breakthecitysky:

But the presumptive goal of the morticians and their staff is what they call “viewability” — to give the family at least part of their son or daughter back as they remember them. (In the end, the families of about 85 percent of those killed in action are able to hold at least a partial viewing.)

The mortician assigned to Sergeant Montgomery put him back together as best he could. He built a right hand out of gauze and cotton and similarly stuffed the legs of his uniform pants. He paid particular attention to Sergeant Montgomery’s face, which, with the help of the airmen stationed alongside him, he washed and shaved and layered in makeup.

Chaplain Sparks tells a story he heard from one of his fellow chaplains. He was on the floor, watching an airman who was tenderly washing the blood and sand out of a young soldier’s hair. He would later comb it carefully into place, but for now he concentrated on cleaning the dead man’s hair, rinsing it, and washing it again, the water running through it and his fingers and into the sink. The chaplain asked the airman about that, and the airman said, “His mother washed his hair the first time, and I’m washing it for the last time.”

“It’s very intimate,” Sparks said. “Preparing remains is a very intimate thing. This is hands-on.”

It was Micah who noticed that his ring was missing. Joey was a Mason, and the ring was a chunk of steel that he wore on the middle finger of his right hand, a gift from Gail that last Christmas to replace the one that had been cut off him before he deployed, his finger swollen with infection. Now Micah took off his own Mason’s ring, and he leaned down to slip it onto Joey’s right middle finger, over his white glove. That’s when Gail began to shake; the gloved finger folded in on itself, empty but for cotton and carefully rolled strips of gauze.

The Things That Carried Him, by Chris Jones.

It’s the time of year when I think about my friends at Dover Port Mortuary, when I think about my friends that have worked there and my friends who have come home through there, the first stop on a long, last journey home.

It’s the time of year for remembering what a lot of families don’t have the privilege of ever forgetting.