My dad is on the left, my grandfather is holding my son (four months old at the time of the photo) and myself on the right.

1. Lead by Example.
By virtue of my 10-week-old son, this will be the first Father’s Day that I celebrate as a father.  And like many new fathers, my first born has caused me to re-evaluate myself and my priorities, making me feel nervously unprepared to be the example that I now am.

In many ways, I’ve emulated my father.  Though I may not consciously know how to be a great father, there’s a real sense that I can trust the instincts my dad’s instilled.

2. Being Caleb is better than being Superman.
My son – if he so chooses – will be the 7th generation of Wilde funeral directors.  Not only am I the 6th generation funeral director on my paternal side, but I would have been the 5th generation on my maternal side had my mom decided to join her father’s funeral business. I’m a thoroughbred funeral director.

After 11 generations of my progenitors breathing formalin fumes, I have yet to develop a superpower.  And even though I’ve wanted to be in the linage of Superman since I saw Christopher Reeves don blue tights, I’m content just being Caleb.  After all, it’s Caleb that my dad has always loved.

3. Presence is better than Presents.
The greatest gift my dad ever game me was his time.  As a funeral director and a new father, I realize how hard it was for him to make time for me.  He could have worked harder, made more money and given me cooler things, better cars, etc.  Instead, he worked less, made less money and gave me himself.

4.  Service over Business.
People are an end in and of themselves. Money is a means.  This I know, for my father showed me so.

5. Respect Your Elders.
My grandfather was born on the second floor of the funeral home and was embalming bodies by the age of fourteen (so he says).  For dramatic effect, Pop-Pop secretly hopes he’ll die while embalming a body.

Upon starting at the funeral home nearly a decade ago, I’ve studied my grandfather like a text book and, as a result, I think I could pass the “Good Funeral Director” test.  Oddly enough, it’s by respecting my elders that I’ve been prepared for the future.

6.  Smile. Look people in the eye and shake their hand.
It’s a lost art.  But, it’s an art that I’ve regularly seen my dad practice.

7. Everyone Has a Story.
My dad is one of the most tolerant people I know – partially because he has an understanding personality and partially because the funeral business makes tolerance a necessity.  While others pigeon hole certain groups that are “different,” I listen to their story.  I want to hear their story because I’ve always seen my dad be more interested in people than kowtowing to the interests of his tribe.

8.  “If you did something wrong, it’d be in the newspaper the day before you did it.”
At first, I wasn’t a fan of having a legacy I didn’t create. Everybody knows that I’m a Wilde.  And everybody has an expectation that I SHOULD be just like the rest of my family. When I was younger, the “Wilde” name was a restraint, now I wear it – not as a burden – but as a badge.

9. Integrity.
Integrity is what you do when nobody is looking.  In funeral service, there’s many times when “nobody is looking”.  And every time I’ve secretly watched my dad, I’ve seen him doing right … whether at home or at the funeral home.

10. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
How many times has my present strength been arrested by worrying about what’s ahead?  Be present … we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

11. Laugh as often as you can.
Whether it was watching The Three Stooges, Monty Python or his propensity to flatulate, my dad always found a way to make me laugh.

12. “Not everybody is as lucky as you are.”
Fathers are rarely neutral figures.  They’ve either been monumental failures or, well, father figures.  I’m lucky.  And while not everyone is as lucky as I am, everyone has the opportunity to be the best they can be and make their son or daughter as lucky as I was.  And my hope for this my first Father’s Day is that my son will one day be counted among the lucky.

*****

Last year I wrote this “Father’s Day” post for funeralOne’s blog.  If you’re in the funeral industry, and you don’t read funearlOne’s blogs, you’re missing out on some of the best online content available.  

funearlOne’s blog content writer, Krystal Penrose, has one of the most beautiful father’s day tributes you’ll ever read, “What Losing My Father Taught Me About Father’s Day.”  I teared up when I read it … it’s that good.

Several days passed. Then weeks. Months. Nothing. No word. A friend of ours traveled on foot, looking for him. Others pressed the police. The media. Anyone. To pay attention.

We’d have to wait for the snow to melt. Then he might be found. That’s what they were told.

The snow melted. Heavy rain fell. The city flooded.

A week later someone found him. Sixty miles or so away. His body had traveled all that way. In the river.

Too many details muddy my mind. I don’t want to think about the way they found him. How I was told he looked. That his own father couldn’t identify him.

His death. Announced on the six o’clock news. His Facebook account. Posts deleted until the day before he vanished. Went missing. Even his last two posts deleted. His cries out to us. Cries that most of us didn’t even hear. See. Know.

I’ll die and no one will care.  He’d said. No one will come to my funeral.

His ashes spread. A few friends gathered for a quiet memorial. Invitation only.

I couldn’t go.

I tried to honor him by listening to a few songs he liked. By reading his poems. Looking through our messages about religion and art and literature.

But I didn’t get to say good-bye. Haven’t been able to mourn.

Somewhere. Maybe in my heart. Or soul. I don’t really believe he’s gone. I know he is. But I am having a hard time accepting it.

I see a tall guy with black hair. Smoking outside a coffee shop. Walking down the sidewalk with a hood up. I think it might be him until I remember. No. It isn’t him. He’s gone. Dead. Found floating.

I get sick to my stomach.

Wish that I could go back to thinking that he left. Started over. Got himself over to Japan. Reached his dream. With headphones on his ears and new poetry streaming from his mouth.

And. And I wish he knew. I wish he knew that he was loved.

That he knew how broken my heart is.

And how I can’t cry. As much as I want to. I can’t.

And I don’t understand it.

A friend of mine disappeared. He died. And I don’t know how to grieve.

I can’t figure out how to mourn a death I can’t realize.

A death I don’t understand.

*****

Today’s guest post was written by Susie Finkbeiner.  Susie is a novelist and short story writer from West Michigan. Her first novel “Paint Chips” released in 2013 and she is currently working on her second novel and a collection of short stories. When Susie isn’t writing, she is busy as the fiction editor for Burnside Writers Collective as well as Unbound Magazine. Susie is a wife, mother of three, and avid reader. She enjoys time with her family, coffee dates with good friends, and quiet moments to read and write. Website:www.susiefinkbeiner.com

And he’s right.  Your community is becoming less and less defined by your geographical position and more by your cyberspace connection.  The globalization of your relational connections is upon us.

Pluralism is dead.  Pluralism assumed that our communities had set characteristics that defined us from them, part of those characteristics being geographical in nature.  Now, we live in fragmented globalization, where our only real unity is our humanity, and our dividing characteristics are less and less apparent.

So that a Muslim is Facebook friends with a Jew and a conservative retweets a liberal and I, a Pennsylvanian, am wrapped up in the tragedy of the Oklahoma Tornados.

In fact, on my Confessions of a Funeral Director Facebook page, I posted this:

Within minutes, a number of people from the vicinity of Moore were commenting on how they had yet to hear from some of their family members.  And then, it became real for me too.  I was touching a people group that I barely knew through the internet, so that Oklahoma’s tragedy become mine.

My feelings – and everyone else’s feelings – were valid for the Moore community.  And our support for Moore – both financial and physical – underscores our humanity.  And yet, those feelings, a couple days removed from the tragedy are beginning to dissipate.  In fact, unless you are directly connected to Moore, you may have already begun to forget about it.

Why?

*****

Robert Dunbar believes that the human person / human brain only has the maximum capacity to understand /experientially know 150 people … everybody that we meet outside of those 150 will be relegated into a category and/or generalization that we’ve created from the milieu of the those 150.  Outside those 150 is “the other.”  Everyone outside of those 150, in some sense, aren’t human.

Dunbar’s hypothesis is now popularly known (thanks to “Cracked”) as “monkey sphere.”  Here’s a bit from Cracked “Monkey Sphere” article

Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They’re sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?

I mean, they’re not people. They’re teachers.

“So? What difference does all this make?”

Oh, not much. It’s just the one single reason society doesn’t work.

It’s like this: which would upset you more, your best friend dying, or a dozen kids across town getting killed because their bus collided with a truck hauling killer bees? Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?

They’re all humans and they are all equally dead. But the closer to our Monkeysphere they are, the more it means to us. Just as your death won’t mean anything to the Chinese or, for that matter, hardly anyone else more than 100 feet or so from where you’re sitting right now.

“Why should I feel bad for them? I don’t even know those people!”

Exactly. This is so ingrained that to even suggest you should feel their deaths as deeply as that of your best friend sounds a little ridiculous. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside our Monkey sphere versus the 99.999% of the world’s population who are on the outside

*****

 With monkeysphere in mind, I wonder if the world isn’t becoming like some funeral directors when it comes to tragedy.  Funeral directors see tragedy on such a constant basis that we seem to be accustom to it.  So much so that we can forget who we buried last week.

In fact, one of the most common questions I get from acquaintances is this: “How can you not become numb to all this?”  And the truth is, we aren’t numb to a tragic death … it affects us … it always affects us.  But, that tragic death only sits with us for a couple days and then we can, to one degree or another, move along.  It isn’t to say we aren’t compassionate, this isn’t to say we aren’t dedicated; it’s to say that we serve you when YOU have lost YOUR loved one.

And we, who are locked into the global nervous system of a fragmented community become so accustom to our nerves being touched by tragedy all around the world that we too feel compassion and act on that compassion, but we only feel as close as we are to the situation and sometimes we quickly forgetabout the whole thing in a matter of days … sometimes in a matter of hours.

Who here remembers Haiti?  The Haiti earthquake of 2010?

The one that left an estimated 300,000 children orphaned?

When is the last time you remembered them?

This isn’t to say we don’t care.  Just like funeral directors, when I’m working a funeral … I’m fully present.  Fully aware of your circumstances and more than willing to do what I can to serve you.  But, you aren’t my closest friend, you aren’t my relative and you probably aren’t apart of the 150 that I call “person.”  You are other.  And I can’t help it.  As much as I try, you’re deceased isn’t my loved one.

Oklahomans are my fellow Americans.  I’m connected to various people through Facebook.  I donated to the Red Cross.  I grieved for those children in the elementary school.  I vicariously imagined the terror they must have felt.  And we move on, while those in Moore, Oklahoma struggle to piece a broken world back together, we move on.

*****

Is this wrong?  Should we seek to overcome this “Monkeysphere”?  

After reading this article, how does it make you feel?

The author of the post, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote the following message to me via facebook:

Last June we accepted a foster placement of twin girls who were four months old. We’ve been foster parents for almost 7 years, but nothing prepared us for the sudden death of one of the twins, Ellie, at almost seven months. She went to bed a happy and healthy baby and when I reached into her crib in the morning I pulled out a corpse instead.

I am traumatized. I am an emergency nurse and not unfamiliar with death. I did CPR on Ellie out of reflex but with the full knowledge that she was gone and I couldn’t fix it. I can still taste the breath that I pushed out of her lungs. I’m never going to be the same…and I know it.

I am also a Christian. I think. In fact my husband is a church leader, making me the wife of a spiritual leader.

She then gave me the link to her post at “Pilgrim’s Road Trip.”  I asked if I could also post it on my blog and she gave me permission.  This post is immensely challenging, and will beg you to vicariously see the grief of a bereaved mother.  This isn’t an easy read, but it’s one that will help you understand the grief of a parent who has lost a child.  It’s written from the perspective of Holy Saturday … where doubt and silence are the only forms of faith.

***** 

Please stop attempting to spiritualize the death of my child.  Assigning some thoughtless Christian platitude only serves to deepen my anger and further question my beliefs.  If you don’t know what to say, a simple, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say,” would be far better than these actual attempts at comfort that I’ve received:

1. “God has a plan.”
Really?  You serve a God with a plan that involves killing babies? Or at least standing by and allowing the baby to die when you believe that he could have intervened? Because the baby killers I’ve seen get life in prison. And even the convicts know which guy to attack.

2. “Some good will come of this.  You’ll see.”
You think that at some point I’m going to see some direct blessing in my life or someone else’s that will make me think, “Aha!  Here’s the good that came from my child’s death!  I am now so glad that she died so that this could happen!”  No! An Almighty God could surely think of some other really creative way to bring about good.  Or else I don’t want that “blessing.”  I will always wonder why it had to be this way, no matter what good things may come later in my life.

3. “Just think of the ministry you can have someday to parents who have lost children.”
No. At least not the ministry you’re thinking. That would require me to say that God is somehow in this for them and I happen to know that’s not helpful. Plus, I don’t want that ministry. I’ve spent twenty years of my life trying to serve God full time.  I’ve put every major decision of my life through “God’s will” as a filter, including setting aside life dreams for myself.  All of the big things I’ve tried to do for him have been heartbreak for me.  I think I’m done with ministry at this point.

4. “God loves you.”
Imagine If I were married to someone who said, “I love you.  I mean, you’re going to get hurt and I won’t stop it. In fact, I might even cause it. But I love you! It’s for your own good! It’s because of my great love for you.”  You would encourage me to get to a women’s shelter immediately for my own safety.  Where’s the safe place from this kind of “love?”

5. “God’s perfect love casts out fear.”
I’ve been dealing with a moderate amount of anxiety since my baby’s death. I’m not a very anxious person by nature, so I’ve sought some help dealing with the feelings of panic.  I struggle with coming home after a night shift and wondering what I might find.  I compulsively check on my children at night.  Going to the doctor with another child of mine is a trip through some very dark places of fear. I’m constantly wondering which of my family members is next on God’s hit list.  The advice that God’s love will fix those fears isn’t really resonating with me right now.

6. “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Just depend on Him.”
The Christian grief counselor we saw put it this way: “God doesn’t give sorrow to people unless he knows they can handle it.”  Really? Well, he was wrong. I can’t handle this. And if he doesn’t give me more than I can handle, why do I need to depend on him? The last time I was depending on him, my child died. So, yeah. That’s not likely to happen again soon.

7. “You’ll see her again someday.”
Is that day today? Then no, this isn’t helpful. It’s minimally hopeful if I can be sure that it’s true, but there’s no Scripture to really support this belief.  There’s inference and tradition and conjecture, but there’s no chapter and verse that says, “Infants who die go to heaven.” Besides, If I live an average life expectancy, I will have to live at least another fifty years of missing her.  ”Someday” could be a long, long time from now.

8. “Look at all of God’s blessings in this situation already! At least_______”
All of your “at leasts” aren’t blessings to me. Anything you say that starts with “at least” only minimizes my feelings.

9. “Just read [insert Bible verses here] and you’ll feel better.”
Passages that have been suggested to me include verses about God’s judgment, the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life, a passage instructing me that my heart is deceitful and wicked, and other similarly “helpful” Scriptures. This advice also assumes that I know no Scripture to which I can turn.  You know which verse has been ever on my mind ever since the day my child died? “My God, my God.  Why have you forsaken me?”  I’ve been reading the Bible for almost thirty years. I know where to find verses.  Not too many of them are helpful right now. Bludgeoning me with Romans 8:28 is especially painful.

10.  ”Just trust God.  He is in control.”
I was trusting God at the time my baby died. She still died. If God is in control, that assumes that he killed my baby. My sweet, smiling, dimpled baby. If he didn’t kill her, he stood by while she died and didn’t stop it. Still guilty. I’d much rather believe that fate or chance had a hand in her death. I’m a lot more likely to have a continued relationship with someone who didn’t cause my baby’s death, either directly or indirectly.<

11. “This happened for God’s glory. Maybe someone might even get saved!”
This has been said to me with much excitement and expectation. You mean to tell me that God couldn’t have orchestrated some other way to get glory or reveal himself to someone? Or that some person out there is going to say, “Oh! God allowed ‘T’s’ baby to die. I should start a relationship with him and trust him with MY life!” Doubt it. And even if that actually did happen, should I then feel that this was all worth it?

12. “This world is not our home.  She’s in a better place now.”
Yeah? Well, I live here right now, so it’s my home. If you actually believe this, why haven’t you committed suicide yet? As for me, I’d finally be in a better place if I died, too?  And no, I’m not at all suicidal.  I’m just saying that no matter where she is, I’m in a really painful place right now.

13. “Just imagine what tragedy or heartbreak God saw in your baby’s future that he decided to save her from.”By killing her? I’m sure there was another possible work-around or two. For that matter, this has been a devastating tragedy and heartbreak for me. Why didn’t I die as an infant so I wouldn’t have to go through this now?

14. “God will carry you through.”
If this is the kind of thing God is going to carry me through, I’d like him to please put me down.

15.  ”Be thankful for what you have.”
The assumption here is that I wasn’t thankful before (I was), that I’m not thankful now (I am), and further minimizes the loss I feel. How do you suggest that I answer even the simplest question of how many children I have?  I’m thankful for what I have AND for what I no longer have. It’s impossible to answer this question correctly now. Similar, but even more guilt-producing is “You have your husband and children to think about now.” Thank you for the suggestion that my grief and pain are invalid by comparison and should be left unmanaged for the good of my family. See? There. I was thankful.

16. “Things will get better.”
When?  How do you know? Because for me, bad things just keep happening. It can get worse and I can name at least fifty ways it could get worse right now. So don’t say that things will get better. It could go either way.

17. “Maybe God is trying to teach you something.”Well, maybe he could have just texted me the instructions instead. Seriously. All I’m learning is that God can do whatever he wants and that’s not necessarily a good thing. A similar platitude, “Maybe God is trying to draw you closer to himself”, is equally insulting. Can’t he see the future? Didn’t he know that using an infant’s death to deepen our relationship might backfire? Please don’t presume to know the mind of God or impart your opinion of it to me.

18. “She’s with the Lord now.”
She wasn’t before? How about the rest of my family? I’m not with the Lord? Well, I’m glad he’s with someone, I guess.

19. “I know how you feel. I felt exactly that way when my grandparent/great Aunt Lucy/Fluffy died or when my child was sick, but then got better. But I just prayed and kept my eyes on God and he got me through. He’ll get you through, too.”
You have no idea how I feel. I wouldn’t wish how I feel on anyone. And what will he get me through TO? Can you guarantee that whatever is on the other side of this trench in life is something less painful? Because whatever it is, it will be a life missing my child and all the things that loss means.

20. “I was so devastated when your child died that I couldn’t go to work that week/I’m still struggling a month later.”
Both of these are actual things said to me by people who had seen my baby fewer than six times in her whole life. Other ways people who barely knew her have tried to be a part of the drama and somehow connect themselves to this tragedy include Facebook statuses or tweets with her name as a hash tag, prayer requests without my permission or in inappropriate places, and most difficult: “How are  you doing? Because I’m so sad that ____.” There was an expectation that I should comfort THEM. Exhausting.

21. “You should_____.”
Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t want to exercise more, eat better, read that great book about God, go to a grief support group, focus on God, get involved more at church, get alone with God, go away for a weekend without my kids, take sleeping pills, talk about it more, or think about it less. I can’t afford to take any more time off work. I can’t concentrate enough to do much of anything right now, honestly. And a bigger list of things I “should” be doing right now is simply not helpful.

22. “If you need anything, let me know. I’m here for you.”

No.  I’m here. Alone. It’s not possible for you to be here for me or I’d gladly give it to you. I’m glad you want to help, and I don’t doubt your sincerity. But this comment is a substitute for any kind of real help. You’ve absolved yourself of actually helping me in any tangible or intangible way and placed the onus on me to come up with some idea of what I need. You know what I need? I need my child. Alive and giggling. I need the image of her lifeless in her crib out of my mind and the taste of her dead skin out of my mouth. I need her siblings to grow up with her. I need for my husband to have never experienced this depth of pain. If you can’t give me any of these things, you’re kind of on your own with suggestions for helping me. Maybe send a sympathy card. It will make you feel better.

23. “Well, I’ll pray for you.”
Aside from the doubt that exists over whether you’ll actually do it or not, how is this helpful? Who knows better than God what I need and why hasn’t he already given it to me? Your asking for it will make it magically appear? The worst part about this statement is that it usually comes at the end of your listening to me or grieving with me. As in, “You’re done now.  I’ll pray for you, okay? You’re making me uncomfortable with your intense sadness and hard questions.”
I know that I haven’t left you anything to say. Maybe that’s the point. I also know that, if you’re a typical Christian, you’re defensive and even deeply wounded by what I’ve said here. You’re thinking, “But remember, here’s what God is REALLY like and here’s where you’re wrong. Here’s where you need to adjust your theology and get your heart right with God.”

Whether you like it or not, no matter how uncomfortable this makes you feel, no matter what you believe or even what I believe, these things you’ve said are not helpful to me. In fact, many of them are so hurtful that I’ve been awake more than one night trying to work through them.

Maybe someday I’ll be ready to accept my child’s death with a little more grace. But for now, I’m afraid you’ll have to stick with, “This sucks,” or a simple, “I’m sorry.” You know what’s even better? The sound you make when you stay quiet.

Make sure you give Brigid your like at her facebook page, Brigid Mochroi – writer.

*****

Aimee

I buried my best friend yesterday.  It was the hardest, most intense and exhausting experience of my life.  I knew her since Kindergarten.  She was the first friend I ever made.  We grew up together.  Our lives have been intertwined since we met.  Her name was Aimee.  She has influenced me more than I can even fathom.  But I can pluck out her greatest lessons.  And I want to share them with you.

Aimee was born with a kidney illness.  She was not supposed to live past infancy.  Then she was not supposed to live past childhood.  But she defied the odds and made it 28 years.  And no matter how sick she got, how bad off she was in the hospital now and then, she always bounced back.  Yes, she would have moments where she got frustrated at her medical conditions, but she NEVER let any of her conditions define her.  She pushed the limits.

I remember recently, when she was beginning dialysis 3 days a week, a big rock fest came into the town she was living in.  She went to it and partied the whole time it was in town.  That’s the kind of person she was.  She never passed up an opportunity to have fun.  And she never met a stranger.  She made friends with everybody.  Upon meeting her, most people had no idea of the health struggles she faced on a day to day basis.  Her illness was something she had to deal with, but it was never who she was.

Aimee’s greatest lesson was in her example of how she made the best of any situation.  She had a strength and resiliency that most of us can’t even imagine.  She was fire and lightening.  Full of pure energy, life, and love.  And no matter what she was going through, she was always there for you if you needed anything.  She lived to help people and would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it more.

We always knew it was a possibility that she was destined for a shorter time on this earth than we would have liked.  But we also understood that she was already defying the odds by having survived infancy and childhood.  She focused on the present and on enjoying every moment she could.  She and I only had the death conversation a handful of times in all these years.  She would not talk about it for long.  She did not like to waste time dwelling on things out of her control and she did not want to worry anyone else.

“I know my kidney could stop working any day.  I know that I’m lucky I’ve made it this far.  I know that I could die anytime.  I don’t like to think about it, nobody likes to think about that kind of thing.  But I’m here right now and I’m going to make the best of whatever time I have.”  That was what she said to me.  And that was as far as the discussion went.

She truly did live life exactly as she pleased.  Grasping each moment with full awareness and making the absolute best of it.  I think that inner strength was a large part of why she defied the odds.

She passed away suddenly in her sleep.  The end did not come as we all feared it would.  We all feared it would come after weeks of lingering in the hospital and hooked up to machines.  We all feared it would be the end to a long drawn out suffering death process.

Yes, she had been in and out of the hospital a lot lately for various reasons, but she was functioning well.  She had just been on several short vacations recently.  She had just gotten engaged.  Her mother and father told me they just saw her and she was her usual energetic and happy self.

She just went to bed one night during the happiest point in her life and slipped away in her sleep.  And I think if she had been given the choice of going that way versus going the way we all feared, she would have chosen this.  This was yet another blessing.  Even in dying, she defied the odds and made the best out of a bad situation.

I hope that I have captured some degree of her shining example in this post.  I hope that by posting this, her influence will be extended to those who never had the honor and pleasure of being part of her life.  She lived to help people.  And by writing this, I want to give her the chance to continue to help people.

We all agreed that instead of sending flowers to Aimee’s funeral we wanted to encourage everyone to donate to the National Kidney Foundation or the Ronald McDonald House in her name.  I hope that some of you will be compelled to make a donation to help these causes.  They were very important to her.  If there is another cause that is of particular importance, then consider making a donation to whatever that may be.  Aimee was all about helping people in whatever way possible.  Another great lesson in life.

In conclusion, I want to share a lesson I have learned from this experience of loss.  Losing someone close to you is the hardest pain you can imagine.  But the pain comes from how close you were to that person and how much you loved them.  Yet, you never regret the closeness.  The things you regret are missed opportunities to see them, the times you put off calls or visits, or the things you had planned that never came about.  You never regret loving as hard as you can.

http://www.kidney.org/

http://www.rmhc.com/

****

The rear entrance of the funeral home.

The way we brought the bodies in to the morgue was through the alley (SEE PHOTO to the right). There were big white doors (with brass door knobs of course) that would open wide enough to bring the stretcher in. For everyone else on our street, it was their garage. So technically, the morgue was in the garage that was connected to the basement. After the person was embalmed and dressed, we had a motorized lift to take the dead people up from the basement to the first floor. My dad told me that before it was a lift, it was an electronic chair for my grandfather to go upstairs after he had a stroke. Once my dad built the morgue in the basement he took the chair off and replaced it with a piece of wood that he could lay the bodies on.

That lift was fun. When I was really little my dad would let me ride it. I’d sit on it and he would turn the switch on and I’d start to go up the stairs. There was a light bulb on the other side of the steps that I used to pretend was the moon and I was an astronaut on my way up to the moon. Normal kid stuff, if you consider riding a lift for dead bodies normal.

The front of the Donohue Funeral Home

That lift was later replaced with another one that was much more elaborate and cool. The new one actually came up through the floor of the parlor so that the body would already be in the casket and ready for their big day. The other lift couldn’t have held a casket, just a body. Once everything was in place; flowers, etc. no one would know that the lift was underneath the casket.

One time the body came up through the floor, was in the casket and everything seemed fine until the leg of the stand underneath the casket collapsed. We were upstairs watching TV when we heard a loud thud followed by my dad yelling a string a curse words. That may have been one of the few times I heard him say “fuck,” except he yelled it. The leg collapsed, the casket fell and the body rolled out. Luckily this didn’t happen during a funeral, it happened while he was setting up, but the family was due there soon so my dad was freaking out. Naturally, we ran downstairs and the dead lady was in the middle of the floor.

Dead bodies aren’t really fit for moving around once they’re in the casket because they’re so stiff. The body was facing down and when my dad rolled her over, her hands were still folded. Can you picture that? It was funny because people who are alive are just the opposite. My dad wasn’t able to laugh about that one right away, but we did.

Of course, my dad and brother got her back into the casket and everything was fine after she had a slight touch up. The family never knew that their loved one had been face down in the middle of the floor in her fancy dress a couple hours before that. And that’s for the best because there really isn’t room for a lot of error when it comes to a funeral. People are so distraught they probably wouldn’t find it funny to watch a dead body roll out of a casket.

(If you’re having trouble seeing a picture, click it and it will enlarge.)

One of the parents mentions that she still sleeps with her son’s pajamas so that she can be soothed by “his smell.”  Certainly, considering the tragedy of Newtown, there is nothing abnormal about her practice.  In fact, it’s healthy and I can’t help but feel the heaviness of her grief as I think about it.

Here’s a question: A what point has her son’s smell disappeared and what she thinks is her son’s smell is actually her own smell.  At what point in sleeping with his pajamas have they stopped smelling like her son and started to smell like her?

At funerals, you’ll often hear people say, “Cathy lives on in all of our memories” or, “Cathy will never die as longs as we remember her.”

There’s a difficulty that comes with remembering our loved one.

I remember an old man, who was married to his late wife for over 50 years, stopped into funeral home to pay his bill and he said, “I both grieve the loss of my wife and the distortion of my memories of her.  Even now, when I remember her, I ask myself, “Is this memory real or is it my mind’s adaptation of her?  I only want to remember the good, but I miss the bad and messy nearly as much because it’s who she was.”

There’s a time when the smell on the pajamas becomes our own.  There’s a time when memories are distorted by our desires for comfort.  But, this is why we must grieve in community … so that community can help us piece together the real.

Grief must take place in community!  We have to share, we have to be vulnerable with our friends and family.

Share at your family dinners … over the holidays.

Be brave an ask your parents old friends about mom/dad.  Ask your child’s friends … your spouse’s co-workers.

Have people write down their memories.

Talk.  Talk. Talk.  Talk about your deceased loved one.  Don’t let the memories die.  Don’t let them become distorted.

Hey, John … I’m at a funeral right now, do you mind if I call you back?

No matter how many times we ask people to silence their cell phones at a funeral service, there will always be ONE person who didn’t get the memo! The worst is when somebody not only let’s their phone ring, but THEN DECIDES TO ANSWER IT!!! No lie, I’d say one in every five cell phones that ring during a funeral service are answered! So rude!

In fact, a fellow funeral director said this at my Confessions of a Funeral Director Facebook page:

Possibly my favorite blog is FAILBLOG.ORG.

This past week they posted a funeral fail.  Apparently, during the funeral service, a cell phone went off and the ringtone was the song “Staying Alive.” Awkward.

So, I was thinking there’s probably some other funny ringtones that could occurring during a funeral:

Here’s some of my more general thoughts:

1.  Having the Gospel song, “I’ll Fly Away” would be weird to have as ringtone, but it’d be even weirder if you had it and it went off during a funeral.

2. Right Said Fred’s “I’m too Sexy.”  That would just be awkward and … sort of funny.  Sort of on par with “Baby Got Back”  These songs are awkward in real life, but at funerals ….

3.  The ring tone that I used to have for the funeral home was the Country Song, “Shh, It Happens.”  It never went off during a funeral, because obviously the funeral home wouldn’t call me if I was at a funeral, but if somebody else had that ring tone and it went off during a funeral … not cool.  In fact, any ringtone with a curse word … not cool at a funeral.

4.  The Star Trek theme song.  Twilight Zone theme.

5.  My wife recorded herself yelling, “Mom!  Mom!  Let me out!” in her mother’s cell phone and then set that as her mom’s cell phone ringtone.  Awkward in real life.  Extra awkward at a funeral.

Although, as a side note, I have heard of people getting buried with their cell phone.  So having a modified version of the “Let me out!” ring tone go off at a funeral from inside the dead guy’s casket … sort of morbid, but sort of funny and ingenious at the same time.

SO, THAT’S ABOUT IT FROM ME!  Let’s here from you! I only touched a couple genres … I pretty much missed the 60s, 70s and 90s, and didn’t touch hip-hop, rock or even Contemporary Christian.  Post your awkward ringtones at a funeral below!

Today’s guest post comes from the innovative Jeff Staab.  Jeff was a funeral director for 20 years; and eventually translated that experience to his entrepreneurial enterprise “Cremation Solutions”.  Jeff has produced the fringe Personal Urns and has recently introduced the beautiful and innovative “Your Touch Portraits.”  Jeff brings a creative spark to the funeral industry.  Check out his line and give him a “Like” on Facebook.

***** 

Sometimes during our lives, there are occasions when realizations hit us so suddenly and with such force that we’re left feeling dumbfounded. In one such instance, a funeral director friend was discussing a family’s loss with them when he came to the abrupt realization that he was terribly uncomfortable with the idea of his own mortality. He worried that as long as he held this discomfort, it would come across to the families he spoke with.

When he talks with the distraught families who have come to him for comfort and guidance, they will be able to sense, at least on some level, that he hasn’t even come to terms with his own mortality. How would he be able to help them?  And what business does he have in providing them with advice in dealing with their loved one’s demise?

Turns out that many funeral directors have not made any of their own plans to die. I was at a recent presentation in a room of a hundred or so funeral directors and the presenter asked how many in the room had made their own pre-arrangements. Only a handful of hands went up! You would think that being reminded of death everyday would cause some insightful planning. Funeral directors deal with the subject of death for a living, but many of them are discomfited by talking about their own deaths.

Most often, people who are bothered by the thought of their mortality and haven’t considered what happens after death aren’t going to feel okay talking about it.  Discuss it with your own loved ones, plan out your personal funeral or draw up a living will. When families come into your funeral home for guidance, ask them what they believe happens after death. Many will feel comfort and relief at discussing it with you. This can also help you be more compassionate and sensitive toward them while they’re planning their loved one’s funeral. In the end planning your own funeral can only help you relate to the families you serve every day.

Unfortunately, the topic of death is a taboo in modern society, particularly in the Western world. One may occasionally hear such things discussed briefly during religious services, but other than that, it’s something that we’re taught not to think or speak openly about. Regardless of this taboo, death is natural and it inevitably happens to everyone, so it’s good to consider the topic of your own death in order to help yourself, and therefore others, come to terms with it. Here are some of the things that you might want to consider.

Unease With Your Mortality

There are many reasons for being ill-at-ease with the idea of dying. Maybe you went through something traumatic and life-altering like an accident. Maybe death was never spoken of in your family. Perhaps, as is often the case, your particular faith paints death in a negative and fear-ridden light. Before you can accept the fact of your own mortality, it’s important to identify why you’re uncomfortable with it in the first place.

What Happens When You Die?

People fear what they don’t understand, and the topic of death is not immune from this fact. Most people fear dying because they feel uncertain about what happens afterward. Therefore, the most common reaction is to ignore the question entirely and resign yourself to crossing that bridge when you get to it. Although it may be uncomfortable or confusing, thinking about what happens after death can be excellent brain exercise. Ask your friends and loved ones what they think. This topic is also richly discussed both in books and online and can offer some helpful ideas and insights. Similarly, you can discuss it with a pastor or other religious advisor.

Are You Comfortable Speaking About Your Own Death?

When you have a set idea of what happens after your own death, you’ll be better equipped to handle losses in your own life as well as others. Individuals who have beliefs about what comes after are better able to cope with death than those who have no such beliefs. In many cases, the hardest part of dealing with the death of a friend or loved one is facing the unknown, so having some idea can make you feel less distraught.

Studies have shown that people who are unsure of how they view death may occasionally reject their current religious beliefs. In some cases, they’ll adopt an old set of beliefs or look for another form of spiritual guidance or teaching. Some of them may turn bitter and angry while others opt to live a life in service to others by volunteering and donating money, time, advice or assistance. The thing that all of these people have in common is that they’re seeking to make sense of death and find greater meaning in being alive.

After someone makes sense of a particular experience with death, either from a religious perspective or by assigning some other meaning to it, that person is usually able to move on. Many people who have personally dealt with such grief say that there are good things about it. They got through the experience, and after great contemplation on the frailty of life and what it means to them, they came out of it with a different way of looking at that life.