The Prostitute and the Funeral Director

Have you ever considered working in funeral service?  Funeral service is something most people typically do not aspire to as a career.  This was certainly the case with me (even though I had curiousities about the profession which I am sure we all do).  Trust me, had you asked me 8 years ago if I would consider a career in funeral service, I would have likely told you I could see myself being a prostitute before I would become a funeral director.  It was 2007 and I was 43 years old when I enrolled in the Funeral Director/Embalmer program through Mount Royal University in Calgary.  This blog describes the journey leading up to that decision. 

I had attended funerals since I was a child and in retrospect, there was something about funeral service that I was curious about but left it at that curiosity.  I remember the first funeral I attended for some distant relative; I must have been about 7 or 8 years old.  It was a bizarre experience and although I had a million questions, my parents were not the type to talk about taboo subjects like death and funerals.  I remember firing off a few questions before leaving for the funeral that day and hearing that I would not be allowed to attend if I kept asking questions.  Hence, I shut up and observed.  I remember being frightened by the big black hearse out front of the church; the casket, the flowers, people crying who I never saw cry before; and the fact there was a dead body in our midst. 

A few funerals later, I still had many questions but never had the nerve to ask; for whom does one ask a question about funerals?  I had no clue.  It seemed to be a topic not to be discussed and in those days, there was no internet to Google 'dead bodies' or 'caskets' or 'embalming' so I left it alone for years, assuming that whatever goes on behind the doors of a funeral home was secretive and only to be known by the people who worked there. 

It was 1992 when my world was rocked by the sudden death of my Mom who was 48 at the time.  She had apparently had a massive heart attack in her sleep one night and that was the end.   I was numb, distraught and angry…every emotion possible swirled through me as we prepared to plan her funeral and try to come to grips with her sudden death.  Amid all this emotion, I seemed to have a sense of calm about me (the neurotic one of three boys) and took it upon myself to assist my grieving dad in contacting the Medical Examiner, contacting the funeral home, contacting clergy and beginning the task of planning a funeral during what was the worst experience of my then young life (I was 28).  Remember, I had no experience with this; I was a health care administrator!  Some days later we entered the small town funeral home that would be entrusted with her care and to this day (20 years later) I remember walking into the office of the funeral director and having a seat with my Dad and two brothers.  He made small conversation with us, all I could hear was an old radiator heater hissing and clunking; otherwise the building seemed exceptionally quiet except for his occasional business-like chatter.  He made some comment about his trip to Red Deer to retrieve her body from the hospital and quipped "trying to get her body out of that hospital was like trying to get gold out of Fort Knox!"  I will never forget that.  He then went on to show us caskets and we chose one (even though we were cremating her) and planned to view her body that Friday evening.  He said to my Dad, "Fred, you remember the colour on her face and chest, black like barbeque briquettes?  I can get rid of that when I massage her skin when the fluid is being pumped into her".  I thought I was going to faint.  It went from bad to worse when discussing her hair, the fact that we did not bring undergarments with us…"well, I suppose I can go buy a bra" said the funeral director, "I'll just add it to your invoice".  I remember seeing her body for the first time and pulling a chair close to her casket and not leaving her side that evening.  It was surreal.  I held her hand; I smelled her hair and face and kissed her cheek.  She smelled of vinegar.  I was not scared at all.  I just wanted my "Mommy" to warm up and wake up!  In the back of my mind, I could not help but feel that this awful experience was made worse by this man who seemed to be talking to us like we were redecorating our house rather than saying good bye to our Mom.    The actual funeral service is a blur to me and yet clarity strikes again for when we came out of the church and her casket was placed in the hearse I remember seeing booster cables and the hood of the hearse being opened.  Apparently it had stalled during the service and he needed a boost.  She was cremated shortly after and her cremated remains were kept at the funeral home until we buried her next to her parents the following spring.   I had helped my Dad in getting the plots and the day before we buried her, I went out to that cemetery in the small farming district where she grew up and started to dig her grave, in the pouring rain surrounded by the huge pine trees that grow there.  I remember vividly how I was shaking and crying and digging in the pouring rain; the pine trees seemed to whisper in the wind.  I was cold, scared and sad.  I covered the small hole with a piece of plywood and the next day my Dad and the rest of the family joined me and we buried her in a simple ceremony with just the small group of us.  Oddly, it was me who lead us in the Lord's Prayer; never to think I would be doing ceremonies for families some 25 years down the road.  That was the end of that experience but the beginning of something stirring in me.  Something deep inside told me I would be very good to people if this is what I did for a career.  Of course, with three small children, it would have been financially impossible to do at that time, but it was something that never left me.

Some years later, I was living in Vancouver and was the Director of Human Resources for a private business club and I also had a small consulting company where I assisted clients with human resources issues, customer service and business improvement strategies.  Life seemed ok albeit I missed being closer to my kids.  Unfortunately, I was working 7 days a week; sometimes 14 hours a day.  I had a few health issues going on and eventually got to the point where I could no longer work at that job.  My diabetes was completely out of control, I had been diagnosed with osteoporosis, I was completely depressed and anxious…the list is long.  I left my job at the private business club and had applied for long term disability and was approved under that employer's plan. 

Two months following my departure from that organization, my step son was killed in a car accident back in Alberta.  My ex wife had called me at 1:30 one morning and relayed the news to me and I was on the next flight back to Calgary.  We met with the investigating police officer who told us to contact the funeral home as they had picked up his body.  We did so and learned he was being taken to Calgary.  I wanted to see him but the receptionist did not know the whereabouts of the funeral director who had his body.  She gave us his cell number which we called and he didn't answer.  We called her back but she had left for the day (this was at noon on a Friday) and had the phones forwarded to an answering service that could not provide us with any information.  I was stunned at the actions of that small town funeral home and we decided to contact a funeral home in Calgary to assist us and to find out if I could see him that day.  The funeral director we were put in contact with was an angel sent to us from God that day.  He explained that unfortunately the Medical Examiner's office was closed for the weekend by this time but that he would have the body transferred to the funeral home on Monday morning and we could come in and see him that day.  In the meantime, we started to plan his funeral with the assistance of a friend who was a funeral director in our small town and she guided us through what needed to happen.  Mostly, we did everything ourselves.  Everything that a funeral home could have helped us with such as creating our own service folders, a video tribute, planning what would be said, who would say what, the catering etc.  We contacted a clergy in our town and he agreed to officiate at the service.  It was ironic that we had a religious ceremony for Caleb however we did not think there were other options.  Unbenounced to us, the pastor made some decisions to remove certain music from the service that he did not feel was appropriate for the service.  Really?  It was our kid's service not the pastor's!  I composed and read Caleb's eulogy that day; trying to express messages of hope to those in attendance.  When I flew back to Vancouver after his funeral, I knew that I wanted to enrol in the program and become a funeral director.  I discussed it with my disability manager and the counsellor I was seeing at the time and we all agreed this would be a good rehabilitative move on to new employment.  I enrolled in the program and started the course in January of 2007, taking most of it through correspondence and on line studies as I was still living in Vancouver. 

The next two years were filled with a lot of study but it was a program I was fascinated with and I thoroughly enjoyed.  And finally, some of these questions I had all these years were being answered.