Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies

by Caitlin Doughty

We can’t make death fun, but we can make learning about death fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It bridges every culture and unites the whole of humanity!

Maybe you are dead—“you,” meaning Jessica or Maria or Jeff—but that doesn’t mean that life isn’t still happening inside your flesh case. Blood, bacteria, fluids: they’re reacting, changing, and adapting now that their host is dead. And those changes mean . . . colors.

Cremations for very heavy people can take longer, sometimes over two hours longer. That gives the fat enough time to burn away. But at the end of the process, you can’t tell who went in the machine a 450-pound person and who went in a 110-pound person. The flames are the great equalizer.

If you or your family is caring for your dead person at the family home or at a nursing facility, our funeral home recommends that the family close the mouth and eyes as soon as possible during primary relaxation. This will set the face in a peaceful position early, before the dreaded rigor mortis begins.

First 2-3 hours after death

Rigor mortis is more than just the name of a python I used to own. Rigor mortis is the Latin name for the stiffening of the muscles that starts around three hours after death (even sooner in very hot or tropical environments).

a full cremation requires over 40 cubic feet of wood. The fire has to reach 1200 degrees and stay there for two to three hours. You have to keep adding wood close to the body throughout the cremation.

If you die on a plane, it’s usually not because the plane has crashed. Plane crashes are very rare; your chances of being in a plane crash are one in 11 million.

Sitting next to a corpse all the way to Tokyo isn’t ideal, but I would prefer a corpse to a crying baby. No offense to babies, I just spend more time around corpses.

Aquamation uses water and potassium hydroxide to dissolve the dead body down to its skeleton. The aquamation process is better for the environment and doesn’t use natural gas, a valuable resource. But the idea that a body can be dissolved in water drives some people wild with fear—especially when they find out that the water used in the process, which is not dangerous in any way, is sent into the sewer system.

Like cooking and sports and storytelling and gossip, preserving corpses is a near universal human pastime.

Scientists believe that seeing this light at the end of the tunnel is the result of retinal ischemia, which happens when there isn’t enough blood reaching the eye.