Sometimes they come back.
I have long wanted a book written by vault men. They tell the best stories, see the strangest stuff. They are usually at the funeral from beginning to end, except for filling the grave. Last Saturday we had a funeral and the vault man was telling us some stories about his experiences with removals. He said his company does about one or two removals a week. That's a freaking lot. In the time I've been working, we've only had one removal, and one instance of taking the lid off the vault to retrieve a piece of forgotten jewelry.
So let me clarify the wording here, for everyones benefit. When you are buried you are in a coffin. That's the box your body is in. That coffin is put into a cement box at the cemetery. There are different kinds of boxes, depending on what the cemetery require and what you're willing to pay. The purpose of the box is generally to keep the ground from collapsing as your coffin decays in the ground. This keeps the random public from falling into your gut in years to come.
So on the low end, you have the gravebox. It can be a one piece lid or a two piece lid. The lid is a flat piece of reinforced concrete, maybe 2 inches thick. The two piece is the same, but has the benefit of being in.. two pieces. This makes it a bit easier to put on as you may be able to do it with one strapping guy, or two guys with a strap. (LOL). One piece covers usually need the vault truck or a tripod to lower down. Now, the gravebox is pretty thin, and isn't sealed at all. Over time, if you drive a truck full of dirt over it, or a backhoe, it's likely to crack and break, or if it's a two piece, the frost may even push apart the covers and then dirt and water gets in and you can have a collapsing hole anyway.
The next step up in security is a Vault. That's a cement box with a domed cover, about 5 inches or more tall. It sits on a lip on the bottom part, making a nice connection and because of it's construction and shape, has a whole lot more strengh. You can drive a loaded truck or backhoe over a vault, and grandma will be none the wiser. There are grades of vaults, but they really don't have anything to do with security as far as weight goes, just looks. And then there is the Sealed Vault. The sealed vault is sold to the customer as something that is going to keep grandma preserved in that state of perfectness that the kings of Egypt or the Saints in the glass domes or Lenin gets. The vault is plastic lined, sealed with butyl rubber, and painted gold for good measure. Or you can get copper plated, plastic plated.. whatever your pocketbook desires. But here's the thing. You can spend all you want, but in the end, the tighter the seal, the soupier the body. Take a sausage... put it in a tupperware container, and put it in the back yard for a year. Tell me what you have when you are done. Now, I'll grand that some bodies are going to hold up better than others, depending on the level of preservative they pump into you, and the conditions of the earth (warm vs. cold). But one way or another, you're going to start to fall apart. And in some cases, being in a sealed container is only going to make things worse. As a side note, some vaults have holes in the bottoms, either by design or error, and some people (Orthodox Jews for one I think) who must be placed in contact with the earth, have either bottomless vaults, or a vault turned upside down over their casket once it's in the ground. (just researching this and it's also a Muslim tradition, but without the coffin, just a shroud).
So that's the run down on grave boxes and vaults. And it's the vault man who brings us our pre-made vault as ordered by the family and funeral home, and it's into that box that the casket is lowered into when everyone leaves. Then the top is put on, with a truck or tripod, and the grave is filled with dirt. End of story... Well, not always.
More tomorrow.
So let me clarify the wording here, for everyones benefit. When you are buried you are in a coffin. That's the box your body is in. That coffin is put into a cement box at the cemetery. There are different kinds of boxes, depending on what the cemetery require and what you're willing to pay. The purpose of the box is generally to keep the ground from collapsing as your coffin decays in the ground. This keeps the random public from falling into your gut in years to come.
So on the low end, you have the gravebox. It can be a one piece lid or a two piece lid. The lid is a flat piece of reinforced concrete, maybe 2 inches thick. The two piece is the same, but has the benefit of being in.. two pieces. This makes it a bit easier to put on as you may be able to do it with one strapping guy, or two guys with a strap. (LOL). One piece covers usually need the vault truck or a tripod to lower down. Now, the gravebox is pretty thin, and isn't sealed at all. Over time, if you drive a truck full of dirt over it, or a backhoe, it's likely to crack and break, or if it's a two piece, the frost may even push apart the covers and then dirt and water gets in and you can have a collapsing hole anyway.
The next step up in security is a Vault. That's a cement box with a domed cover, about 5 inches or more tall. It sits on a lip on the bottom part, making a nice connection and because of it's construction and shape, has a whole lot more strengh. You can drive a loaded truck or backhoe over a vault, and grandma will be none the wiser. There are grades of vaults, but they really don't have anything to do with security as far as weight goes, just looks. And then there is the Sealed Vault. The sealed vault is sold to the customer as something that is going to keep grandma preserved in that state of perfectness that the kings of Egypt or the Saints in the glass domes or Lenin gets. The vault is plastic lined, sealed with butyl rubber, and painted gold for good measure. Or you can get copper plated, plastic plated.. whatever your pocketbook desires. But here's the thing. You can spend all you want, but in the end, the tighter the seal, the soupier the body. Take a sausage... put it in a tupperware container, and put it in the back yard for a year. Tell me what you have when you are done. Now, I'll grand that some bodies are going to hold up better than others, depending on the level of preservative they pump into you, and the conditions of the earth (warm vs. cold). But one way or another, you're going to start to fall apart. And in some cases, being in a sealed container is only going to make things worse. As a side note, some vaults have holes in the bottoms, either by design or error, and some people (Orthodox Jews for one I think) who must be placed in contact with the earth, have either bottomless vaults, or a vault turned upside down over their casket once it's in the ground. (just researching this and it's also a Muslim tradition, but without the coffin, just a shroud).
So that's the run down on grave boxes and vaults. And it's the vault man who brings us our pre-made vault as ordered by the family and funeral home, and it's into that box that the casket is lowered into when everyone leaves. Then the top is put on, with a truck or tripod, and the grave is filled with dirt. End of story... Well, not always.
More tomorrow.