One upon a time, a young woman walked into a funeral home in Queens, New York. She needed an after-school job to earn some money, while she worked her way through college, and the funeral home was hiring. She had dreams of one day becoming a great writer. Well, if not a great one, atContinue reading “A Dying Business”
Category Archives: Sacred Rituals
I Want to Watch
An essential component of our role as funeral directors is to maintain the sanctity of our work and protect the privacy of those in our care. Something that continues to trouble me is the prurient interest some have in the most private part of funeral service. “I want to watch? Can I?” It is anContinue reading “I Want to Watch”
A Funeral Home Director’s View of the Pandemic
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 allContinue reading “A Funeral Home Director’s View of the Pandemic”
Five Things
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 readContinue reading “Five Things”
Fake Funeral News
The funeral as we know it is becoming a relic — just in time for a death boom blared the Washington Post headline. Whoever wrote this garbage must have scoured the depths of kook-dom. This article bears no resemblance to what funeral directors do on a daily basis. Perhaps if newspapers interviewed actual, experienced funeralContinue reading “Fake Funeral News”
How a Common Death Ritual Made It Harder to Mourn the Loss of My Mother ————-Say What!?
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. SheContinue reading “How a Common Death Ritual Made It Harder to Mourn the Loss of My Mother ————-Say What!?”
6 IMPORTANT FACTS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH
This post originally appeared on sixtyandme.com 6 IMPORTANT FACTS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH
Definition of Funeral Service
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 byContinue reading “Definition of Funeral Service”
Green Burials and Responsible Reporting
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 theContinue reading “Green Burials and Responsible Reporting”
3 MYTHS ABOUT GREEN BURIALS: A FUNERAL DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE
In funeral parlance, ‘green burial’ may be the most hyped phrase around. References to this ‘new’ and seemingly popular type of disposition seem to be everywhere these days, particularly in the press. And since we, or a loved one, may be headed in that direction, we might have looked up the subject. Reading those storiesContinue reading “3 MYTHS ABOUT GREEN BURIALS: A FUNERAL DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE”
