A Day in the Life of a Funeral Professional Podcast Episode Transcript

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Welcome to the Remembering a Life podcast. I'm your host, Holly Ignatowski. Today we're talking with Lashanda Martin, a licensed funeral director at the Kemp Funeral Home in Michigan. And Timothy McClean, co-owner of William R. May funeral home in Pennsylvania. Funeral directors of course help families after a loved one has died and guide them in planning a meaningful service so family and friends can gather to say goodbye and begin to mourn. But there's much more to the profession than meets the eye, and I'm really looking forward to learning more during our conversation today. So welcome Lashonda and Tim and thank you both for joining me today.

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Thank you so much for having us today.

TIM MCLOONE:
Yes, thank you very much.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Lashonda, I'll start with you. How long have you been in the funeral service and what inspired you to go into this profession?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
I've been in funeral service for a total of just seven years now, and it started off just being intrigued by the human body making that transition from life to death where I thought I wanted to just do the cosmetizing dressing and embalming, but it's turned out to be so much more than that.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Tim,

TIM MCLOONE:
I've been in funeral service for going on about 15 years, and I always say that it really was a calling for me. I just believed since a very young age that I was meant to be doing this and took about 25 years of my life, but I finally decided to follow the call and really the rest is history.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
I imagine that no two days are alike in the funeral service, but Tim, if you could describe a typical, say day in the life of a funeral professional, could you do that for us?

TIM MCLOONE:
Oh, absolutely. Well, I would say that I agree with you that no two days are alike, certainly, but there are certain things that of course we do every day. And I would start by saying that I think my day begins really as soon as I open my eyes, because immediately I go right to my answering service app to see if I wasn't on call, what had happened through the night, if there was any messages that we needed to be on top of responding to right away in the morning when we get in. And then from there, I'll often check our email to again see if there's any correspondence from families that we need to be making sure we're keeping up with. From there, I have about a 45 minute commute to our main office, so I will use that time to kind of decompress a bit before getting into the office where the day can become hectic pretty fast.

But in terms of things that we are doing every day, I mean it's everything from sitting with families to having an arrangement consultation. There's preparation work of course, embalming, preparing decedents for their viewing, taking deceased to the crematory for cremation, perhaps directing a funeral, and then really the list goes on and on from there in terms of administrative tasks and things like that. So it is a different kind of ebb and flow each day, but the tasks that we see ourselves doing are usually pretty consistent. It's there's never an order to what we do throughout the day really. It's kind of whatever needs to be done gets done next.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Right. And Lashonda, what about you? What does a typical day look like for you? Is that similar or do you have other things going on?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Oh, no, that's very much similar, and that's the beauty of our profession is that no matter what you have planned, it may go that way and it may not go that way. So for me, again, as he said, as soon as you open your eyes, you're thinking, what's the game plan for today? It may be services for that day, it may be arrangement conferences or just thinking, what didn't I finish on yesterday? So we start out today with maybe there was a phone call to follow up with. So the basic services of what we do may be the same, but just how we go about them or the order of them that changes every day and with every family.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Lashonda, I'm just going to ask you to expand on that. Is this a typical nine to five kind of day? We're looking at, do you get weekends off? What does it look like in the funeral profession?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
It's not a nine to five because even if you're not physically in the building, you are still thinking about your families and the arrangements and the services, how they went or how they're going to go. Sometimes it's just something random. You may be at the grocery store and see someone wearing pink and you're like, oh yeah, I'm glad they did pink. Choose that pink casket. Something just as simple as that. It has your mind all day, but it's not a typical nine to five job. It's when you get done serving. So that's another beautiful aspect about it. You don't just clock out and go home. You're still thinking about the families and what you can do to make their experience better.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Very committed to the day. Tim, I noticed that in your bio you said that you're also a celebrant. Can you tell us what that means and a little bit more about that?

TIM MCLOONE:
Absolutely. So I became a certified celebrant through the, it's an organization called the Insight Institute. So they are one of a few programs in the country and in the world that offer a certification to become a certified celebrant. What's unique about my certification is I'm not necessarily a life celebrant in terms of celebrating weddings and things like that. It's strictly funeral celebrant work. And really what we do as celebrants is kind of fill a gap that I think is kind of widening these days, especially as we work with our families where there are a lot of people that are not as religious as they used to be. We work with a lot of folks, and I don't know if Lashonda has had same experience, but where you sit down and they say, well, we're just going to have a cremation mom wasn't religious, and we don't really know what to do.

So a celebrant comes in to that space right there. What we do is we meet with families to tailor a service to their loved ones, so much more than a quick 10 minute prayer service. And we're in and out of the building. We sit with families for anywhere from two to four hours to learn about the person, everything about their life, and essentially share their story. And what we do is incorporate everything from different readings, texts versus music, sometimes prayer in religious aspects if the family wishes and we orchestrate a full service and then officiate that service the day that the funeral's going to happen. And it seems to be something that is picking up in importance to people because as we do these services, we see in real time how meaningful they can be and often get comments from guests that say, I didn't even know this person and I'm leaving feeling like I did. So that's really essentially what a celebrant does for families.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
So it's definitely not a one size fits all. You like to really make it special for each individual client?

TIM MCLOONE:
Absolutely. We try to, at least I try to just get the family talking and I just say, you just talk about dad, nothing's off limits. I usually will ask questions to kind of keep the conversation going, and sometimes people will stop me and say, oh, you're not going to put that in there. And I say, well, what we try to do is get those little snippets that you might think are off color or not ordinarily part of a service and work them in. And that's what really makes it personal.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Every career has its challenges and rewards, and you're both very passionate about what you do. You would need to. Lashonda, can you talk about some of your biggest challenges and some of the rewards of being a funeral professional?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Sure. Some of the challenges would be if you find yourself getting emotionally attached to a family. We all want to go above and beyond for each family, and that can be taxing at times when you're working with multiple families and trying to give them all your undivided attention. That can be taxing mentally and physically, but you want to do the best you can for all of your families. But that may be one of the biggest challenges is separating when work is over, that wind downtime and finding time to do that work-life balance, and still maintaining a life outside of funeral service, but it can be very rewarding.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
So how do you do that Lashonda? How do you maintain that balance and the distance that you need, but yet still creating that caring atmosphere for your clients?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Yes. You just have to find that moment. Find that time where you say, okay, I have to put work aside for a moment. Find out what your hobbies are that you like to do, that you enjoy doing, even if you may not be able to do them on a weekly basis, you have to find something that calms you down. And for me, it's music. So I always listen to music sometimes at work or on the way in or leaving just to decompress for a moment. And I think that time to mentally decompress is very important.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
What about you, Tim? What challenges and rewards do you have?

TIM MCLOONE:
Well, in terms of challenges, this kind of echoes, I think what LaShonda said earlier about how work sort of follows you all throughout your day, whether you're in the office or not. And somebody that I worked with very early on in my career when I was just getting into this said, you really do have to be prepared for the fact that this is a lifestyle. It's really not a job. And it is true. We are on call 24 7. We are dealing with families at all hours of the day, whether it's because a death has occurred or there's an issue with the newspaper notice or they want to add something to the flower order that they placed with you. We have to be ready to respond all the time because these people are going through the worst times in their lives. And so our availability and accessibility is super important.

So it really does become something where you don't leave the office at four 30 in the afternoon and just go home and never think about work again. You're often dealing with it all night long. But I think what's really beautiful about it is that the appreciation that people show for all those things we do is often overwhelming and it's very humbling. And I think the biggest compliment that I feel I've ever received in funeral service is when somebody says at the worst times in their lives, sometimes in the most tragic of circumstances, that we made it easier and we made it comfortable as something that's usually so uncomfortable, we made a little bit better for them. That's the biggest reward as part of doing this. And sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees. It's hard to see that and appreciate it, but when you do and when you really take a step back from it, it's a privilege to be doing this.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Lashonda, you had mentioned that you didn't originally go into the business thinking you'd be a funeral director. So what changed? What qualities do you think that you have that made the funeral service a good choice for you?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Well, after sitting down doing the actual arrangements with the family, and as Tim said that when they come back to tell you how much easier the process was because of your help, that was a game changer right there just to see the weight lifted off of your families as you're sitting there talking to them or when the arrangement ends, they say, oh, that was easier than I thought it was, or it was not as hard as they thought it was. That rewarding part there made me want to continue to do the other side of the funeral service as far as meeting with families, arranging and doing the services, it's that two weeks later when you get that hug saying how easy you made it for them. That part right there.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Tim, what about you? What do you think your qualities are? What brought you to the funeral service?

TIM MCLOONE:
Well, I think I've always been a pretty sensitive person. I've always had a pretty good ability to read people. And I think that especially when you're making arrangements with families, it's really important to be able to kind of read the room so that you can anticipate some of the things they might not be asking or they might not be wanting to talk about and kind of work through some of those things. And I think being organized, I tend to be a pretty organized person, and you have to be, because when you're doing this, we only get one opportunity to do what we do for people. There are no do-overs, so it has to be right every single time. And that may sound like a lot of pressure to put on oneself, but it really does. So being organized is super important, and I like to consider myself to be pretty organized.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Are there myths about the funeral service industry that you may have heard or that maybe bother you? I'll start with you, Tim.

TIM MCLOONE:
Well, yeah, I think that some of the common misconceptions or myths to some degree are that funeral directors are money hungry. We just want to take advantage of people at the worst times of their lives. Another common myth or misconception, I think, is that we're all morbid and dark and depressive, which I think in meeting funeral professionals and getting to know others in our profession over the years, quite the opposite is true probably 95% of the time. So I just think that there are a lot of common myths or misconceptions out there about funeral service, and I think some of them are shifting. As I get further into my career, I think I see a desire and a pull for funeral professionals to be more relatable, whether it's through social media and funeral homes, being involved in the community in different ways and being more visible that I think some of those are going by the wayside because people see us as who we really are, not just the black suit funeral home directors showing up at your house in the middle of the night that we're so much more than that.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Do you agree, Lashonda?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Yes, I do. 100%. And some of the, well, I would say most of the myths that I hear, they come from the families. Again, number one being that funeral directors are out for just to make money and get all they can out of the family when that isn't the case or that we even change caskets of the deceased before they're buried. You'd be amazed at some of the stories that people have made up in their mind about funeral directors. But again, more and more people are becoming more comfortable as they see us out there and just kind of changing the game of how funeral service used to be.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Right. LaShonda, can you share a particularly meaningful or positive service that you've experienced?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Sure. Let's see. I did have a memorial service, and with this memorial service, all of the guests were handed a small bag of sand. It was a different shades of blue sand. And towards the end of the service, the mother, she made a speech or statement that she didn't just want her son's cremated remains on the shelf, that she wanted to remember the wonderful service he had in everyone who helped her celebrate his life. Everyone came around the memorial table and poured in their small bag of sand, and it filled this beautiful vase at the end that she was able to take home with her. And again, for her, that was to remember everyone who came to help celebrate her son's life.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Oh, that's beautiful.

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Yes.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Tim, can you tell us, a lot of funerals these days are very unique or untraditional. Have you directed any services that you felt were particularly unique or special

TIM MCLOONE:
Absolutely. I mean, over the years, I think we've seen a real shift towards personalization where that is so much more important, I think, to families than it used to be. And not that it wasn't important before, but it might not have been offered as much again as funeral professionals. Maybe we weren't doing as much or encouraging as much personalization. But one that comes to mind is a funeral that I had helped with a number of years ago where unfortunately the deceased was a very young girl and in kind of getting things ready for her memorial service, the room looked just not, it just looked so drab. And so what we decided as a staff to do was to get some balloons and some different things from some Disney characters that were among her favorite and a blanket that covered the table where the urn was set.

And then one of our staff members had actually a collection of Disney pins. So we all wore a Disney lapel pin. And the family was really overwhelmed by that when they came to the funeral home and ended up leaving a comment, I believe on Google about it. Even that it was just really nice to see the personalization and going above and beyond to make it feel, make the funeral home itself feel like it was special, where it wasn't just a space with an urn for people to gather that it was made to feel really deeply personal and honor their young daughter.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Sometimes people, they say they're not going to have a funeral or a service for their loved one after they've passed. Why do you think it's important to honor our loved with a service of some kind? And do you encourage that? I'll start with you, Tim.

TIM MCLOONE:
So I think one of the things that, whether it's a service or I kind of go towards the word even gathering more, just to kind of give people different options of what that might look like. I think some people, when they hear the word service, like I said earlier, they kind of panic because they think, well, we're not religious. What are we going to do? And sometimes I just say, well, the most important thing you can do is just gather people together, whether that's a two hour visitation where people come through and they just meet, mingle, have conversation. Maybe it's having a dinner at a restaurant where you can invite those closest to your family and to your loved one to come together, break bread together, and maybe share remembrances, whatever that looks like. I think the important piece is that when someone has passed, the concept of gathering together is something humanity has always done when a death occurs. And so to bring people together in some way is really a great way to start healing from the loss.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Lashonda, oftentimes, families don't have a lot of money to spend on a meaningful service. So how do you work with families on a budget?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Well, you would certainly want to ask them what their budget is and let them know all of the options within that budget. That is very important to let them know, even if you're working with the small budget, there are still ways to honor the life of your loved one. And that's why you sit there, as Tim said, for those two maybe four hours, so that you can iron through and iron out all of the possibilities for meaningful service. It doesn't have to cost tens of thousands of dollars for you to feel that you've honored your loved one. So it's very important that funeral directors are educated on what all of the options could be to honor a loved one, to fit any budget that comes through our drawer.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Lashonda, you had mentioned that you originally worked with embalming and preparation of the body. Some people are uncomfortable with viewing our loved one after death saying they'd rather remember them alive, but they have such a short time, they have to make a quick decision. And maybe if they don't have a viewing, they might regret that later. So what are some of the things to think about when families and loved ones are making that decision?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Some things to think about. It's just asking them all of the questions as far as why wouldn't you want to see your loved one? And maybe that'll help the director explain to them the importance of seeing the body. If you can understand from the family why they've made that decision to not see their loved one. And that may help the director explain to them the importance. Or they may have some morbid story in their head or some myth that they've believed for so long. And if you talk that out, I've seen it where once you're talking it out with the family, they've changed their mind about viewing. So the important part is to understand from the family why they've made that decision not to view them. And then just talk through that. And most of the time, you can get them to see their loved one dressed in casketed or maybe just an ID view. But again, you won't know that until you speak with them.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And what about you, Tim? Have you dealt with that issue as well?

TIM MCLOONE:
Absolutely. And I totally agree with what Lashonda said. I mean, I think you need to have the discussion with the family and listen to what their reasons might be for not wanting to have that viewing opportunity. And for some, it is just a deeply personal decision. I mean, for every family, it's deeply personal. But we as funeral directors, I think can help convey to families some of the value in viewing. And as Lashonda said, whether it's a full casketed service where their loved one is fully prepared and laid out, or it's something where there is a private opportunity to say goodbye before cremation. I think some families that are on the fence do find value after the fact, and having the ability to have at least said goodbye and deal with the reality of the death. And a lot of times that viewing opportunity is what helps to solidify the reality of death for people so that they can really begin to grieve.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Tim, what do you think about the delicate topic of having children at a funeral? What advice do you have for parents about bringing children to a funeral or not?

TIM MCLOONE:
That question has come up during the course of my career many times with parents who ask, what's the right thing to do? And I always say, it's really, you're the parent, right? Your kids the best. You know how they may handle coming to a funeral or perhaps seeing a deceased presented for viewing or how they might behave. Will they have difficulty being at the funeral home for three and a half hours with nothing to do? So I just kind of say that it's a deeply, again, personal decision as a parent, but I don't discourage it because I think for many families and many parents I deal with, when they ask that question, at the end of the day, they find that if they were kind of direct with their child about what has happened, and they give them the opportunity or the choice themselves to decide if they want to be there or not, that it kind of helps make sense of it for them, especially if they're at an age where they might not fully understand what death really means.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
You both deal with grief on a daily basis. Lashonda, do you feel like you have to be a grief counselor sometimes?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's certainly one of the courses that you go through when you're going through the schooling portion. But yes, there are times when you find certain words that you use, and again, just letting them know that you understand where they're coming from and you listen. Most importantly, you listen to your families, listen to their stories, listen to their family stories. And yes, at times you become a grief counselor.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Tim, does it get overwhelming?

TIM MCLOONE: Sometimes it does because I think, and Lashonda, I think touched on this earlier in terms of kind of you have to watch and sort of tow a fine line with getting overly emotionally involved with your families. But I think to also be really good at what we do, you have to invest a little bit. You can't be so cold that it comes across like you don't care. So it's a really, really fine line that we can walk. And I think, and plus, we're human beings, so when something really tragic happens, it's almost impossible not to have feelings about it, because otherwise then I really would be a cold person if I don't really feel the sadness and feel how terrible something is that somebody is going for. And this just happened to me recently, this past week with a service that I dealt with. And so it is draining. But again, self-care is important. So I know that for me, exercising, listening to music in the car and decompressing on the way home from a long day or long week makes all the world a difference. I think you can balance it, and we as funeral directors can balance it, but sometimes it gets a little overwhelming, and you do have to kind of check yourself to make sure you're not overly investing yourself and not caring for yourself while you're caring for your families.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Right. I ask all my guests this question, and I'm going to ask you both. I'll start with you, Lashonda. Who are you remembering today?

LASHONDA MARTIN:
Today, I would say, and it's not one person, it's a group of people, because my heart still goes out to all of those who passed during the height of COVID that were alone, that didn't have family to come visit them, or didn't have the family able to hold their hand during that transition time. So that's still a very sensitive place for me, thinking about all of those that made their transition during the height of COVID.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And what about you, Tim? Who are you remembering?

TIM MCLOONE:
Oh, I would have to say, I'm definitely remembering my mom. We lost her in October of 2018, and she was always a staunch supporter of my choice to enter funeral service. And I think she would be very proud of where I've ended up in my career. And even just having this conversation and getting to be a part of this podcast to bring a better awareness of what funeral directors do to consumers think is super important, and she'd be proud of that. So I am by far thinking and remembering her.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Well, Lashonda and Tim, thank you so much for joining me today and taking us through a day in the life of a funeral professional and helping us to know and understand what you do, all the wonderful services you provide. Thank you.

TIM MCLOONE:
Absolutely. Thank you. And again, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. We really, really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
To learn more about what funeral directors do, or to learn more about a career in funeral service, visit remembering a life.com/careers.