Burial Rites

Another benefit to being in this profession is the ability to witness many different burial rites. The difference between Eastern Orthodox Catholics and Roman Catholics, for example, is significant. Or should I say, seems significant, since the Eastern Rite is usually conducted in the native language of the church such as Greek, Russian, or Armenian.

The Roman Catholic Burial Mass, of which I am most familiar, is generally an upbeat pep talk designed to offer prayers to lift the soul of the departed to Heaven and to ease the sorrow of the ones left behind. Uplifting songs such as "On Eagles Wings", "How Great Thou Art" and "All I Ask of You" are sung at almost every mass. Every now and then, a family will force me to ask for a non-religious song, which I know will only lead to my being ridiculed by whichever priest I make the request. Songs such as "Knockin on Heaven's Door" by Guns N' Roses or "My Way" by Frank Sinatra are destined to be turned down.

In addition to the nice music, the liturgy, or readings, are full of hope and comfort. The priests, who wear white by the way, generally do a nice job in conveying a positive message. It's as if admission into heaven is a foregone conclusion, and these prayers are just a formality.

The Eastern Rite Mass seems very morbid and dreary in comparison. Again, I'm only speculating because I, and seemingly everyone else in the church, can't understand a word of it. The priests wear long black robes and the alters are usually covered up. The music sounds somber and serious. It reminds me of a 16th century requiem in its power and beauty. The atmosphere inside the church conveys the feeling that this is for real, and the centuries of tradition reverberates in every deep sounding chant of the priest.

Guitar strumming, "Let There Be Peace On Earth" singing musicians definitely need not apply.

From what I know, the liturgy of the Eastern Rite is geared toward asking for forgiveness of whatever sins were committed during life. They seem to take Judgment Day much more seriously than their counterparts in Rome.

The bottom line is that dealing with death is extremely difficult. I strongly believe that during this time of grief and turmoil, it is vital to have some sort of tradition to fall back on in order to put some structure, and more importantly, meaning into it all.

Funeral Rites, be they Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or whatever, give us that strength to properly bury our dead and help us move on with our lives.

I wonder if the priest will allow "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin to be played in church during my funeral? I'm going to have my family insist that the funeral director ask.

I wish I could see the look on his or her face!

Urban Legend

Being as I've been around the funeral business for much of my life, I've come across many people who have relatives, or friends of relatives, who have also worked in the funeral business, usually in a menial capacity such as car washer or pall bearer. Inevitably, these people I come in contact with relay a story to me, which has been told to them via an uncle or a friend of their father's. The stories are remarkably similar with very few variations.

They usually begin with originator of the story picking up a body with the funeral director or simply just hanging around the funeral home, because of course, they were good friends of the owner. All of a sudden, without so much as an "excuse me", the body sits straight up, scaring the whits out of the poor worker. At this point of the story, the funeral director usually laughs and tells the person that it happens all the time.

Now, as anyone who has made it past 9th grade biology would know, there is ZERO chance of a dead human body sitting straight up as described in these stories. Zero! Of course, I relay that fact knowing full well that the person telling the story would swear on a stack of Bibles that it actually happened, even though he didn't actually see it and only heard the story second or even third hand.

I apologize to those of you reading this blog who have been told by an uncle or the mailman's cousin that this happened to them, and you believed it. It didn't. Trust me. However, please don't let it prevent you from telling it to the next funeral director you meet.

We love hearing it.

Love, Loss and Pain

Many people think funerals are all about caskets and religious services. Receiving lines and eulogies. In my opinion, funerals are all about love. More specifically, they're the beginning of a long and painful journey of dealing with the aftermath of lost love.

St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

As a funeral director, my biggest challenge is helping people deal with the pain of grief after the loss of a loved one. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the greater the love, the greater the pain. I can also tell you that this pain is very real. The pain of watching a parent or grandparent grow old and start to fail is real because the love is real. The pain of losing a spouse or a child is intense because the roots of love run very deep. Love always perseveres. Love never fails.

The question often asked is "How can the pain be taken away?" The answer is it can't. Because to take the pain away would mean to take away the love. Pain is the price we ultimately pay for love. It is inevitable. Love always perseveres. Love never fails.

The people that handle this grief the best are the ones that do not try to avoid the pain, but embrace it. By embracing it, you're acknowledging the love. Over time, the pain will begin to lessen, not because your love has diminished, but because you've become used to dealing with it. I've seen it time and again.

I'll conclude with a quote from Alfred Tennyson because I believe it says it all.
"I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

What's The Hurry?

For centuries, funeral processions have been the way we honor our dead as we take them to their final resting place. Tradition has it that when a funeral procession passes, we pay our respect by pausing what we are doing and acknowledging the life that just ended as well as our own mortality. There are still a few people out there that subscribe to this philosophy. Unfortunately, there is an ever growing number of people that don't.

I get to see this latter group almost every day. An ever increasing amount of people see funeral processions as nothing more than an inconvenience at best, and in some cases, an outright insult. In any event, the twenty-nine second delay caused by the funeral procession is somehow keeping them from getting somewhere extremely important.

Perhaps they are doctors in a rush to get to the hospital to perform emergency surgery. Maybe they're secret agents with only seconds remaining to defuse a nuclear bomb. I suspect however, that these two scenarios are rare. In most cases, they're simply people in a rush to get to the tanning booth or the store to buy cigarettes.

It's not enough for some people to vent their frustration by giving me the finger or yelling obscenities. Some take drastic action.

I've seen people drive up onto the sidewalk in order to avoid stopping to let a procession pass. Just the other day, I had to stop the procession, get out of the car, and forcefully make some guy pull out of line because he had gotten in between the family limousine and hearse and refused to leave.

My favorite incident happened about ten years ago. We were in a procession traveling on the freeway when I saw in my rear view mirror an old beat up Pontiac trying to pass us at a rate of speed I would have thought impossible for such a car. The only problem was that the lane he was in was about to end. In his mind, I'm sure he thought that old heap had it in her to make it past us before the road ended. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't meant to be. He lost control of the car, spun around about eleven times, and came to a rest in the median. It seemed, as I gleefully rode by and waved to him, that all four tires were flat, and he was wishing he had not been such an ass.

These episodes are becoming far too frequent to the point that motorists riding in the processions are taking notice and relaying their experiences to me. Most are shocked. Many are angry.

In the end, we're all going to have to face the reality of riding in the limousine as we take our loved one to their grave. Even the guy who flipped me off last week will have his turn, and I guarantee that he would not be pleased being on the receiving end of such treatment.

Life is too short to be rushing around all of the time. The next time you're in a hurry and a funeral procession is slowing you down, take that opportunity to pause for a moment and reflect on what is truly important in your life. I'm guessing that whatever you're in a rush to do at that moment isn't even in the top fifty.