At the Phocaean Thanatology Institute, in the 10th arrondissement of Marseille, young students are trained to provide care for the dead and to support families through the painful ordeal of mourning.
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If All Saints' Day honors and remembers the dead, we rarely think of those who accompany them to their final resting place. Responsible for the preparation and presentation of the deceased, the embalmer plays an essential role in supporting grieving families, allowing them to be offered a last, dignified tribute.
At the Marseille Thanatology Institute, located in the 10th arrondissement of Marseille, the students learn to practice this profession like no other and are not afraid.
Chantal Lafon, director of studies and embalmer, gives explanations in front of a student playing the role of the corpse: “We must remove all this stiffness, we start with the fingers then at the wrists because rigor mortis is fixed at the joints“.
Soon these apprentice embalmers will be practiced on real bodies: “You pass the sleeve of the garment all the way to the end, you raise your arm, you slide the sleeve all the way down. Above all, respect for the body must be taken into consideration.“, explains Chantal Lafon in front of attentive students.
The teacher doesn't count plus his years of watching over the deceased before their funerals, the main mission of the embalmer: “Sometimes, you need to do a little makeup touch-up and check that the body is not deteriorating“.
Supporting the dead and their families is not an easy thing: “You arrive in front of people who have been grieving for three to four days and you feel that the tension is very heavy, because no one wants to see the deceased leave.“, she reports.
Concentrated, Tiphaine observes the gestures of the teacher. For this student, the thanatopraxie has been a vocation since childhood: “The only people who are thanked at the end of the burial are those who took care of the ceremony. I have always been touched by this and growing up, I learned the whole communication, personal assistance and bereavement support side of this profession.”
Some students encountered this profession after the loss of a loved one. On average, this institute trains around sixty students per year in the funeral profession. Between theory and practice, two years will be necessary for these students to dedicate their entire life to death.
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