I have had a resurgence of people asking me how I got myself into death care, so I thought it would be fun to re-post my first post telling the story.

The most asked first question I get when I tell people what I do for a living is “How did you get into this business?” Then “Why would you want to do that?” So, why would I want to hang around dead bodies all day? And, comfort their grieving loved ones? In every sense my answer is “It’s a calling”. I am not a stranger to death, I have felt the horrible grief that comes with losing someone you love, whether expected or not. Yet this one day changed what I thought was my career. I was working for a junkyard in Las Vegas, I loved the work. Tinkering in cars and ripping at their guts and bones and tendons fulfilled my days. I loved helping customers build or repair their projects for show or reliable transportation. I had great determination for proving myself in an industry most people considered were just for men. I loved the grease and sweating in the desert sun inside my coveralls and steel toed boots. I was in charge of keeping an inventory of every vehicle and its location, how long they had been picked at and the value of the parts left. When new cars came in, I got to decide which ones stayed, which ones went and which ones got hidden away for the rarity of their pieces and I loved it! Then in the matter of a month or so, two of my coworkers experienced tragedy. One lost her husband unexpectedly and one lost both parents fairly close together. This was not the first time I was near when someone I knew who was experiencing a death, yet, for some reason I listened to my friends stories differently. I heard over and over, the funeral director did this, or the funeral director did that. Can you believe what the funeral director told me? How could one person influence the experience my coworkers had so much that they hinge on their word, advice and suggestions so readily? This was a person they had just met and was in charge of caring for their loved one and yet, they gave so much weight to the experience of my grieving friends. I was baffled and fascinated. I called a local mortuary and in the 20-minute conversation I had with an embalmer, I was hooked. I knew I was changed, and my life just got richer.

It’s a really tough profession, especially when you are good at it. The mother who lost her child too soon, the wife whose husband was killed in an accident. Who in their right mind would want to deal with that day in and day out? I think it’s safe to say that when people think of a funeral director, they think of dead bodies, the blood, the fluids and the things we do to make those left behind more comfortable.  Yet, our hardest job is you, the ones left behind. We answer to you and your family and everything we do is catered for your personal experience. Your mother, father, sister etc. are all special. They were in your life in a certain way that is much different than another family member. We hear you and we listen to the tiny nuances of personality like her favorite flower, his favorite team, the special ice cream dates with the grandkids. Then we suggest things that tribute that person and celebrate everything they were to you in the best way possible.

I am certain that there is no emotion stronger and more unpredictable than grief. It can turn you on your head and rip a family apart in a matter of moments and the funeral director is standing in the middle picking up the pieces and arranging them in a way to get you through to whatever the next step is that is waiting for you. We can be the shoulder to cry on, or the person to yell at.  We have to remember to be the brain and the heart because in grief you literally do not possess these things.

I am sure there are some of you reading this to hear the gross stories and descriptive accounts of the untimely deceased people that I have placed on a gurney and buried in cemeteries. I myself have a curiosity and love for the human body and its working and non-working parts. However, in any profession that includes the uncomfortable grossness of our living or dead bodies, there should never be a person to exploit unprofessionally what is experienced in those moments. I am not saying there isn’t, I am saying there shouldn’t be. Just like with any other job. Things go wrong. People are people, circumstances present themselves at a bad time and human emotion gets in the way of decorum… these things happen. So yes, it can be funny, it can be incredibly sad, it can be horrifying and it can be perceived as uncaring. Yet, when placed out in the open for public consumption there are considerations to what others have experienced and how one tells the story might create a negative experience. That being said, I love my stories, and you will never read about anything so descriptive or unprofessional from me that would play to the morbidly curious crowd.

Photo taken by Tyson Rider www.tysonjrider.com

The funeral home was fluttering with people, filling the hallways and lobby with chatter and the occasional burst of laughter. The staff was buzzing about, moving flowers and parking cars. We were all getting ready for a funeral, and I was the funeral director. In this town it was customary for the officiating clergy to show up to the mortuary about thirty minutes before the funeral was scheduled to start. They would talk with the family briefly, then come into the office and give the director the “Order of service” (who was speaking when, what song was to play and how the service would end) this was the normal routine. On this day though, it was starting to get uncomfortably close to service time and I had not yet seen the preacher. I decided to call the number I had in the file only to be greeted by a voicemail. I spoke with the family about the situation and luckily someone had the phone number for the preacher’s son, so they gave him a call. The son was just as baffled as we were and said he would try and find his father and give us an update.

It was almost service time and we needed to start this funeral! It is important to start a funeral on time for a number of reasons. The crowd who comes usually have scheduled their day to be available for a certain amount of time, the musicians usually have other appointments to get to once their part of the service is over with, the police escort is counting on us to leave the funeral home within a given timeframe so they can return to their duties, the cemetery crew will be waiting and ready with their equipment based on the start time of the funeral and of course, the funeral home may have another service later, or other families to meet with or embalming’s to perform. So, starting a funeral on time is incredibly important to everyone involved.

With no word from the son yet, I went to inform the crowd as to what was happening. I calmly walked into the visitation room full of people and announced that we were waiting on the preacher still and that the service may start a bit late. I then made my way to the chapel, where some people were already seated, and said the same words from the pulpit. Then, I waited, and made plans to conduct the service myself in case the preacher never showed.

Finally, I received a call from the son, he informed me that his father had gotten lost on the way to the funeral home. He said his father had been showing signs of dementia recently and this type of thing was happening more and more. He told me his father was insistent on officiating the service even though I had offered to handle it. They had been driving toward the funeral home as we spoke, so, I told him that we would wait to start the service. When they arrived, I made my way out to the front porch to greet them. The porch floor was a red stained concrete bordered by the red brick building on one side and large white columns and bright full flower beds on the other. It led out to the parking lot where I could see the pair making their way towards me. The preacher was elderly, very tall, bone thin and barely able to make full steps. He shuffled along in a dark brown suit hanging loosely around his arms and legs, his white hair was slicked back from his ears and he firmly clutched his tattered bible. Close behind was his son, patiently helping him along. I walked up to them and introduced myself with my arm held out for a handshake, only to have the preacher veer just slightly, eyes slightly frantic and focused on getting inside, and walked right past, leaving me standing there with my hand held out to the air, I giggled to myself internally at how that probably looked standing alone with my arm stretched out and quickly followed them inside.

The son apologized for his dad and of course, I understood that he was confused and embarrassed. So, I made another attempt at an introduction and started a conversation about the order of service, and we successfully pieced together a program for the funeral. After a short prayer with the family, we were ready to make our way to the chapel. The son escorted his father up to the chapel doors and then stopped to wait in the hallway, feeling uncomfortable in his jeans and t-shirt, having just rushed out of work. The chapel had a large stage where the pulpit sat in front of a low bench that provided seating for the clergy and other speakers. Behind the bench at the very back of the stage hung a huge cream-colored curtain which served as a backdrop for flowers which were expertly placed to create color, and depth.

As we entered, just to the left was a glossy black baby grand piano that sat in front of the wide steps leading up to the stage, to the right were rows of pews full of people and straight ahead was the space between the pews and stage where we would center the casket.

Once we had the casket placed, I directed the staff to seat the family and then rushed over to the stairs and offered my arm to steady the man struggling up the steps, the preacher looked back at me with slight sneer and weak growl and I understood that his pride was shaken enough already. With a chapel full of people watching, I had no intention of embarrassing this poor man further, so I stepped back only to be ready if he stumbled. One shaky leg at a time found the steps and miraculously he made it to the top step and shuffled over to gently seat himself in the captain’s chair we provided for him, if only barely.

The staff and I left the chapel and I went to find the son and see how he was holding up. He informed me that he had a conversation with his mother and that he would be taking his father home right after the service, they would not be joining us at the cemetery. I agreed this was wise, his father was obviously shaken and exhausted from his ordeal of being lost.

When the funeral was over, I calmly walked back near the steps, feigning the need to do something important while side-glancing and staying as close as possible in the event the preacher toppled or slipped. He shuffled and hobbled and grunted and incredibly made it to the bottom of the stairs on his own. At that moment the son walked over and took his father by the arm to lead him away. The preacher then promptly threw a fit totally unfitting for a revered clergy man! He raised his voice, stating he was absolutely going to the cemetery, it was his right! His face was beet red and his fists balled up like a two-year-old. I acted quickly and showed the son the back way out of the chapel, so he wouldn’t have to drag his shouting father through the crowd. As I held the back door for them, the son gave a heavy sigh and pulled the preacher away slowly with a mournful backward glance, looking like a whipped puppy. With a heavy heart I made my way back to the chapel and escorted the casket and the crowd to the waiting cars and off we went to the cemetery.

I received a call from the preacher’s son the next day, he informed me that his father would not be available for funerals from that point on. He sounded broken and exhausted. I imagined how hard it would it be to force an adored and respected parent into retirement. It was a humble moment, a sad day that this man, once strong and proud, couldn’t remember how to get to a place he had been to hundreds of times and his son was now laden with a new set of responsibilities as their roles inevitably reversed.

Photo provided by Pixabay

In all my years as a small female funeral director, I can tout so many times that I have assisted with, or on my own, moved a deceased body from strange and compromising situations. Upstairs, downstairs, through narrow hallways, sliding in mud and slipping on ice, struggling to move ungiving weight from tangled, grabby bedsheets. I have always found a way though, never faltered, strained terribly yes, but always got the job done without injury to myself or the person I was charged with keeping safe. I have been applauded that my little frame held a remarkably strong and careful woman who has expertly handled herself in situations that defied the laws of, what is first assumed to be, my nature.

We received a call one day, it was an expected death, nothing out of the ordinary for a mortuary. A coworker and I drove to the address we were given. It was an apartment building, and we were instructed to go to the third floor where the family was waiting. I entered the apartment first to meet the family and make a plan of how to successfully transfer the deceased from the bed to our cot, through the apartment and then down the three flights to our waiting van. I surveyed the setting and noted all of the obstacles that we would need to negotiate, couches, end tables, lamps, those sorts of things. Our best way down with a cot were the stairs, they were steep and concrete and narrow and would be difficult to maneuver, but nothing more treacherous or challenging than anything I had handled before. I retrieved my coworker and we started the process of moving the woman into our care. We carefully wrapped her in a clean sheet and then gently slid her onto our cot. We gave the family a precious moment before heading towards the narrow, hardened concrete stairwell. The woman was survived by a sister who wanted to be present for the process. This is something we usually don’t discourage, it is a family members’ right to help in moving someone they love. It can be cumbersome however, when a new set of hands start dictating what the professionals know to work better. We explained to the sister how narrow the stairwell was and it would be safer if we did the job on our own and she could meet us in the parking lot to help at that end. She thankfully agreed, and we entered the concrete maw of the evil snaky stairwell.

Anyone who has moved furniture down a flight of stairs can understand the push-me, pull-you Tango dance it requires to get down those steps with the furniture and your limbs intact and uninjured. Well, this is the struggle we faced at this moment. My coworker was ahead of me and setting the pace, which was faster than my careful strides could bear while carrying my end of the load. “Take it slow”, “Don’t rush”, “You’re going to fast”, “Slow down!” were my cries as the serpentine stairwell gulped us down it’s throat. We were getting to our destination when suddenly the momentum and my careful steps went out of sync and right then, without warning, my coworker stopped to round the bend of the next landing jarring my already rickety footwork and strained handhold of the cot handle. Before I knew it, my grasp failed completely! The handle I had been holding turned into an arm of steel claws and wrenched it’s bolts down my shin only stopping to pin my foot to the stair step I was currently standing on. This all happened so abruptly that I completely lost my balance. My quick reflexes grabbed at the hand railing, I missed it by millimeters and I pitched forward face-first, without my hands to break the fall, I awkwardly landed on top of the dead woman! My foot still pinned, my shin in tatters and my pride shredded and throbbing like the nerves in my leg.

I was given a minute of respite before I heard the question “Are you okay?” “Do I look like I am okay damnit!?” Was the screamy response my brain shouted inside my head, but of course, the situation called for something more professional. So, I quickly stood, laughed it off, gulped my pride and blinked back the haze filming my eyes, grabbed my end of the cot and continued to hobble and strain down the rest of the staircase to the waiting sister and our van. Refusing to look down at what I imagined to be a blood soaked and tattered pant leg, I left my coworker to get the cot into the back of our van by himself while I tried not to limp or wince, creating a fantastic, straight backed, hopefully professional demeanor, while hugging the woman goodbye and reassuring her that her sister was well taken care of and confirming the time she would be coming to the mortuary the next day for arrangements.

With stoic pride and elegance, I pulled myself into the passenger side of the van and kept smiling while waving goodbye to the woman who, thankfully, had no idea about the incident that had just occurred. As soon as we were on the road I pulled up my pantleg which was somehow dry and undamaged, and it seemed my stocking had worked as an absorbent, holding in place tiny droplets of now dried blood. As I carefully peeled down my stocking, which pulled off each dried bead, it sprang forth fresh bright crimson drops to trickle down the quickly bruising wound. I hadn’t decided how to handle the situation yet, so I didn’t say much in the way of words just gave a crazy, maniacal laugh as I imagined myself folded over kissing the belly of an occupied cot with my foot stuck under its handle. I couldn’t stop laughing like a demented hyena yet, inside my head was a tear streaked sobbing mess of a girl, not knowing whether I was ever going to walk normally again. I think this feeling is what people refer to when announcing that someone has cracked! We arrived back at the funeral home. Walking was just as difficult as I had imagined, and of course the rendition of my superb comedic performance had to be told and then repeated over again. Oh, the woes of the grotesquely injured.

It took almost two months for the goose eggs, yes eggs! to stop throbbing every minute I wore my stockings. And every time I took a minute to change the dressing of my injury and relive the day that I toppled over a dead woman, I made sure my coworker saw at it as well, laughing again at the image of me tipped over uncomfortably and hopefully reminding him that the seconds he may have saved by being impatient had caused weeks of agony for me.

Photo provided by pixabay

The profession of death is harder than most funeral directors make it seem. The public only sees well-dressed professionals, stoic and pressed and always there to make everything go as planned. However, in the back rooms, grown men and women stand over the body of a teen who has taken their own life in a horrible way and wonder what could have gone so wrong. We cradle your dead infants in our arms and revel at their tiny perfections while meticulously wrapping them in clean duck and bunny printed blankets for you to hold them in. We go home after a long day with the smears of mascara on our shoulders from comforting a sobbing, hysterical wife whose husband was killed too soon in an unforeseeable accident. We hold back our emotions when a toddler is lifted to see her grandmother lying in a casket and clumsily tucks a Crayola colored picture in grandma’s motionless hands. The business of death is real, it is raw, and we are not always the kind faced, open armed and seemingly unwrinkled, patient people you see in the lobbies of funeral homes and standing tall next to a shiny Cadillac hearse.

The day for a funeral director starts with stumbling out of bed, scrubbing off the sleep and staring back at the image in the mirror with a good ole fashioned pep talk. Never knowing what the day ahead has in store for us. We carefully choose our two-piece suit, shirt to match and shoes we can get through the day in. Dry cleaning, pressing shirt creases, shining shoes and making sure to have plenty of fresh socks or stockings at the ready is a constant concern and task in assuring that the families we sit across from and the people attending the funerals that we direct see only a well put together professional person who can handle whatever needs to be done, without question. We have perfected the bad hair day dos and eye bag cover-up, without looking like we stuck our faces in cake icing. Rosy cheeks and bright eyes are important in creating the expertly assembled, we can handle it, let us help you and we care type of people we strive to be for you.

Yet sometimes, it fails. Days of little sleep and even less time for meals that are filled with dead bodies trailing behind them their screaming, sobbing, shattered family members. The phone hasn’t stopped, and the demands pile up along with heaps of paperwork, explaining the difference between laws and rules, convincing the cemetery or florist or airline to do just this one favor so the family can create the final farewell they envision for this newly dead person who was a mother, grandfather, son or spouse. Upstairs change into a suit, downstairs change into embalming gear, to the cemetery, to the vital records office, sitting on the phone arranging another funeral in the lobby of a church between other funerals, filling out paperwork, gently guiding the grieving through the myriad of choices available, feeling like maybe the choices weren’t exactly what they needed. Then, life at home. A spouse, children, a sick parent, friends and neighbors, laundry, house cleaning, soccer games, choir practice, doctor’s appointments, the dog died, the yard needs mowing, the furnace stopped working. Well, these things are real too, these things are raw and need the same attention and care and love and patience as any profession dealing with human emotion and grief. All of this while being paid pittance for the effort and being granted insufficient time off to attend to these duties, let alone respite for our own tired and weary bones. So, sometimes the better part of a human, under these conditions, fail.

I remember them all, all of the faces. I remember when I knew I wasn’t present enough, at work or at home. I remember the waves of doubt that I could handle things. The slightly down-turned eyes as I tried to push through a really hard day and ended up bringing uncertainty to those who needed me to be certain. The tear filled but silent judgments that, at that moment, I was just as broken as the person I was supposed to be shouldering.

Not everyone will understand or give leeway when things go wrong. Even on the best of days things are missed, misinterpreted, or forgotten for any number of reasons. Human error, a buried email, lack of follow up or details forgotten. Sometimes it’s okay, but in every circumstance where it was okay, a funeral director remembers. We let it sink in over and over, and through all the strain and pull of everything we strive to be and sometimes cannot, I promise you that when something breaks down or isn’t delivered or goes horribly wrong, it is not on purpose or for the lack of caring or trying. Failure isn’t an option in this business, so when it happens, we will always remember.Picture provided by Pixabay