people at a visitation by the number standing outside smoking—or by the number who strolled in carrying bottles of soda pop. I provide coffee and soft drinks at no charge, but at least once a month I kick myself over it. When something is free, people often have no regard for the amount they consume. I expect some lack of discretion among children, but I actually have more problems with adults. Grown men and women will exit a funeral home with three or four cans of soda tucked under their arms for the ride home.
After questioning a lady about this once, she said she was taking a can home to her mother who couldn’t make it to the visitation. And after watching two overweight little boys consume six pops apiece in one evening, I told them that they’d had enough. Their mother overheard and cursed at me for denying her sons the pleasure of a seventh soda. I hark back to the wisdom of my 1970s employer: he said that the mark of a classy bunch was a visitation during which no one set foot in the coffee lounge. That crowd did what they were supposed to do—sign the register, offer words of sympathy to the family, view the deceased, and leave quietly. But when serving and opening one’s facility to the public, those from all walks of life (and upbringings) will show up at your door.
One evening I happened upon a woman rummaging through the lounge cupboard.
“What are you looking for?” I asked from the doorway.
She looked up, startled. “Coffee,” she responded. “I thought I’d make some.”
I gestured toward the freshly brewed pot sitting, still full, in clear view on the counter. But like most people caught in a lie, she became even more defensive. “Well!” she huffed. “I was only trying to help!”
Yeah, right.
I’m amazed at the petty thefts that occur. Objects disappear constantly, everything from rolls of toilet paper to entire boxes of tissue (including their decorative plastic covers), scented candles from the women’s restroom, ink pens from the register book stand (we now attach pens with a chain), and even the silk floral arrangements that adorn our end tables. We now purchase only arrangements that are too large to fit into any woman’s purse.
Flowers, actually, are another matter entirely. When people arrive at a funeral home, they expect to see flowers. The casket spray, for example, is the traditional large piece of flowers or floral arrangements that rests on the deceased’s casket. Priced between $175 and $350, depending on sizes and types of flowers used, it’s a big-ticket item any florist is delighted to provide, hopefully with several matching companion pieces to further set the mood—and spike up the tab.
Florists and funeral homes generally enjoy an amicable relationship, since funeral orders comprise the bulk of any florist’s day-to-day business and provide a consistent month-to-month cash flow. But some florists are more principled than others. Competing florists have tried to woo me by offering roses to my wife, fruit baskets, or a free spray for every large order I provide. The florist’s eternal hope is that the family who runs the funeral home will call for flowers for themselves, and perhaps add those on to a casket spray and its companions. In other words, that way the florist doesn’t need to worry about sending a bill and then trying in vain for months to collect on it—he or she will get paid on time from the funeral home.
I have attempted to place an order on a family’s behalf, only to be turned down when I requested that the florist bill the family directly. Other pain-in-the-neck florists call me for funeral information when they could just as easily open a newspaper. If I were a florist and the majority of my business consisted of providing flowers to funeral homes, then I would certainly subscribe to all the local papers and scan the obituaries daily. Not only could I quickly confirm the visitation and funeral times, but I could also note the correct spelling of the deceased’s name. Families who have to find their loved one’s name misspelled on a sympathy card have just one more painful thorn in their side.
There are also rude delivery people who enter through the funeral home’s front door during services already in progress with a late bouquet, waltz right into the chapel, and loudly announce their presence. There is no excuse for this. Most funeral homes have a backdoor flower drop-off that they check frequently.
Back in the early 1970s, people sent many more flowers to honor the deceased. Whether he or she was twenty-nine or ninety-nine, the fresh, sweet fragrance of flowers always filled the chapel. We used a panel truck back then (now a minivan) to transport cemetery pieces to the grave site before the funeral procession arrived— typically, cut flowers arranged in papier-mache baskets or plastic buckets, as opposed to the more elaborate (and fragile) live plants, glass vases, and dish gardens—and our vehicle was always stuffed to the gills.
Today, the quantity of bouquets and arrangements sent is significantly reduced. Friends and even relatives seem to be pooling their resources and going in together on a single basket—so instead of one name on the attached card, there are now seven or eight. Also, today people often send donations to charity in lieu of flowers. There are still a few, though, who give to a charity and purchase a basket, perhaps so they can point out to assembled mourners, “Those are the flowers we sent.”
I can hardly believe, however, the conflicts that can arise over funeral blooms, and they’re usually from shirttail relatives or people not even related to the deceased. On many occasions, I have had to physically restrain individuals from snatching up live plants and rose-filled vases while the casket is still proceeding out of the chapel. My duty is to deliver the cemetery pieces first, then later the keepers—healthy plants, vases, silk arrangements, and the like—to the family residence. The husband, wife, parents, and grown children should rightfully decide what is to be done with them. But when I question a nonrelative attempting to carry away a floral piece, I often receive a puzzling response: “These are the flowers from my work, and I want them.”
I have unsuccessfully tried to explain that, yes, your place of employment may have sent those flowers—but not for your enjoyment. Instead, they were sent as an expression of sympathy to the family. I guess I have yet to compose the ideal reprimand, because I’m so often answered with yet another shameless remark.
People say things inside funeral homes that they would never say anywhere else in polite society. They’ll walk up to a casket with the family of the deceased standing nearby and make remarks like, “Gee, Bert sure wasted away to nothing, didn’t he?” Or “How did they get Aunt Jean into that casket, with a shoehorn? She sure gained a lot of weight.”
That foot-in-mouth syndrome occurs less often when the deceased is elderly. People seem slightly more comfortable in dealing with the death of an aged loved one—someone who clearly lived a long life, accomplished much, and has gone on to his or her just reward. Otherwise, visitors are so unhinged with the notion of death and the circumstances of their visit that odd utterances just seem to pop out. It’s a defense mechanism of sorts, and summoning the right words can be difficult. So I try to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever I hear insensitive comments or spot rude actions. Death is a shock—we don’t understand it, and we are never sure exactly what to say to a grieving family. The younger the deceased person is, the less comfortable everyone is. People who die younger than the age of fifty often denote tragedy—a spouse and children left behind, along with many unfulfilled dreams and stunned friends.
Common sense, however, should prevail. I have heard visitors ask in loud, booming voices how the person died. At the visitation of an auto accident victim, people will inquire whether the deceased was decapitated. When a family opts for a closed casket, perhaps because of severe trauma or because that may have been the deceased’s wish, there are those who have the gall to ask why. Some even leave abruptly, muttering, “If I had known the casket would be closed, I wouldn’t have come tonight.”
Suicide cases, always jarring, somehow seem to bring out an even darker, crueler mentality. I have overheard utterly classless individuals ask the family how the deceased did “it”: “How many pills did she take?” or “Did he really put the shotgun right into his mouth?”
The funeral procession itself can be an emotional land mine. It is usually arranged in the order of immediate survivors: the spouse, the children, the grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and other relatives and friends. Special parking spaces are reserved for the immediate family, and the rest available are on a first-come, first- served basis.
Several times each year, conflicts develop over where certain parties should be placed in the procession. I’ve heard many great territorial claims, most along the lines of “I need to be up front; I was his favorite cousin,” even if it means riding ahead of a son or daughter. I usually compile a passenger car list as part of the funeral arrangement process, with the order approved in advance by the immediate family. Usually telling a disgruntled mourner that this is in fact the way the family wants the cars lined up quells any disturbance.
The actual funeral procession has become quite an adventure over the years, with passing drivers
