How Well Does Your Funeral Director Know You?

          When a death happens, the first step is to contact your local funeral home or cremation provider. Generally, the funeral home makes preparations to remove the body from the place of death, transport your loved one to the funeral home and set an appointment for an arrangement conference.

          For families, they have a scheduled appointment and maybe even the funeral director's name. The funeral director, in turn, has the basic information about the deceased and the next-of-kin. Sounds pretty simple, right? Question is, how much more will he or she know about you by the time you arrive for the arrangement conference?

          I know of one funeral home, where the manager is a former police officer. And as a licensed peace officer, he is still entitled to certain information that most of us are not privy to. Before he assigns a apecific funeral director, he checks the family name through various databases. This proves to offer an endless supply of information. He can find home addresses, property values, job titles, the type of car you drive and economical data about your particular neighborhood.

          Based on the information that is available, he can then properly assign the right funeral director. Also, he will talk to the funeral director prior to the family's arrival. He will probably offer pointers for the amount of money  the family "should be able to spend." Once you arrive for the conference, the presentation will be specifically tailored to your pocketbook.

          Before you walk through those doors, remember, funeral directors often pay close attention to zip codes. And for those of you who use social media, they have probably already checked your Facebook page as well.

Funeral Homes and Fidelity

          I never thought of a funeral home as a place for philandering, but that all changed one warm night in June. I was the designated late director for the evening. The funeral home was quite large and included a cemetery. With such a large staff and several visitations, the funeral directors worked a rotating late-evening schedule.

          After checking in on my family visitation, I headed down the long, dark hallway to enter the embalming room. I usually wanted to make sure things were in order, lights turned off and doors locked. As I approached the door, I heard strange sounds coming from inside. I assumed it was the radio as I opened the door.

          What I found was one of our mortuary student interns and a police officer in the middle of a carnal act. The police officer was one of our regular officers who served as our after-hours security. It was obvious that I startled both ladies. I apologized for walking in and quickly excused myself.

          I later learned that the funeral home proved to be more convenient, as both ladies had significant others at home. However, I will never be able to grasp the use of the embalming room. It is said that what goes around comes around. I guess this is true. It was later learned that the mortuary intern had a little hidden secret, herpes, that did not remain a secret for very long. In fact, I am sure that a number of funeral directors and other staff members had a difficult time explaining their breakouts to their significant others. It has even been reported that a mortuary school professor was also one of those affected.

          I am not sure what ever happened to all of them. As for the mortuary student intern, I have heard she is now a licensed funeral director in or around Houston, Texas. Likewise, I believe the police officer is in the same area as well. However, I am not sure of the extent of their current relationship. 

The Embalming Room : No Laughing Matter Part I

          I remember my first job at a funeral home. It was a student position, as I was also attending mortuary college. It was one of the city's older funeral homes and part of a group that was once family-owned. By the time I went to work at the funeral home, it had been purchased by a corporation. However, given the small staff, it still had that "family feel" to it.

          As a student, my job consisted of a number of duties that varied each day. There were always death certificates to type, flowers to set-up in the visitation rooms or deliver to churchs or grave sites, phones to answer, folders to make and bodies to help dress and place in their casket. On the embalming room door, there was a sign left over from the days of family ownership. It read, "Behind these doors rests the most important responsibility we have. Someone has entrusted us with the care of their loved one."

          Many years later, I returned to that funeral home. There was a new owner, as the smaller corporation had been taken over by a much larger one. The much larger one was, by this time, my new employer. Upon entering the back hallways, I noticed that sign. It had survived the transition and caused me to stop for a moment and reflect. It was in that moment of reflection where I realized what a powerful impact the sign had made during my career. It was the constant reminder of taking care of somebody's mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, grandmother or other.

          It was the words of that sign that brought a sickening over me the day I visited one embalming center. The corporation I now worked for had developed what they called central care centers. This refers to one building, a centralized embalming facility, containing a very large room designed with tables where all aspects of the embalming process are performed. Most families are not aware of this whenever they make arrangements at certain funeral homes. They are still under the impression that their loved one is actually at the funeral home.

          I had made arrangements with a family for a gentleman who weighed 550 lbs. Because of his size, the manager of the care center suggested that I deliver the clothes to him and his staff would dress the man. The facility is equipped with specialized equipment and lifts to help in these cases. I decided to hand-deliver the clothing and stay during the dressing in case extra help was needed. What I witnessed next was appalling. The care center staff rolled the gentleman into a dressing area and he had been uncovered, meaning he had been stored completely naked on a table. The staff was laughing and making jokes the entire time they were dressing him, including the manager. As a non-manager myself, there was little that I could do except feel badly for the deceased.

          It has been many years since that incident and not a day goes by that I don't remember. It makes me worry about anyone I cherish being taken to a funeral home.

Embalming Shortcuts : Cats On The Coffin

          Throughout my career in the funeral industry, I was always amazed by some of the practices that were so generally accepted, especially in the embalming room. I have always been an advocate for saving money and being thrifty, especially when it comes to business expenses. However, for some funeral home owners, that idea is taken too far sometimes.

          I remember a couple of my first embalming cases, where the deceased had undergone an autopsy. For the uninitiated, a full and complete autopsy includes the medical examiner removing all internal organs for inspection. Once the autopsy is completed, the medical examiner's office places the internal organs (viscera) in a plastic bag, places the bag into the upper cavity of the body and closes the Y-incision with a few far-spaced ligatures.

          Once the body is back at the funeral home, the ligatures are removed, the Y-incision is opened and the viscera bag is removed. The embalmer will treat the internal organs with some type of embalming chemicals. The proper way is to soak the internal organs in a high-index, concentrated cavity solution. Many firms slice the organs into smaller sections to allow for better absorption, while others choose not to. Once the organs have had time to soak, the cavity fluid is drained and one of two methods are used. The viscera is returned to the body cavity, either in the original bag or without. I always preferred not using the bag method, to decrease the chances of fluid leaking. Returning the organs to the body cavity, combined with using a generous amount of embalming powder, provides the best possible results.

          Embalming powder can become expensive, but is well worth the price for proper results. However,  there are a number of funeral home owners, managers and funeral directors who have developed cost-saving methods that are disturbing. One that I found particularly troublesome was the use of cat litter instead of embalming powder. Sure, cat litter is designed to be absorbent, yet it offers nothing in terms of preservation. And, families that choose embalming are paying for embalming -- not cat litter. Once I learned of the litter method, I often imagined walking into a funeral home and finding cats gathered around a casket.