One night, my sister had her new friend Mark over for dinner. Making small talk, my Dad asked him what his father did for a living. We all squirmed a bit when he told us that his dad died last year. The subject was soon changed and we all went about finishing our meal when suddenly my dad says:
“I’m sorry, Mark, what did you say your dad does for a living again?”
Awkward.
In our culture we honor the dead by carving their names in stone, staging celebrations of life, and personalizing any and all funeral accessories from the casket to the urn.
In contrast, here in the Bible Belt, I’ve attended a few services that where the body is on display (usually in a church) but the ceremony itself is actually an altar call for the “lost”.
In talking with Native Americans I’ve learned that in their culture, it is forbidden to mention the name of the deceased for fear of disturbing and disrupting the journey of the spirit.
Recently, a friend in Texas attended her neighbor’s funeral and was saddened that the minister never mentioned the deceased, only HIS relationship with God.
We never learned anything about his mother. We didn’t learn where she was born and grew up, who she married, or the names of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We didn’t learn if she had any hobbies, or if she had ever belonged to any church or community organization.
I’d like to think this was a culture clash and not a minister with a captive audience. We just have to hope the family was satisfied with the service.
The message here is, depending on your beliefs and desires for the funeral service DON’T ASSUME that your pastor or family member will know what you want for your loved ones. Write it down, ask questions, or communicate your wishes to the funeral director handling the service.
Today’s Tip: Celebrate Life
In Puerto Rico, a funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake. His wish was to remain standing, even in death. | AP/WTOP | Continue reading
Crystal Lake, IL
Jeff Hornagold loved Nascar, baseball, spending time with family and friends….and his job at UPS, where he worked for 20 years as a driver.
Hornagold died last Tuesday from lung cancer. As a memorial tribute, his friend and co-worker Michael McGowan, made a final delivery in his UPS truck, transporting the casket with Hornagold’s body from the funeral home to the church where memorial services were held on Saturday.
McGowan says he plans to keep a picture of Hornagold in his truck until he retires so that they can keep riding together.
More with Cheryl Thompson-Morrow of Thompson Funeral Home, Broadman, OH.
20 Years Later: “It’s been a good career choice, the initial transition was difficult, because many of the families insisted on working with my father, and weren’t accustomed to a female funeral director.
On Technology: “Technology has really freed our time up, in that in the old days, before we could forward calls, my dad would stay home all weekend to catch the phone.”
Cheryl is uncomfortable with casket retailing on the internet, and would like to educate her clients regarding funeral costs and the value of a funeral service. “I want to do more with our website, add educational content and market our services.”
On Cremation: “You know, when I started working at the funeral home, my dad had one urn, and it was in a dusty box. Unopened.” Despite being in a pretty traditional area, cremation is definitely on an upswing. “March’s services were all cremation.” Most of Thompson’s cremation families choose traditional viewing with casket rental at the funeral home. Cheryl usually discourages the scattering of ashes until a later date, to make sure the family is comfortable with the decision. It’s pretty mixed on families that choose burial, or to take the ashes home.
On Changes in the Industry: “Besides cremation, families are buying more keepsakes, and there’s more interest in pets.” It used to be that the funeral homes in our area were denomination specific, there’s more cross-over now. Besides more women in the funeral profession, I see a lot more women in the clergy. The other day, I realized that we were doing a service with a female funeral director, and two female funeral clergy…there was a time, that was unheard of!”
“We haven’t had a lot of requests for catering services or food.” Although, she did have a family from California that wanted to bring “snacks” in before the visitation, and wound up setting up a full buffet and bar. It was no problem she said, but the family took care of everything.
Cheryl sees funeral service as a life long career and says, “I’ll probably work until I die.” “My dad never got to retire, and in the my pre-kid days, I was at the funeral home ALL the time, even coming in on weekends I didn’t have to work, just to make sure everything was alright.” Cheryl and another funeral director trade weekends on call.
“Now, I realize life is too short! We have a cottage at the lake that’s only an hour away and I want to spend time with the kids, while they still want to!” Cheryl has two children, 11 and 12.
The red buds are peaking this week, and it smells sooo good outdoors. The Urn Garden is downwind of two monster lilac bushes that are so fragrant.
And that my friends is the problem. Or is it? There’s no separation between work and home. It’s getting better, but when you cross the threshold at my place, you immediately enter our World Headquarters. My messy desk and file cabinet, work and living space all rolled into one, it’s the first site you see when you hit the door. It’s aesthetics really, and can easily be solved. Lots of people would ignore the clutter and crossover just for the opportunity to work from home, but there has to be a more attractive and productive answer, to partition it off somehow, I feel inspiration coming.
Listen to Your Gut: Spoke with a colleague today who worked for a funeral supply company and had taken on a line of the Chinese caskets. She really wanted me to take on a territory and help move the product, she’s good at what she does, works hard, and it could be a “great opportunity”. A nice addition to my business. When someone says “Great Opportunity” my radar goes off. Call me lazy, but I didn’t want to travel, and I’ve got my own challenges with distribution without adding the bulk of crated caskets to the mix. Not to mention the YEARS it would take to establish relationships with the funeral homes that were locked up in long-term dealings with their suppliers. If ever there was a breakthrough….I just couldn’t see it.
Today she informed me that after a year or two of that back breaking business, she’s moved on to what she’s really good at. Selling pre-need.
Which reminds me, Candace has a great tip on estate planning.
Another Revelation: Since I left my old job four years ago, the position has turned over three times! Makes you think…was I nuts to stay there eleven years? Nah.
No not this kind.
St. Louis hotel 2005.
This Kind:
We’ve been successful attracting the hummingbirds and butterflies the last couple of years. Even with the hunters next door! According to the calender, the hummingbird scouts should be coming in the next week or so. So, why do I feel pressure?
Funeral Directors, depending on where you are…if you don’t have a hummingbird urn in your offerings, you might consider adding one.
Our cloisonne hummingbird urn is a family favorite. All of our cloisonne cremation urns can be personalized with engraving and are available as a double capacity urn. Together Forever.
For families that plan to keep the urn in the home, the cloisonne urn is a popular choice because it compliments the decor as a stand alone piece of art.
Quiet in the garden on Sunday morning. As our intern tries to focus on career opportunities, we (me, myself, and I) were thinking about our own. Even though we have a project stalled, and urngarden.com, was supposed to be a sideline business, keeps us a little busier than planned… we’re able to focus on what’s really important: creating a beautiful life.
2008. My goal for this year is to determine the fate of the Urn Garden. I left my full time job in 2004. Urn Garden had been in place very part time for about a year or so. I was planning on a career change, probably as a funeral director.
Something about it didn’t feel right though, and a trusted mentor who was helping with my research talked me off the funeral director path and told me to stick with what I was doing. He is a retired funeral director, who managed five funeral homes for 30 years in this area. He was shocked that I was selling way more urns than all of his funeral homes combined. Part-time.
And now, I’m so grateful for his advice.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing something rewarding, and making a contribution to society. Not Fun. And I have the utmost respect for the men and women who have made funeral service their career choice.
I love owning my own business. And I hope I never have to go back to the corporate world. All along, I’ve kept a toe in the water of THE WORLD to expose myself to the elements. And remind myself.
How lucky I am.
Blessed.
And thankful that I listened.
For once.
Peace be with you.
Greetings! Is Mr. Fancy Pants offering up a bowl of cherries? Very symbolic.
Last Sunday was the first funeral I’d been to where no body was present. And I don’t mean “nobody”. Joe Rook’s funeral was big. Over 1200 guests according to the funeral home.
It’s likely that for many of the people there, it was the first time to attend a funeral without a body present. Even though cremation is on the rise here, we’re still pretty traditional in Southwest Missouri.
The main chapel seats 500 and guest spilled over into three other rooms. We watched the service on a giant screen. Although I could hear Joe’s granddaughter singing, I wish I could have seen her. She was off-camera.
This was my first Masonic Service and first time to visit the new facility at Greenlawn Funeral Home East. The new location is gorgeous, modern design, soothing decor and a far cry from their north location, that hasn’t been updated in 40 years.
The family chose to have a one hour visitation before the service and the funeral directors were getting nervous about an obvious time crunch (they had another service scheduled later) and handled the crowd in an orderly fashion.
Impressive.
This post is not intended to be a critique of the service, only an observation of the service and new facility at the largest funeral provider in this market.
I’ve been meditating on Joe’s tag line: “It’s a beautiful day in the Ozarks!” and hope you will too. Have a great week!
The other Patriot Day.
While browsing the Template Monster, I spotted 3-4 new additions in the Society/Culture category… Funeral Service templates. And while I didn’t delve deeply, a couple designs did get my attention. And not in a good way.
Your thoughts?
