Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

funeral service

Campaign Trail

vintage postcard

Yesterday, John McCain stopped in at a funeral home in Michigan on a last minute campaign stop….

The trip to a funeral home was a bit surprising for such a superstitious campaign. McCain later joked about the visit in his first rally today, noting he and his wife Cindy got a chance to visit the funeral home while others are dying to get in there.

However, Peg Jonkhoff, who invited McCain to the Hannah House told reporters she was considering voting for Mitt Romney but admitted McCain may have swayed her with his visit this morning.

That concludes the political discussion on this blog today.

No More Wire Hangers!

postcard witch on broom

When your clothes have cobwebs on them, you might consider cleaning out the closet. And so it goes.

Cull it down to the minimum. If it requires a foundation undergarment to smooth the surface….lose it. I’ve been hanging on to the past and since I don’t dress for success anymore, I’m chucking the old office wardrobe.

Breakthrough:

I’ve found freedom in my new unflattering khaki slacks and slippers. Embrace the full figure. At least that struggle has subsided.

Let’s burn fat!

Speaking of “embracing”: shout out to Final Embrace for bringing a breath of fresh air to the funeral world with interesting correspondents. “Next generation” observations of the industry are fun to read. It’s about time.

Snap Judgment:
The marketing department earmarked this ad a while back for today’s review:

dorky doric

Powerful image. I should have cropped the verbiage. Because the words don’t matter.

Although, I’ve only studied the industry for the last few years, I don’t recall seeing a female “call to action” in the trade mags. This ad got my attention.

At the risk of embarrassing myself: Who is this lady looking all satisfied in her conservative blue bidnez suit? Should I know her?

Or is it subliminal:

Woman Strong. Vault strong.

For What It’s Worth:

Too many words.

Dial down the copy, you love that logo, so brand and develop the female heavy metal angle.

Rock on!

Full Circle

garden greetings

Observations from the garden:

Circles. I’ve been thinking about them in so many ways.

How we are all just spinning. How our culture is connecting to our primitive beginnings with our jet packs on.

Let’s start at a basic level. Footwear. What’s the most popular style today, and also the oldest?

Flip flops.

What ancient custom in death care is making a comeback?

Duh.

Let’s see, weren’t most early funeral directors connected to a furniture operation?

Are you with me?

Many of the families we deal with are keeping the urn in the home…..I’m not advocating a shrine or telling funeral directors how to run their bidnez. Just throwing out cremation urn display ideas.

Did I hear someone say Pottery Barn?

Surprise Judgments

A client in Texas tells us that the funeral director was surprised when she booked a cremation, casket, and chapel for viewing/visitation. “Well, you know he’ll have to be embalmed.” he responded.

She did. That’s what she wanted.

She had her father-in-law’s blue cloisonne urn that she’d bought earlier and wanted the same thing for his son.

Another client selected a keepsake urn for her father-in-law who was Jewish. Even though Jewish law and tradition is to be buried in the ground, he chose cremation to honor his parents who were cremated, (not by choice) in a concentration camp crematorium.

The moral of the story here is just because a family has chosen cremation doesn’t mean that they won’t have a traditional service, and we can’t make judgments based on culture and religion.

Goodbye Joe Part Two

Urn garden greeting

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!