A Funeral Home Director's View of the Pandemic In this article I wrote for Next Avenue, three seasoned, and respected, NYC funeral directors shared their thoughts and experiences with me. They were hard to hear, and even harder to write about, but such is the reality in these dark days. Funeral directors are doing all … Continue reading A Funeral Home Director’s View of the Pandemic
We were saddened to learn about the recent passing of Dr. Jacquie Taylor. Funeral service lost an excellent champion in her. An educator, who was also licensed as a funeral director, Dr. Taylor truly “walked the walk and talked the talk” unlike so many others today. In 2013, I attended a continuing education seminar Dr. … Continue reading RIP Dr. Jacquie Taylor
Five Things I've learned in my long career as a funeral director I was pleased to share my view of funeral service with Life. Death. Whatever., gleaned from the work I’ve done, the experiences of my colleagues, and the perspective of the thousands of families I’ve served over the years. Despite what you may read … Continue reading Five Things
How a Common Death Ritual Made It Harder to Mourn the Loss of My Mother We can barely contain our disgust at this article. In essence, the writer is complaining that the funeral home made her deceased mother look too good, and it has traumatized her. She writes: "I thought she was alive again. She … Continue reading How a Common Death Ritual Made It Harder to Mourn the Loss of My Mother ————-Say What!?
This post originally appeared on sixtyandme.com 6 IMPORTANT FACTS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH
Southern Calls is a prestigious funeral service journal. The SouthernCalls.com website has interesting articles and images on their pages that are a mix of old and new. The Funeral Profession page has two separate pages, The Present and The Past. The Present page has this as its headline: THE PRESENT Steeped in history, defined by … Continue reading Definition of Funeral Service
We submitted this piece to The New York Times @nytimes as an Op-Ed letter seven days ago and have never heard from them. We are publishing it here so our voices can be heard regarding this topic. Recently, The New York Times published an article: Green Burials: At the End of Life, Thinking Outside the … Continue reading Green Burials and Responsible Reporting
By Melissa Johnson Williams Thirty-five years ago today Morticia Addams died. The woman we knew and loved as Morticia was of course Carolyn Jones. A very talented actress who performed in both movies and television. She crossed several movie genres but even the younger generation knows "Morticia". She was the original and favorite goth beauty. … Continue reading Carolyn Jones (aka Morticia Addams)
By Melissa Johnson Williams There was a picture that circulated on the internet recently showing a young man posed at his wake in a laid back style. Many commentators used the phrase "extreme embalming" to describe this supposedly new phenomenon. Most of those commentators know nothing about embalming or its history. If they did they … Continue reading Extreme Embalming
Perhaps it’s a consequence of being on social media, but barely a day passes that I don’t read some nonsense article, post or tweet about funeral service. Shooting ashes into space, turning cremains into bullets (Seriously, With all the gun violence these days !?), mushroom suits, and so much more fill pages. My colleagues who … Continue reading The Real Death Deniers
