Archive for year 2012

Top 20 Pop Songs Requested at Funerals in 2012

The Co-operative FuneralCare of England recently came out with a “Top 20 Pop Songs Requested at Funerals” list based on requests made at 30,000 services over the last 12 months.

Before I get to the Top 20 list, FuneralCare has this to say, which I think is really interesting:

Figures show that pop music has replaced traditional hymns at two-thirds of British funerals. In 2005, hymns accounted for 41 per cent of funeral music requests, but in the past 12 months the figure has fallen to 30 per cent.

The Top 20 pop songs requested at funerals in 2012 are:

1. Frank Sinatra – ‘My Way’
2. Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli – ‘Time To Say Goodbye’
3. Bette Midler – ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’
4. Eva Cassidy – ‘Over The Rainbow’
5. Robbie Williams – ‘Angels’
6. Westlife – ‘You Raise Me Up’
7. Gerry & The Pacemakers – ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’
8. Vera Lynn – ‘We’ll Meet Again’
9. Celine Dion – ‘My Heart Will Go On’
10. Nat King Cole – ‘Unforgettable’
11. Tina Turner – ‘The Best’
12. Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton – ‘I Will Always Love You’
13. Monty Python – ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ (Note: I don’t think this song would make America’s top 20, but maybe I’m wrong).
14. Luther Vandross – ‘Dance With My Father’
15. Louis Armstrong – ‘Wonderful World’
16. Daniel O’Donnell – ‘Danny Boy’
17. Eva Cassidy – ‘Fields Of Gold’
18. Righteous Brothers (and various) – ‘Unchained Melody’
19. Westlife – ‘Flying Without Wings’
20. Eva Cassidy – ‘Songbird’

WHAT SONG(S) DO YOU WANT AT YOUR FUNERAL SERVICE?

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.

Women Funeral Directors Meme

I was going to write something about politics, but decided there’s more important ideas to be shared: like the ideas in this Women Funeral Directors Meme.

FuneralOne posted this meme on Facebook and it’s pretty good.

The Six R’s of Grief Work

 

There’s a number of different grief models that have been proposed by various psychologists.  Some are good, some … not so much.

I’ve always advised that it’s dangerous to see grief work as linear.  Grief rarely works in a stage-by-stage process.  Rather, it’s usually cyclical.  We feel and think (x) for one week; the next week we feel and think (y); and then the next week we feel and think (x) again.  And we go in these cycles for years, maybe decades, maybe the rest of our lives.

The following model of grief work — developed by Therese Rando — proposes linear stages of grief work … something that I don’t like.  Nevertheless, I think it can still be helpful to see these “Six R’s” and find a way we can relate to them:

This description of Rondo’s “Six R’s” is written by Kathryn Patricelli

  • Recognize the loss: First, people must experience their loss and understand that it has happened.
  • React: People react emotionally to their loss.
  • Recollect and Re-Experience: People may review memories of their lost relationship (events that occurred, places visited together, or day to day moments that were experienced together).
  • Relinquish: People begin to put their loss behind them, realizing and accepting that the world has truly changed and that there is no turning back.
  • Readjust: People begin the process of returning to daily life and the loss starts to feel less acute and sharp.
  • Reinvest: Ultimately, people re-enter the world, forming new relationships and commitments. They accept the changes that have occurred and move past them.

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.

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