See You After Dark (When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder) by Laura DeHaan
1100 words, ~5 reading time
Issue 9 (Winter 2025)
“A man died. He seemed a good man, but I did not know him.”
Man of La Mancha
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why this is affecting me so much.”
“It’s because it’s sad, Toby.”
“It is, it’s so sad.”
Everything’s Gonna Be Okay
I work at a small crematorium in Toronto. One of the questions I’m frequently asked is, Have you ever cremated anyone you knew?
No, not yet. But I missed out on cremating someone I knew. And I wish I’d been the operator on duty, I wish I had asked who the rush body was when the funeral director asked if we could do a one-day turnaround, I wish I had gone to the movies more.
The Toronto After Dark Film Festival, best known for its showcase of horror films, was founded in 2006. I, a horror fan, didn’t learn it existed until 2013 and it heralded the unofficial anniversary of my and my partner’s courtship. Some of my favourite movies have come from that festival. I’ve made friends watch them, I’ve written blogs about them, I have strong opinions on theatrical versus director’s cuts. I’d stopped going to the movies because I was fed up with the audiences talking and texting during films. TADFF audiences were enthusiastic and respectful, and made me love the theatre experience again.
Adam Lopez, founder of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, passed away on Tuesday, April 8 2025. Head and neck cancer. I learn about it on Thursday, two days later, the start of my weekend. On Wednesday, the day after his death, before any press releases or announcements, a funeral director asks if we could take a rush job. No reason for me to wonder who the deceased was. Why should it be Lopez? I thought he was fine. I knew he had cancer, but TADFF happens in October and it was April, why would I ask about him?
I learn he passed away on Thursday and look up his obituary to see the funeral home listed is one of my crematorium’s regulars. There would be a visitation on Monday. Monday I’d be back at work, so if the viewing was Monday that meant that the body would come in on Tuesday and I worked Tuesdays and even if the body came late on Tuesday I worked Wednesdays so on Tuesday or Wednesday I would cremate Lopez and then I could act as emcee for him as he so often acted as emcee for me and the hundreds of other festival-goers and I could, in this way, thank him for what he created. I meet with some friends on Saturday in a cozy tea shop and tell them my plan, which was a very good plan, and cry a little into my chai, which was very good chai, and wonder how this man I’d seen on stage but never met, not really, not even to yell a quick ‘hey great festival!’ in passing, how his death is hitting me harder than anyone else’s ever has.
I go to work on Monday with my very good plan and check the logbook to see how the previous week went and there is Lopez’s name. Dropped off Thursday, the start of my weekend. His ashes are already gone because the visitation is tonight.
But I’m alone on the clock for the next eight hours and there’s an ID scheduled for 9AM so I have no choice but to keep my shit together. IDs are when the family uses the chapel next door to the crematorium (literally, next door: there are double doors which swing open to admit plenty of room for the gurney to be wheeled from one space to the other) to have some last alone time with the deceased. There’s a security camera in the room so we can keep an eye on the proceedings to know when it’s safe to retrieve the body.
It’s one of those rare days when there are no bodies to burn. The cremators are shut off, no flames roaring, no air blowing. The only soundproofing in the chapel comes from the background noise of the machines, and without them you have to tiptoe around and pray you don’t knock over a bucket, because the family will definitely hear that and will probably not appreciate the intrusion into their quiet time.
It also means I can hear the people in the chapel, not loud enough to make out words but enough to know they’re speaking. And suddenly someone starts clapping and singing, and I recognise the hymn: When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder. It’s one from my grandma’s church, and I don’t know the lyrics but I remember the chorus, and it turns out the singer doesn’t remember all the words either so it just becomes “da da da” with clapping. I’m watching the security feed and the funeral director is in there and she’s wiping her eyes. If there was any doubt she’d teared up, a few minutes later she comes into the crematorium from the Employees Only door to ask if the body would be cremated today and her eyes are rimmed red. Neither of us comments on this.
Once the family has left and the body is burning, I look up the lyrics and after a few muddled minutes I remember the melody and sing it a couple times. I choke up on the first iteration. It’s a very bouncy tune, for all that I’ve only heard it sung at funerals.[1]
I don’t know this person. My singing is for them, but it’s not about them. It’s about Lopez, and missed opportunities, and the sheer fucking unfairness of cancer. I don’t know if cremating him myself would have helped this hurt and there’s no way to find that out now.
As cremationists, our relationship with the dead is one-sided. Most of the time, a body’s a body and we just do our job. Until it’s someone whose employer has filled out the paperwork because there was no one else to claim the body—or you receive the plastic ice cream tub of the home miscarriage—or the realisation that a surname is familiar because you cremated their spouse last week—and then these bodies are lightning bolts for which there is no grounding. The best we can do is perform our duty well.
TADFF is happening again this year, and, I hope, for many more. It’s not happening for everyone...but, hell, my rendition of “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” wasn’t for everyone, too. For those who can make it—and those who cannot—I echo Lopez’s traditional TADFF sign off: See you after dark.
[1] It concerns the Rapture, which is when the faithful (dead or alive) get swept up to Heaven. If you’re Christian, it’s a bop. If you’re not religious, it’s still a bop, albeit a macabre bop.