"Behind the formaldehyde curtain"
What Have I Seen: Reflections on Seeing from Those Who Live
When I was in college, I read the essay “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” in Freshman English. I was horrified to learn what we do to bodies for the sake of not looking dead, shocked by our cultural preference for the stiff, shattering cat over the fleshy reality of death, mystified by the dark magic that extracts payment from grieving families, that we…