was generally happy and calm. His love of people was contagious.
Over time I came to understand my father’s work as a funeral director. The embalming process was like surgery, a science — compassionate care for the dead, an art. The morgue was his sacred space. Makeup was just part of his work. Cosmetics wouldn’t prevent grief ’s tears, but Dad tried to create a more natural last visit.
Perhaps Dad’s love of life and his exceptional patience were the result of facing death in World War II as a B-17 pilot, and the years he spent as a prisoner of war in Germany. His desire to comfort people, and his confidence that he could make a difference, kept him smiling.
My father died when I was 26, pregnant with my first child. Life and death — the natural bookends. The funeral business ended when Dad died. His lessons remained. Whenever I showed patience with my children, or viewed people in a positive way, my mother teased, “You sound just like your father.” I considered that a compliment.
I still trace my earliest understanding of patience and respect to a rainy morning in my father’s funeral home.
But I have mastered makeup.
Death was as close as my father’s voice. And my father’s voice was generally happy and calm. His love of people
was contagious.