Dale-Time

As a Funeral Director, is it my job to tell people how to grieve? Is it my job to educate people about the stages of grief, the need for grieving, the different types of grief, or the dangers of not acknowledging one’s grief? Is that why people should call me when a death occurs? Is that what people pay me for, emotional counseling?

These are questions that I have been asking myself lately. And the answer I keep coming up with is …….

NO!

I’m in the Funeral Business, not the Grief Business.

What I do does help people deal with the emotional loss of a loved one. But the focus of my job is not the actual emotional recovery of those people, but facilitating the events that contribute to that recovery.

People pay me to put on events. That’s what I do. That’s what Funeral Homes have always done. The emotional healing that occurs is a by-product of the event itself. It’s the gathering of people and the sharing of stories that heals the heart.

Just recently I read an article that quoted a student in mortuary school who stated “Our job is to lead people through the grief process. So, you have to have compassion, you have to really care.” That’s a pretty typical statement from people in the funeral service. The words caring and compassion are over used in hundreds of funeral home advertisements. Yes, it’s important to provide folks with compassionate care. But I think that the focus on the grief process and recovery, which has found it’s way into funeral service over the last 20 years, has taken us (funeral homes) away from what we have always been really good at; directing funerals (in other words – putting on events).

In my next entry I’ll talk about how I think funeral homes got into the grief business and why I think they need to get out of it to survive.

I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for listening