Finally! A Show About a Crematoriam Worker at Green-Wood Cemetery

Good.

Five point fifty five am. I quite literally just woke up. I'm probably gonna drift back a little bit more, but I am ready for a new day.

Good boarding at six oh five am, still in bed, clinging to my beetlejuice and my ft and y pillows.

Yeah.

So I'm just getting ready for my shift at the Greenwood Cemetery in the crematory. I gotta be there in about an hour and.

A half, so.

Not too groggy. It definitely had some of those dreams where I thought I was already awake, because usually for a shift, I'll be up at five thirty.

But we're gonna do it. This is finally a show about a coordinator at a crematorium.

Gabrielle Gatto works at the Greenwood Cemetery in New York.

I'm Gabrielle R. Gado.

I'm the coordinator of public programs at the Greenwood Cemetery in addition to a crematory worker on the weekends. And I'm thirty years old. I just turned thirty, can you tell? Okay, So when I first started working here, I just had a handful of keys, and then slowly but surely working between so many different departments and being entrusted with a company van and needing to get into so many spaces. I mean, listen, this is an actual skeleton key. I got a gate key. I was hey, it was so fun.

And I was like, that's true.

I have been working at Greenwood Cemetery just a week before in New York City lockdown, so I've been here since March twenty twenty, coming up on four years now. There was a position open here and I said, okay, cool, I'll still be working in events. And then there were an events because we were right at the height of the pandemic. So I kind of scaled back, and I realized working with the burial orders and cremation orders and helping out in the crematory that I was doing something

Watch every single.

TV show, movie, work with every medium, talk to every artist that's working in that space. But yeah, I think there's a part of it that I'm like, I just get it and I can meet you there. I can hang out in that space. Oh, there's bogged on another part of the Greenwood family. Hey Boged on Big family.

Busy.

Yeah, so listen, I have a request. Can we get an extra box of tissues? Okay? Great?

I'm like.

Here at the crematory at Greenwood.

It could be a slow day, but it also could be a rapid fire, very quick day.

Lots of families coming in.

So on a typical Saturday like today, we've got funeral directors coming to drop off to sdents, but also have services with families. We have funeral directors coming in to pick up cremated bodies to return to the loved ones. But also we are an active cemetery and a National Historic landmark, So people are coming through these gates, coming through our offices not only asking where their loved one services, but where's the bathroom, where's the trolley coming? You know,

They're a great team.

And they'll make sure that the paperwork stays with the deceited the entire time.

I got so remains Paul, Alison Noovo and Tom says.

Hello, whole lot of good morning. I'm Alexander Ornandez started here two thousand and six.

We whacking.

They don't make them like me, they don't. I'm built differently. We'm a Creamer's horror operator. Today we have to deal with services and families taking the deceased that come in.

But it's pretty cool.

With a mailman. We work in any type of weather. It's no rain, sleep, so it's like you get to see it all. Blizzards we work in blizzards is which is insane. But that that alone is like, you know, just to be like, oh, I'm outside, I'm not cooped up in the office stressed the hell out. I mean, because don't don't don't, don't get it twisted. It becomes overwhelming too when you're even out in the field because you got a lot of responsibility you got to do.

It's a lot.

But yeah, it's awesome. I wasn't rated well. I was doing something else that wasn't really benefiting my life, to be honest at one point. So it's like my brother works were he was like, oh, we're hiring at the cemetery. It's like, no, I never thought of it. I mean, the deaf people don't bother me because they're dead. The people that are alive we got to worry about in life.

Yeah, okay, so you're dead, you died. What happens next? So funeral director comes in depending on what the family wants with the dead person wanted.

The funeral home is the ones that are going to transport the body.

Here.

We have a beautiful heart loading bay, so they'll come in through there. Crematory operators will meet the funeral director in the back, bring the casket, bring it into the back, and then either place it into one of our chapels for services or get staged and ready to go into one of the retorts once all of the proper paperwork is assigned to it.

To be an urn that be seen.

Sometimes we've got a service in the front, the caskets there, the flowers are there, Maybe there's another ritual, there's singing, there's a faith based leader there. The family is giving the eulogy in there as well, because maybe especially if it's a cremation, they chose not to have a wake or the viewing services at the funeral home or parlor. Right, so we'll bring some of the family and the casket into the back right in front of the retort. Our

To be entrusted to be part of that.

But some people have specifically asked, Hey, is it okay that I'm there for you know, ten full minutes, because that's how long the prayer takes. And being able to carve out that time and space talking to Gemma, talking to Jojo and Alex in the back, Hey, like we need a full ten minutes for this witness.

You know, could we accommodate that?

How could we work that out in our busy schedule today? It is an honor and a privilege to bear witness to a witness. I will absolutely say that I've heard wailing like I've never heard before, and that's a testament to how deep of a loss that that was for someone. Right, I've heard chance prayers I'd never heard before. You know, I'm just super Italian. So like my whole thing is like it's a time to mourn, a time to dance, Like we've all, you know, heard that in the church.

Witness to it all.

Douglas death work is ancient work, and if you look back, it is a lot of women. You know, women are the ones that in their communities really showed up for death and for grief. Right, So I do get excited about how much ritual we can bring to these experiences.

What per here?

Yeah, I'm Gemalabachetta, and I am the senior crematory manager here at Greenwood Cemetery. When I first came to the cemetery and I remember thinking about the crematory, people would say to me, oh, no, they would never allow a woman in the crematory.

And I was like, why, what are you talking about?

Why because I'm a woman, and now the entire staff in the office is women. I mean, we have male operators, but any one of us could jump in there and help the guys out, like and we have.

We have done that on a hectic day.

We'll run back and we'll help out with the flowers, cleaning up, taking a body in.

I mean, we are able.

To do all of that. It's just a.

Great feeling to be able to look out and.

Be like, hey, that's us.

Also, this is the fun office.

The crematory office is the fun office.

If you spent the whole day here with us, you would see how many funeral directors just love to hang out with us in this office.

You're definitely part of a regular day here. I'm Monique Walker and I do livery with Woodward Funeral Home. And over here we have Miss Linda Linda Thompson, and.

I am the manager slash owner.

She rolled with my father.

She was a funeral director who rolled with my dad, who's no longer here, And my dad was a friend of her dad's and that's how he got into the business. So we're the daughters of two elder gentlemen who decided to do this business in the livery and as funeral director.

I was a funeral director coming into the business in the late seventies. I've been licensed since nineteen seventy nine. I was a young young girl, very young. So I have been here all these years and it's a crazy world. And things have definitely changed, yes.

Most, but we try to hold onto tradition, yes, And as much as things change, some things remain the same. And there's a reason for the tradition and the way we do things, and the grace and the empathy and the style and the class is something we never want to let go.

Oh, this huge typewriter.

Let me tell you about this huge typewriter that we have in agrevatory. So it's an IBM Wheelwriter one thousand by Lexmark. So our typewriter is where we type those labels. It also, I think helps with our margin of error because when you're physically you know, clacking away.

Here's just.

Say cremated body of.

And then get their name in there. But I'm not gonna lie.

There is a little like I feel like I'm in Madmen and I'm like clacking away at the typewriter.

It's kind of fun.

It's a little antiquated, but I think, you know, we are a Brooklyn institution that is one hundred. We just had our one hundred and eighty fifth birthday this year. So since numbers are very important here, I won't lie. Usually I make a little song out of it, and I sing the person's cremation numbers, so I make sure it's matching on all the paperwork. There is a strange

Like I don't know.

Also, we don't have an insane amount of information about these folks, right, but there's still a story there.

I'm like, okay, wow, Like the family's gonna come in at noon.

Maybe they needed extra time because they've got family coming in from all over the world.

I wonder if I've ran by their apartment. Maybe I know their son from the coffee shop. Like I have this whole narrative.

In my head just from like this small bit of information or just you know, I look at their ages. I think about who I know that is that age. I try and like help that ground me, and you know, instead of just flying through the paperwork and be like, oh, you know, yeah, Harry James, you know, rest in peace. He was only seventy two, but he was married. He lived a good life out there on Eastern Parkway, Douglas.

Here we are.

See dash nine seven three two four. All right, You're never alone if you're in this office because these two cabinets in front of us. Here is where the cremated remains in their boxes sit until the funeral director and or family comes to pick them up. So I'm never alone when I'm in here. I'm like, all right, let's see who's here. Oh John, Okay, it's weird. It's like these people are dead. I'm like, maybe i'll name my

Sometimes when you're doing this whole day, you can't get the numbers out of your head. So I've woken up out of dreams with cremation numbers in my head, and of course being Italian myself, my first thing instinct is I gotta play that number.

I gotta play that number.

Oh my not.

I love that you associate the lotto with being like innately Italian American.

Tell me it's Italian thing. No, no, I'm telling you it definitely is.

Yah.

See I get it.

The numbers was always was big growing up. My father used to play the numbers. My mother used to play the numbers. Or guess what I play the numbers?

Do?

Now? Well?

You know why?

I think why we play the numbers is because you never know when your numbers up, so you gotta live.

Well you can't.

Good point, dear Gabriella.

But for me, I feel that it's important that the creamines be placed in a cemetery. You cannot even imagine how many times we get calls from people of I just found these cremains in a locker or a storage facility, because people forget so if they're in a semi terry, there's going to be something there that says you walk this earth, whether it's the face of the niche that has the person's name on it in the dates or the urn that you see that has the engraving upon

They should be remembered.

It shouldn't be they were here now they're gone. Everybody should be remembered. So when you're in a cemetery and you look at some of the headstones that people probably haven't had a visitor for maybe centuries, it's okay to say that name out loud because you're remembering that person.

One of our security guards actually on his brakes, he would walk around and look for super old stones and just say the name's out loud because he wanted them to know that, you know, their names had not been said for.

The last time. We had a death cafe the other night.

It's pretty much a bunch of strangers hanging out drinking tea and coffee and cookies, talking about.

Death, dying, grief and loss.

But we were kind of talking about signs and what gives us comfort, and I'm like, listen, I always make the joke like the Plumber and the Death Duel are asking the same question, like where do we go?

You know what I mean?

I don't know, but I hope everybody gets what they believe is the other side. I hope everybody gets, you know, what they want out of death and what they believe it to be is right before I got the job here, I'm like birds sitting for a friend for extra cash.

Like birds sitting, I'm like, what am I doing with my life?

You know?

It's pouring rain. I'm like, you know, let me just like you know, I'll get a car home. Something's like, no, you gotta walk more. And I have this presence around me, and I think of my uncle Vinnie, and I'm like, all right, Uncle Vinny, Like if this is you though, like is this like vulnerable woman walking around New York City alone? Or is this like my uncle spirit is with me? Like what is the energy this is giving?

You know?

And I'm like, all right, listen, you gotta give me a sign that's abundantly like clear, like explicit as you can, more than you ever have before. And this voice in my head is just like two more blocks. It's torrential downpour. So I'm all right, fine, I'm already like what.

Am I doing? Fine? I walk two more blocks. The second I hit the second block, the fire.

Truck with his name on it drives by a lot of times in the FDNY is when someone dies, their name may be placed on one of the fire trucks from like they're the engine that they were last at. So in my uncle Vinnie's case, you know, they put on his firetruck in loving memory of Vincent Arra and Garo. I've never in my life had a moment where I literally like it took my breath away because I was like, that is the most explicit sign you could have given me.

I mean, there's your name right there right.

He died of nine eleven related cancer. He had leukemia. We got fifteen years with him after.

Nine to eleven.

But he, oh my god, this man his car broke down on the Brooklyn Bridge, like they still sprinted towards the fire because he was like, my guys are in there, and I'm like, whatever that was, whoever that was, however that came to be. I will always have a moment that truly took my breath away that I found so

She's coming for a drama. Oh okay, yeah, yeah means her.

No, I'm like, I won't see anything in here.

There she is, there, she is. She has talk about fashion. Look at you, we're just talking about I can't.

Even show you what I have the hers right now. Well not it's no longer there.

But I do quite unique funerals because we're in the service business and you have to empathize and sympathize and service your families.

And even if it's like a little over the top, you do it. You do it.

Today wasn't over the top day. We had two people in the front seat. In the back it was.

His pooch.

And the family said it would mean a lot. It's only a two block run, and she was so adorable. Didn't walk nothing with its owner until very last minute.

And I have to take him back to the crematory, thirty one year old boy.

And mom's in the harsh and.

I told her prayer to the Virgin mother.

She lost her son at thirty three, not thirty one, so she'll give her strength and for the two weeks before Christmas. It's horrible, but somebody's got to do it.

And this is what.

It's about doing with the family requests. We got one shot my business, it's one shot.

That's it.

My name is Doris Virginia Ahmann. Yes, my last name means the end. I'm of Batalian descent. I owne a Polish funeral home in a mixed.

Fag neighborhood here in Park Slope, Brooklyn called Jerike Park Slope Funeral Home.

I am the president and the director, the chief cooked and bottle washer, and I do everything from the cleaning lady to the night crew.

And it works.

And I'm doing it for here almost thirty five years. Wait at the time that I don't know, Yeah, I know, I don't look it. Yeah, get married.

And have kids.

You'll never make it. Jesus Christ died, Mohammad died. Everybody dies, it's just a transition from one to the other. I lost one of my partners. He was fifty Pegrida cancer.

Well.

I got so many signs from him. I told him. Go to your sisters. They think I'm nuts.

A lot of people get signs, a lot of people read about the Attabaudy experience.

A lot of people do believe in that.

I tell my families all the time, go online, read them.

There is something to it. There's something to it.

I don't believe it's just over the body physically gone, but the soul, the spirit, we go somewhere else.

Absolutely, I'll bet.

My bottom dollar on it. I'm not afraid to go whenever that may be. Don't want to go tonight. I got a Christmas party, however, gotta go a pleasure.

Love you to have a good weekend. Same this kid was only seventeen.

It's so my family doesn't really Uh, they didn't really get it at first, you know, they're like, why do you like? It must be you know, I'm gonna just impersonate my mother right now. It must be so depressing. I'm worried about you doing this every day, Like is this really what you want to be doing every day? Like isn't it a lot? But to me, it's just about, hey, yeah, maybe that was too much and I need a little bit of a reset.

Maybe I just need a macho latte.

It could be Wow, I really need to be on the couch like in a fort like of blankets and have nobody look.

At me or talk to me for a weekend.

So it's being able to evaluate and when you come up to it identifying oh this is a machilote day or this is a okay, I got to go buy some bath bombs. We need candles, we need quiet, we need incense. So yeah, I mean, this work can be heavy sometimes, but I wouldn't want it any other way because that means that I'm.

With the person or people.

Truly, it's about getting comfortable with the uncomfortable truth that we're all going to die.

Right.

So we've got these funeral directors that come in every day. You know, some of these folks just have just some great ideas and advice on how to look at death, what to prepare for. I mean because sometimes simply I talk to them and they're like, yeah, it was kind of rough. We had to make a lot of decisions rather than you know, go through the motions a little bit more easily when the family came in after the death occurred.

Right.

It sounds silly, but you know, in this field, we kind of term it unnecessary grief. And that's the paperwork that wasn't done before. And that's the small things like I want a wood casket or I don't care, I want a cardboard box. It's all those Oh my god, well I'm dizzy with grief. I didn't have that written down anywhere. I had to make all these decisions.

On the spot.

And then you know, maybe there's guilt associated with that, or confusion or just grief.

Right.

We talk about the good death a lot, right, and I think part of the work we do here is helping people realize the services that are out there for you to get like that good death and for you to get what you want and have your family and you know, get what they need and want out of the experience. And my uncle Vinnie, like he got to die in the living room you know that he built. He was like, hey, go get my fedora. And I was like why, Like you're dying, like what's going on?

You know?

And I got us fedora. I put it on him and he's like, all right, get everybody around me. We're going to watch The Godfather together one more time. And I was like what, Like why are you cracking jokes, like being silly, like you know, you're leaving, like maybe in a few hours, maybe in a day, maybe in an instant. No, I want to watch The Godfather one more time with my family and carge us to take pictures. He's like, this is a family occasion. We're all here

This could be.

Yeah, I'm on my way out, but like, let's hang out one last time. This is what it could look like, this is what it could feel like. And that's you know, I think part of why I was crazy enough to be like, yeah, I want to work at a cemetery because I want to spread the gospel of death education and give people agency in their deaths. Because I think we think about agency in our life so much. We work with that, we talk about that, we can textualize it.

That's great.

One of our security guards. But George started off as a Greenwood volunteer and now is like just a staple of the institution.

I don't think that it's just I like being helpful. My name is George Orgrigez, and I've worked here total of nine years. I'm actually the patrol officer today. We have several night creatures. We have skunks number one, that's our main line of defense. If you run into one, you're marked. Two raccoons, three groundhogs. They're not much night creatures, but they could scare you if you cross their burrow.

The crap out of you. And and that's it.

Those are the four guys that are out there, along with the owls and bats and so on. I don't get creeped out at here at all. Ever, if you're coming here and you have family here, or family that's going to be interred here, you're joining a larger family. Everyone here is now part of the human family that's Screenwood, right, So from Horace Greeley to your your aunt or uncle

I love that though.

That's because I think there's this idea that a cemetery is like cold and alone and creepy and live.

It's living. You got trees, you got grass, you got the various animals we have, and people who visit are bringing their energy, their life into it anyway, right. And the guys who work in the grounds, people who work in the office, they're all bringing life in here. So wherever we are, there's going to be life.

William B.

Afternoon, all right.

I would love to be composted if possible, Like you know, I should be part of the family sauce one day, like put me near a tomato plan.

I don't know, you know what I mean.

I'm home after a day at the creamatory, and yeah, I'm so grateful. I'm ready to do it all again tomorrow, but.

For now, I'm gonna let my honey pumpkin candle for Marshall's glow, cling to my beetle juice pillow and kind of.

Just take it all in before.

Before sleep

Doora deserr honly to really