Last Stab at Vanity

Morticians have always worked cosmetic magic when trying to recapturing the lifelike appearance of a person who’s died.  Now, however, the ones that Carly Simon wrote that song about are making advance arrangements for these final touches and in ways they never used to even think about.

“I’ve had people mention that they want their breasts to look perky when they’re dead,” says David Temrowski, funeral director of Temrowski & Sons Funeral Home in Warren, Mich. “Or they’ll say, ‘Can you get these wrinkles out?’  It’s all in humor, but I think people do think [more] about what they’re going to look like when they’re dead and lying in a casket.”

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The mortician’s craft, termed restorative art or what I’ll call nip/tuck for the post-living involves everything from setting a peaceful facial expression (which has to be done before the embalming fluid enters the circulatory system and “sets” the tissue) to erasing the ravages of age, disease, or trauma (using tissue filler, wax, stitches, or even Super Glue in the case of broken bones) to recreating the deceased’s individual style with regard to hair, nails and makeup.  I think I smell a reality TV series here: Extreme Makeover-Postmortem Edition or America’s Next Top Cadaver.