This page adds details to my first few posts that provided a brief summary of my initial experience working in the funeral home.
Since my first two encounters with the deceased were children, I was often asked, how do you handle it?
Even my co-workers tend to get more emotional when it’s a child. It is undeniably heartbreaking, but unfortunately, it happens. I like to believe that children, being innocent, ultimately find themselves in a better place. Of course, we don’t know for certain, but I believe that mindset helps me make peace with such a tragedy.
The Casket Car or The Hearse
Baby J’s funeral was the first time I was inside a hearse, leading a family to the cemetery to bury their loved one. It was only my third day, so I was not driving. The funeral director was driving and shared how police escorts are always preferred. It makes the route safer, as the family might feel as though they must stay with the hearse, causing them to break traffic laws. We didn’t have a police escort for Baby J’s funeral. It was a good thing we didn’t have many cars following us. However, it didn’t make it any less embarrassing when the funeral director missed the turn into the cemetery, making the entire procession go in a circle. The funeral director was calm, but we had to stop for a minute to figure out where we were and how to get back to the turn. Thankfully, the family didn’t even mention it once we arrived. It continued to be the talk among co-workers. We may have given the funeral director a hard time and laughed with them. Lol.
Learning about Autopsies
I mentioned Baby J had stitches on his head because of an autopsy. You know how, in the movies, they show a deceased individual with the ‘Y’ stitching on the chest and stomach? Before working here, I actually thought that when you embalmed someone, that’s how they looked. Lol. But actually, the embalming procedure involves a small incision right about the clavicle bone on the right side of the body. It’s way simpler than I thought. Check out my Canva website that details the embalming procedure.
Embalmers do not conduct autopsies. You have to be an actual doctor to do that. However, embalmers are responsible for putting them back together. When bodies arrive at the funeral home after an autopsy, we still have to embalm them and stitch them up. I plan to go into more detail in another post
Serving Families in any Situation
At the funeral home where I work, we make it a point not to ask the family of the deceased, ‘What happened?’ The funeral director explains that the reason doesn’t matter. We’re in this situation regardless, and our job is to support the family and help them cope. I admire this approach. But, I won’t lie—there are times when I’m curious to know what happened. Sometimes, the family will share details on their own, and if they do, we listen, of course. But we don’t make it a habit to ask.