If you’re in death care (or any type of caretaker position, paid or unpaid), you probably already have these superpowers. In fact, most of us only know how to use our superpowers for others, but we hardly ever use them for ourselves. As we all face this pandemic and the unknowns that come with it, […]
I’ve never been 100% sure that I belong in this business. The ideal model of a funeral director is a paragon of sanguinity and stability. I’m neither. — I have depression. Whether it’s an illness, or due to the work I do, or a product of both, it’s bad enough that two different anti-depressants at […]
The guy behind me plowing a path through the snow to a gravesite is Ed. Last Friday, I showed up at a somewhat secluded cemetery to inter cremated remains with the deceased’s family. — When I drove in (an hour before the family arrived), Ed was plowing the cemetery drive. I rolled down my car’s window, […]
A few years ago, Pop Pop stepped away from making funeral arrangements for a few reasons, namely that at 87 he’s outlived and buried most of his contemporaries, an accomplishment that would make some feel lonely, but for him it feels like completion. He was here for his friends and family when they needed him, […]
One. Can I ask you a weird question? THERE ARE NO WEIRD QUESTIONS. Dying, death and death care are clouded in a sense of mystery. After our loved ones die, they’re whisked away by the hospital staff, or by a funeral director. Once at the funeral home, the body is either transformed through embalming or […]