5 Years in Deathcare

Earlier this month – on December 2nd – i celebrated 5 years with Dignity Memorial and Service Corporation International serving as a funeral, cremation, and cemetery pre-planning advisor. I’m so grateful that this role has been part of my personal and professional journey.

With the new year launching in five days, i’d like to reflect on five lessons these years have gifted me:

Lesson 1: I’m a time travel agent.

Pre-planning is a gift you secure now and give in the future. Every day, i see the difference between families who walk into the funeral home either with -or without – a plan in place. Take a little journey with me: Picture your closest loved ones. Now, we’re way into the future and those people you love are sitting in grief and pain in a room with a funeral director. They’re making heavy emotional, financial, and logistical decisions. You want to hold them. Help them.

You can. We can take that moment and pull it back in time to today and take care of all that now – do the business transaction and decisions part now – so that they have your voice in that room to guide them. Pre-planning is an act of love and compassion, but you have to do it today, because none of us knows how far into the future that day will be.

I see a world where every family walking into the funeral home has the comfort and fortitude of a plan-in-place.

Lesson 2: It’s never to early to plan ahead.

Sitting with a funeral professional and going through the planning process is educational. One of my early cases in this career was a hospital call to serve a family who was taking their 5 year old off of life support. On top of the shattering grief they suffered, the family was terrified about what would happen next to their daughter’s body and didn’t know anything about what to do or what to expect.

It was an honor to walk with them through the process and help them navigate decisions and next steps. I wish we could have taken that walk before they were in such a horrible crises.

If i could get everyone to plan in their 20’s, almost no one would ever face the loss of a loved one with fear of the unknowns & uncertainty about deathcare. There are so many options and things that need to be considered. Not only would a plan be in place to alleviate burden for their loved ones, but they would also be armed with resources and knowledge to guide them and others when someone they know dies or receives a terminal diagnosis.

We cannot take away grief or lessen the heartbreak of loss, but we can take a rock out of that backpack of burdens that they will have to carry to make that load just a little lighter. That’s our job together, you and I – to make that load a little lighter.

I see a world where there are no financial, emotional, or logistical surprises for any person facing the loss of a loved one.

Lesson 3: Advocates for inclusion in deathcare are essential.

Everyone deserves equal compassion and to be authentically honored in deathcare, but that is not always the experience for some identities. When first offered this role i almost turned it down. Sales? Yeesh. No way. But the more i researched, i learned how impactful planning in advance is – and what a service planners can provide to those seeking to reduce stress on their families. Service is my wheelhouse.

And i have another wheelhouse – inclusion work for LGBTQIA+ & RSSI/AHoSI people. That research also revealed devastating experiences of deathcare for diverse identities, like people being turned away from funeral homes or having the death of a loved one “ruined” by non-affirming providers and professionals not educated about diverse identities.

It’s difficult to think about the topic of death in general. People who face discrimination every day often don’t think about how their identity will impact their deathcare decisions and their experience of deathcare. Planning ahead can help mitigate discrimination and similar challenges at such a terrible time for individuals, but there is also much work to be done educating deathcare professionals about the importance of inclusion.

I see a world where every dying person, and every grieving person, receives equal compassion and is authentically honored in deathcare.

Lesson 4: Not all Veterans know what their burial benefits cover.

According to multiple studies, a significant portion of veterans, estimated at around 60%, are unaware of the full extent of their burial benefits provided by the Veterans Affairs (VA). I once did a hospice call for a veteran family who greeted me with exasperation. They had been researching for days, endlessly on hold, trying to figure out what veterans burial benefits would cover for their father who had served our country for many years.

They wished they could have spend the time with their father, but they were so worried about finding the information and didn’t realize the funeral home would bring that to them and go over it. They thought they had to do that separately.

It’s an honor to serve those who have served us, and to make sure that they can maximize their burial benefits and understand the options available to them. If you know a veteran, please ask them to reach out now so that their family isn’t left in a scramble for information when the time comes.

I see a world where every veteran understands and can make informed decisions about their deathcare and how to use their Veterans’ burial benefits.

Lesson 5: I have fallen in love with this work.

I wake up every day grateful to be serving families in this way. After being laid off from a 15-year career i loved & thought i’d retire from, it seemed unlikely to win the “fulfilling-role lottery” twice. But i did. This deathcare role is motivating for a mission-driven person like me. In this profession i feel aligned, impactful, and connected to those i serve. I’m grateful to serve with Dignity Memorial, which provides excellence of care to the families i help plan, and i feel good about helping families secure arrangements with Dignity trusting their loved ones will, in most cases, be compassionately taken care of in the future.

I’m grateful for opportunities to be involved in the community, to serve as an advocate for inclusion, and to actively make a difference, like authoring the Identity Affirming Deathcare Directives workbook and serving with other professionals across the nation who are also working on deathcare inclusion initiatives.

Will i make it another five years? I hope. There was a shattering ruling by the supreme court on September 4th (i actually cried) overturning an FTC rule that would have allowed me to continue the calling to funeral Celebrancy in my side business. That would have added a beautiful facet to my life, and may have stacked some sustainability and prevented so much borrowing from retirement to pay bills. Yet i still believe there’s hope for success in this career, even for a service-focused professional, and even for an advocate who speaks unpopular truths that make people gasp and clutch their proverbial pearls, like “everyone deserves equal compassion”.

Despite the challenges & times i’ve tripped and scraped my knees, i love the work, i love my life, and i do love the flexibility of the commission schedule. It creates space for creativity & meaning through advocacy, volunteer work, and community involvement. And it could create space for fur on my floor one day. My personal vision-board goal – my hope of all hopes that i type with tears in my eyes – is to one day have the temporal and financial freedom to adopt a dog. Maybe provide a home for some terminal / elder pups. And a cat, too. Or two. 🙂

Looking forward to a fantastic new year of possibilities, challenges, service, opportunities to make a difference, opportunities to create success, and connections with amazing people.

I see a world where mission-focused work that makes a difference in the world is also a sustainable, meaningful career. And where fur transforms my house into a home.