Breadcrumb #637

EMMA JANE HOLMES

I swirled my wine in its oversize goblet, gazing across the table at my handsome date. It had taken a lot to drag me from my Peter Alexander pajamas and odd socks. I hadn’t been on a date in years.

“He lives in New York anyhow, it’s not like you have to marry the guy!” my friend had said when she tucked her brother’s number into my jeans pocket scribbled on a post-it note. While Sydney Harbour is known to be one of the most beautiful places in the world, maybe it was time to leave the familiar landmarks of Australia’s favourite city and join my potential new boyfriend in Manhattan, eating giant salted pretzels for breakfast. I could mingle with artists and celebrities. Before I could snap up a flight from Sydney to NYC, I had to get through the date first. A real life date. 

Those things containing dinner tables and flowers happen to other people, not me, I’d previously thought. It had been too long. My nights off were spent watching rom coms and emptying shredded cheese packets onto microwave mac n cheese.

It’s not that I didn’t want to date, it’s just challenging to score a partner when my work phone sits tucked beneath my pillow with the ceaseless likelihood of summoning me into the night at any moment. Furthermore, men are either super curious or totally mortified when they discover I’m a funeral director. It’s usually the latter. On the occasional nights I did try to branch out, I found the majority of guys were horrified when I told them the hands holding the drink they’d just bought touched dead people during the day. And if they did find my profession amusing, their initial excitement soon dwindled when I wasn’t able to attend family functions or when cancelled dates were more common than successful ones. People die 24 hours a day and when they did, I was off to work. 

In addition, it’s not exactly sexy arriving home smelling of decomposition to find your lover has sprinkled rose petals in the hallway and prepared dinner. I’m often too tired to shower, let alone make love.

“On the occasional nights I did try to branch out, I found the majority of guys were horrified when I told them the hands holding the drink they’d just bought touched dead people during the day.”

Anyhow, I found myself calling my friend’s brother Stanley, and that weekend I was chatting to him over garlic buttered scallops.

10 out of 10 for restaurant choice! Darling harbour lights in full view, I had to remind myself I wasn’t there to capture shots of the skyline, but to form a bond with a male stranger.

I wanted to hear about New York City! Did he see Sarah Jessica Parker strutting through Manhattan with her heels click clacking on the pavement? Did diners really offer endless cups of drip coffee with burgers and fries?

Sadly, I didn’t find out what a Gypsy Cab was or whether Madison Square Garden actually had gardens. Stan kept asking questions about me, my interests, my profession. This is where I knew he’d either lean forward with wide, curious eyes or hightail it out the exit. I supposed it wouldn’t be a bad thing considering his entrée looked better than mine. If he took off, I could eat his prawn salad. 

I’d missed lunch.

Watching Stanley sip his craft beer, I dabbed at the corners of my mouth using a satin napkin, periodically gulping my wine and clearing my throat. It was time to tell him that I had spent most of my day elbow deep in a reopened autopsy Y incision to help the head mortician perfect a young man for his viewing. 

Okay, perhaps I could leave out the gory bits.

‘Darling, I’m a mortician.’ 

The suave waiter placed Stanley’s main meal of lobster salad in front of him. ‘Pepper, Sir?’

Stan failed to answer.

‘A mortician? Like, you work on stiffs?’ he hissed once the waiter left the table.

‘Well, I prefer to call them The Deceased.’

‘My sister never mentioned that,’ he mumbled looking down at his entree. ‘Anyway, let’s

not talk about that.’

It didn’t look like he was leaving, but his outburst was enough to know he wasn’t the one for me. 

My prawn fettuccine arrived and the pasta looked silky in its white cream sauce.

Swirling al dente pasta on fine silverware, I gazed over at this handsome man and knew it would be the only date we’d share. I absorbed the moment, tasted the prawns as if they were my last.

Back home, tummy full and grateful the work phone hadn’t pulled me away from the restaurant to body bags, I slipped into my sheets and ensured the work phone’s ringtone was on the highest volume. I stared into the dark.

I wondered if it would always be this way, sleeping alone. Hey, it’s not always a bad thing. I love to spread out and take all the blankets.

The funeral directors at work seemed to have it all: an understanding spouse, children, hobbies. Why was it so damn hard for me to create a life outside the funeral home’s walls? 

Did I even want to share my bed?

Maybe it was my own self holding me back from a next of kin and table for two.

I cared for the dead better than I did myself. I’d buy expensive lipstick for an elderly lady who had died in her nursing home sheets, yet grab my own from Woolies while ducking in to grab milk.

I overlooked my regrowth, while attending to the hair of a middle-aged mother killed in a car accident.

I had no time to love the living. I never really felt I was missing out until Valentine’s Day. The over-marketed celebration of love tickled my tear ducts every damn year. I can never escape romance. Even when ducking into the supermarket to grab washing detergent I have to detour around the bulging display of roses. There’s laughter in the streets as lovers kiss and fondle, alongside excruciating delays to your usual takeaway due to fully booked restaurants. Love songs even flood the airwaves!

With the day of love fast approaching, I politely pushed my cat from my laptop keyboard and began to research why all the fuss over the day I’ve always blacked out with marker on my calendar. 

(That’s a joke. I don’t own a calendar.)

But if I owned one, the square representing 14th February would certainly have a line drawn through it, until… Mid-research, I sat upright, almost knocking the bowl of uneaten canned spaghetti onto the floor. 

St. Valentine’s Day is actually a feast day! Okay, the legend of St Valentine involves a lot more than food, including secret marriage ceremonies and an execution, an ugly bloody death at that. But it was the modern world that turned Valentine’s feast day into a bacchanal of Hallmark cards and heart-shaped chocolates. Just like Christmas, there’s more to this special day than gifts. The executed man of love actually sacrificed his life for romance, secretly marrying warriors when matrimony was forbidden because it was believed to weaken soldiers. Sacrifice. 

It hit me like an unwelcome Taylor Swift song.

I sacrifice a lot to care for the dead. I sacrifice sleep and family time. I often sacrifice love. 

Maybe Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be a sad day for us singles after all. Think a moment: what do you sacrifice in life to help others? Are you an emergency worker, also sacrificing family time? A firefighter, potentially sacrificing your own life to defend others from hellish flames? A teacher sacrificing time with your own children to educate others? We’re all sacrificing something for love.

Fellow residents of singledom! On Valentine’s Day, rather than hiding away from the stores brimming with red and pink, cook yourself a feast or visit a buffet. Continue doing what you love. Celebrate what you do for love. Whether it be your profession, favourite hobby, even your pet, St Valentine’s Day is about sacrifice, and we all sacrifice a little something.