Sorry to hear about your mother - and especially about the insensitive way that director treated your father. I would have wanted to punch him too.
Admittedly, there are some funeral directors out there that are not good and decent people. I would like to think that they are the exception and not the rule because the majority of the folks I have worked with have been very caring and committed to the families they serve.
Personally, I have no moral qualms about selling merchandise, but I never steer anyone toward any piece of merchandise and instead allow them to choose for themselves. I do not get commission and have no ulterior motives, and even notify them that they can feel free to purchase the merchandise elsewhere for our use if they so desire.
(I thought I had posted a response to your post earlier, but couldn’t see it so here, so I tried my best to remember what I had said earlier. Sorry for the delay in reply)
Thanks for the reply! I just noticed this recently. My wife thinks they’ll let families arrange their own exhumations, then bulldoze the ground, including any unclaimed coffins :eek: I had a vision of coffins being dug out and split apart with earth mover machines and mummies falling out and thought, :dubious:
Don’t they pump formaldehyde into the body during embalming? Wouldn’t that be good enough to get the flame going? I read in Stiff it’s colored red, to make the body look more lifelike.
I really like Stiff too (I bought all her books, including Packing For Mars). Do you use those contact lens-like “eye-closers”?
I have had that exact temptation, now that you mention it!
And anytime I am inside an indoor mausoleum, I cannot help but think that there’s a silver flying orb is lurking around the corner waiting to fly at me.
Though this is something that is done by the embalmers and morgue staff, they do have a fastener that is occasionally used to close the eyes. I do know that some of the compounds used in embalming are meant to impart a more lifelike appearance, but if this is really because of the red coloration I cannot confirm - though admittedly it makes some sense.
For whatever anectdotal evidence is worth, I have heard some horror stories regarding shoddy caskets. I have been fortuanate not to have had it happen to me.
Occasionally we have had remains that were in poor condition. Whenever possible we will do our best to accomodate the wishes of the family, but as have mentioned before, our reconstructive artists can only do so much.
If I feel that viewing the remains will be unduly traumatic, it is my duty to let the family know that it is not my recomendation to proceed with a viewing.
There are universal safety precautions that must be taken anytime you deal with remains, and these are a matter of procedure for whenever we do a disinterment. I have never heard that a casket has to be opened in order to be reinterred.
No, not Batesville which is a decent and respectable company with a reputation for outstanding customer service and a long history of good products made in America.
When a great-aunt died, the casket was wheeled to the door of the church. The pallbearers, who were relatives. picked up the casket by its handles and carried it to the hearse. One of my aunts, who was standing near me, muttered ‘Please don’t drop it!’
For the most part (at least from my experience with funerals) it’s transported on something akin to a gurney. The duty of the pallbearers is to transfer it from the hearse to the gurney and back again. It’s held by rails along the side (see here for some random examples).
Relatives do indeed carry the coffin, as much as it is carried. My siblings and I, including my two sisters, served as pallbearers at my father’s funeral.
As for the large chain that jacks up prices, I would assume he’s talking about one of the large national chains like Service Corporation International. Maybe he’s smart not to name them, though–they will bury you!
While googling, I found this about a suit filed five years ago:
Personally, I want to be buried wearing a Kirkland-brand shirt, with a fifth of Kirkland-brand vodka, in a Kirkland-brand coffin. My pallbearers will throw in some of those $1.25 hot dogs on top.
We do typically utilize what we refer to as a “church truck” or “casket cart” which is used to support the weight of the casket and allow the casket to be rolled from the funeral coach to the chapel. Pallbearers are given the honor of bearing the weight of the casket when it is lifted on and off of the cart. Additionally, at the graveside the pallbearers will carry the casket by it’s support rails and handles (though I do understand that in Europe they do in fact lift the casket onto their shoulders) from the coach to the burial site.
Family members may serve as pallbearers if they wish - this includes women as well.
Though I will not confirm or deny what specific company or companies I have been referring to when I talked about the conglomerates coming in to take over the industry, I think enough information exists elsewhere that you good folks can utilize to formulate your own educated opinion on the matter.
I suspect that a lot of the bad press has come about due to the actions of the conglomerate(s) which are, like many big businesses, more concerned about profits than the people they serve. If in fact the funeral home I now devote my efforts to representing had a business model of that type, I would refuse to be a part of their world.
A lot of this negative press - none of which is the fault of good funeral homes like the one at which I am employed - makes my job as a funeral director all the more difficult. Many people come to me in a combative state and are hypersensitive about what we are charging for our services and our merchandise even though our prices are well below the average market and considerably less than those of the conglomerate chains. In the end, the majority come to understand - though it is not without difficulty. In some cases, the bereaved mistrust us so much from the onset that I suspect they are wary of everything that we do even after they detect that we are not out to con them out of their money.
By the way: When I pass, I intend to be embalmed as that can be done for a low one time fee as opposed to daily fee of refrigeration that will accrue during the 3 to 5 business day period it typically takes to get a permit for disposition. I leave it up to my family to choose to have a viewing and to purchase or not to purchase merchandise. If they wish they can cremate me in a simple cardboard casket or they can buy one made out of solid gold and modeled after the casket of King Tut if they wish (though I know that a solid gold casket is way, way outside of my wife’s tastes) I authorize them to scatter my ashes or have my ashes interred in a grave if they wish. My wife and I have been discussing the idea that whoever goes first will hold on to the other’s ashes and then when the second passes we can both be scattered or intered at that time since it represents a cost savings. Since I am not a supporter of what the big-box meglomarts of our times do to small american businesses, I would prefer that they not purchase my casket from there. I have, however, been toying with the idea of making my own casket in the garage and using it, in the meantime, as a coffee table - though I have yet to convince my wife that this would look good in our living room.
One thing that I have learned, however, is that services exist for the comfort of the living, not the dead. So even with my specific instructions, I authorize my wife to alter and modify these instructions in any way she sees fit if it will be of more comfort to her.
As long as the pallbearers are physically capable of doing doing this I have no problem working this out- though I have heard of other funeral homes in California requiring Pallbearers to sign a liability waiver before they are allowed to participate. Glad my home doesn’t require this since I don’t groove with this concept.
Here is an interesting article that talks about some of the problems family owned and operated funeral homes are experiencing in the industry. Not all of the information is entirely accurate, but it provides some very interesting background nonetheless. There may come a time when a consumer has little choice but to go to the conglomerates:
