Funeral Directing
Five Rights of a Funeral Consumer
Every time tragedy strikes, the swindlers come out in drovers. In fact, a couple scam artists set up fake charitable organizations during the Sandy Hook School Shooting and were taking “donations” for the families of the victims. There are few words to describe the awful level of humanity one must adopt to scam those experiencing tragedy. And while we’d like to think scamming those at their weakest moment is a confined event, it takes place as a matter of practice by some who are masquerading as “funeral directors.”
I’d like to say that ALL funeral directors are in the funeral business to serve people, but sadly there are those who are looking to profiteer on humanity in their weakest moment. Yes, many — even most funeral directors — are good people, but there are some.
In 1984 the Federal Trade Commission established The Funeral Rule. It was created to protect you, the consumer, from scam artists who hide under the guise of respectable, here-to-help-you “undertakers.” Even decent funeral directors tend to bend parts of the The Funeral Rule, and I – being a funeral director – know which parts tend to be bent.
Let me highlight those parts of The Funeral Rule that you, as the consumer, should be aware:
One. A burial vault is NOT required by state law. Most cemeteries require a vault to keep the ground from eventually caving in, but some do not require vaults. If you don’t want to pay the extra expense of a burial vault, find a cemetery that doesn’t require them!
Two. While embalming still constitutes the “traditional funeral”, it is NOT required. In fact, we must have the permission of the next of kin to embalm. You can even have a public viewing with an unembalmed body. No worries, no one will catch death if an unembalmed body is displayed in public. *Some states require embalming when transporting a body from one state to the next.
Three. You don’t need a casket for cremation. Profiteering funeral directors will try to sell a rather pricey “alternative container” for cremation, but most crematories only require a body bag that keeps body fluids contained.
Four. You don’t have to buy the casket, urn or merchandise from the funeral home. You can buy it from a third-party, such as Wal-Mart; or, you can make it yourself.
Five. Our “basic service fee” is necessary to pay, but everything else is an optional item/service to be purchased, such as a casket and even transportation of remains (you can do this yourself … although you need to go through the proper channels).
When all is said and dead, if you want a “traditional” funeral or cremation, it should be more cost effective and efficient to use your local funeral home’s services and products, but sometimes it’s not. I advise you to price shop BEFORE you pass. Some funeral homes are nearly twice as expensive as others and it’s helpful to find that out before you die.
There are funeral directors who are legally sound, but ethically stinky in their pricing. Make sure you find a funeral director that YOU can trust with your funeral and your money. And know your rights.
An Unimaginable Decision: A Funeral Director’s Reflections on the Sandy Hook School Shooting
Today is the day that some of the obituaries for the victims of the Newtown Shooting will begin to be published. You can view some of those obits here. Grab a box of tissues before you read them.
What isn’t seen in those obituaries is that in order for them to be published, the parents and the families had to make one of the most difficult decisions of their life: to view or not to view.
As the details of the shooting were coming out over the weekend, I was particularly struck by one piece of information: the shooter had shot each of his victims multiple times (3 to 11 times). Many will interpret such information as farther evidence of Adam Lanza’s psychosis (and that would be a correct interpretation), but we funeral directors see it from a different perspective.
When there’s a tragic, sudden death, when there isn’t an opportunity to say one last “good-bye”, it’s a natural, innate response for the family to want to see their deceased one last time, just to see them face-to-face and say that final parting gesture. No matter how opposed you may be to viewing the deceased, those walls are torn down in a tragedy and “we just HAVE to see our little angel.”
As a funeral director, it’s often our job to let the family know just how bad the deceased is mangled. We then have to be honest with ourselves, “Can we reconstruct the severe trauma? Can we make this look somewhat normal?
The conversation goes something like this (and it assumes the family wants/needs to view):
Funeral director: “Your loved one experience physical trauma. I will do everything I can to make him/her viewable. But, you have to decide what you want.
One. You can have a private viewing at the funeral home and then cremate after you view. We can have a memorial service whenever you want.
Two. You can have a private viewing and then have a closed casket for the funeral service.
Three. You can have a private viewing and if you feel comfortable with the way he/she looks, you can have a public viewing as well.
What follows is the beginning of one of the toughest decisions of their life. They want to view, but do they really want to see their child with ….
Gun shot wounds are unpredictable creatures. They can be utterly destructive or they can be so small you wouldn’t even know the wound was there. My guess is that the wounds at Sandy Hook were of the former and not the latter.
And this is the nature of evil. It keeps taking and taking and taking. Not only was your son or daughter taken, but now – because of the trauma of these deaths, you have to make a decision you NEVER, EVER could even imagine. You could never imagine your child would be taken in this manner. You could never imagine that you’d have this insatiable desire to see your child. And you never thought you’d have to confront this unimaginable reality: your child may be too distorted to be viewed.
This shouldn’t be happening. This should never happen. But, over the past weekend this decision was made 27 times.
White Lies I Use When I’m on the Funeral Home’s Toilet
Our funeral home doesn’t have a secretary. We answer the phone ourselves.
When you work at a funeral home, any call could be a death call, and it would be really awful if someone called us to ask for our help with a death in their family and we don’t pick up the phone.
So if I’m answering the funeral home’s phone and I’m on the toilet, it creates a predicament. The crux of the predicament is this: many times the nature of the phone call demands that I have access to all the information on my computer data base.
When I’m on the toilet and I get a call asking, “Can you tell me the middle name of such and such who died in 1997?”, or “I’m researching my family history and I need to know where John Doe is buried” I can’t simply say, “I’m taking a dump … give me another five minutes.”
I usually look around for some paper and a pen, which is common place in the restroom of a business; but, in our funeral home that pen and paper always seems to be mysteriously absent.
If the paper and pen are absent, I lie.
I guess these lies are by definition “white lies” as they’re not meant to harm, but to simply protect the sensitivities created by social mores. Nobody wants to be told that they guy on the other line is relieving himself of yesterday’s turkey and bean dinner.
Here are a few white lies I’ve used: “I’m outside doing some yard work, let me put you on hold.” “I’m in the process of restarting my computer, just give me a minute … you know how long it takes PCs to start up.”
Nothing awful. Plain, innocent, necessary white lies.
My phone doesn’t have a “hold” button or a “mute” button, so I put my thumb over the talking end of the cordless and hope I can complete my task with one hand.
It gets tricky. Sometimes sticky. But I’m pretty talented.
In fact, answering the phone while on the toilet only involves minor league talent.
Major league talent is put to the test when you’re sitting on the porcelain and the doorbell rings. Then you pray to God that your movement was Teflon coated.
A Dinosaur’s Smile
Having just arrived to work, I walk into the office and found a paper tablet with the inscription, “So-and-so is at the Brandywine Hospital. Released. Coroners Case. Autopsy.”
I loaded the pickup van, stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way and a half-hour later I was at the Hospital. I went through the normal procedural paperwork, and got back to the morgue where the security guard awaited me. We pulled the stretcher out of the fridge (the gentlemen had been dead since Sunday [the family had only called us this morning as they awaited the autopsy]) and unzipped the bag.
I didn’t know how he died and wanted to look at him to make sure there wasn’t an obvious and horrific cause of death. He was autopsied that much was obvious, but no abrasions or other violent injuries. And he was young. I couldn’t tell how old he was, but I knew he wasn’t much older than me.
I called dad and let him know that if the family wanted embalming, that embalming was possible. That call proved useless as I arrived to the funeral home before the family arrived at 11 and in the end they would choose cremation. I unloaded the van and awaited them to show.
The widow and her mother came through the door. And we found out the deceased was only 36 years old. Five years older than me. Too young.
My phone started ringing. I went back to another room and answered it. It was Nicki, my wife. “Can we come to the funeral home and show Pop-pop Jeremiah’s Halloween outfit?”
I thought to myself, “Well, the family is here. And Pop-pop is meeting with the family, but why not?”
“Sure”, I said. “Bring Jeremiah over.”
A couple minutes later and Jeremiah was coming through the front door with his dinosaur outfit on. And all of a sudden he was the center of attention. The widow and mother came over, he smiled at them, they smiled back and their eyes started to tear up. They laughed. Jeremiah laughed. More tears. Their mind had momentarily forgotten their grief, but their body had not.
Tears were all they had.
A smile from a dinosaur allowed them to relax enough to cry.
As the tears rolled down their checks, and as Jeremiah’s smiles waned, they remembered. Small talk ensued for a minute or two. Small talk isn’t natural around death.
They looked at my dad and he ushered them back to see their deceased beloved a last time before I took him to the crematory.
Words From a Grieving Friend
A facebook and real life friend of mine posted this in his status yesterday. It was so good that I wanted to share it with you.
If you know someone who is grieving, this is probably how they want you to treat them:
Dear Friend,
Please be patient with me; I need to grieve in my own way and in my own time.
Please don’t take away my grief or try to fix my pain. The best thing you can do is listen to me and let me cry on your shoulder. Don’t be afraid to cry with me. Your tears will tell me how much you care.
Please forgive me if I seem insensitive to your problems. I feel depleted and drained, like an empty vessel, with nothing left to give.
Please let me express my feelings and talk about my memories. Feel free to share your own stories of my loved one with me. I need to hear them.
Please understand why I must turn a deaf ear to criticism or tired clichés. I can’t handle another person telling me that time heals all wounds.
Please don’t try to find the “right” words to say to me. There’s nothing you can say to take away the hurt. What I need are hugs, not words.
Please don’t push me to do things I’m not ready to do, or feel hurt if I seem withdrawn. This is a necessary part of my recovery.
Please don’t stop calling me. You might think you’re respecting my privacy, but to me it feels like abandonment. Please don’t expect me to be the same as I was before. I’ve been through a traumatic experience and I’m a different person.
Please accept me for who I am today. Pray with me and for me. Should I falter in my own faith, let me lean on yours. In return for your loving support I promise that, after I’ve worked through my grief, I will be a more loving, caring, sensitive, and compassionate friend-becauseI have learned from the best.
Love,
(Your name)
By Margaret Brownley
