All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes

by Sue Black

There is so much to do before a funeral can be held that sometimes you wonder whether the whole process has been expressly designed to keep you busy to distract you from your grief. Alongside registering the death, arranging the funeral director, obtaining copies of the death certificate and putting a notice in the newspaper, there are so many decisions to be made. Both my parents’ funerals took place at a crematorium chapel, which meant choosing flowers and hymns and writing a piece for the minister to deliver. Did we need funeral cars, and if so, how many? There was a casket to be selected (my father would have commented of his that he had burned better, which was ironic as that was exactly what we were going to do with it), a venue and catering arrangements to be decided upon for refreshments afterwards and we needed to make sure the right people were informed. In Scotland, where the interval between a death and a burial is short, the fevered activity necessary to get everything done in time brings out the best and the worst in people. There are inevitably moments that will go down in family lore.