My eleven year old nephew looked at me with wide eyes. “How can you DO THAT?” Revulsion and maybe even a little fear was on his face. I adopted my most calm look and said, “Well, Joey, someone has to do it. May as well be me.” His face screwed up in a funny way. “How……? How……? How can you stand it?” “Well. Joey, it needs to be done. Would you like to come and help me?” He almost fell down. “Are you crazy? Uncle Larry, don’t you realize??? THOSE PEOPLE ARE DEAD!!!”

          It really bothered Joey and his younger sister Savannah that I worked with the deceased. When I took the job at the funeral home I was to mostly work with families of the deceased. But it turned out that actually working with the bodies of the deceased didn’t bother me at all and I had a bit of a knack. Wash them down, set features, dress them, get them in caskets…. I did just about everything except embalm, although I would assist in that as well. After thirty one years in church ministry, the Lord put me in a completely different ministry filled with grief and pain and emotional suffering. But it was an awesome time.

          Your reaction to that might be like Joey’s reaction. However, the Lord created n me a desire to minister. This is not the same as preaching. Ministering at the time of need is a huge thing for me. I have always thought I would enjoy being a hospital or nursing facility chaplain. Working at the funeral home gave me the opportunity to minister to people in distress. The work I did with the deceased was because it needed to be done and it freed someone else up for what they needed to do.

          Sometimes there were kids who had a million questions. Sometimes it was a parent trying to find a reason. Sometimes an adult child trying to hold it together as they worked out Mom’s funeral. Sometimes a grieving spouse who didn’t know how they could go on. It always revolved around grief, but it was always different.

          And, believe it or not, there was almost always humor.

          Part of that, I guess, was orneriness in me coming out. Humor has its place even in a funeral home. You don’t go looking for a laugh, but when it comes you go with it. A steady diet of grief demands a little humor, both for the funeral home worker and for the families involved.

 We had two locations. Both locations had, at one time, been private homes. In our main funeral home, the basement housed the embalming room, make up room, casketing area and dressing area. Everything was done there for both funeral homes. The basement in the other home, the one I eventually managed, had supplies and old records and such like. In that home there was a stairway going down to a landing and then a closed door going into the basement. The stairway was closed off with a gate. One night, during a visitation, I came across four little kids, all under ten standing at the gate looking down. Normally the stairway was lit so that it didn’t look scary, but that night the light had burned out and it did look scary.

“What do you think is down there, Ryan?” “I don’t know, Gwen. Could be anything.” They were discussing the darkness and the horrors that the darkness concealed. The oldest one just stood there and looked bored. Finally, they asked him what he thought. “Look, I’ve been down there before. That’s where they stack the bodies.” I had been standing nearby, enjoying the conversation. But when the boy said that, I stepped up. “You’ve been down there? You want to go down now?” Well, the little snot had no idea what was down there, but he sure didn’t want to go down. The other kids got a good laugh when he took off. I explained to the kids there was nothing down there except office stuff, and they were satisfied.

Sometimes kids made me laugh for completely unusual reasons. I often worked at both funeral homes in one day. When that happened, two or three times a week, I would start at the main home around 7:30 in the morning and wrap it up in the evening at the home I managed around nine or so. On one such night it was about eight o’clock and I was exhausted. We had a visitation going on and all I wanted to do was sit down. I didn’t want to go to my office, so I went to the coffee room. Coffee, tea, water and cookies. Who wouldn’t want to sit down in there? In the coffee room was a thirteen year old named Luke. The deceased was his uncle, who had died of a drug overdose. He was pretty upset by his uncle’s death. I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. As we talked his step mother, a very attractive woman, walked in. She dropped into a chair, pulled off a shoe and started rubbing her foot. “Oh, I hate wearing these heals!” The heals looked like ice picks. Luke looked at her and then looked at me. His question was to me. “Why do they wear shoes like that if they hurt so bad?” “I don’t know, Luke. Something wrong in the head, I guess. Ask her.” The step mom put the shoe on and stood up. “When you wear heals like this it defines your calf muscle and makes your butt look good.” Then she walked out. I was a little shocked and when Luke looked at me, I had no idea what to say. He got a little smile on his face and with a glint in his eye he said, “Well, lucky us!”

Cemeteries were not kind to me. There was a family who wanted to do a butterfly release as the service ended at the cemetery. This can be very beautiful. A box is opened and the butterflies take off and fill the sky, the meaning being that the loved one’s spirit is free. You actually buy the box of bugs on-line and they are delivered in a day or two. I cautioned the family not to do this because it was the end of October and might get cold. I could see in my mind the butterflies getting about a foot or two out of the box and then doing a nose dive, dead before they hit the ground. But the family went ahead and ordered the little things. It actually turned out to be a nice day, but a little chilly. The fellow they had designated to release the butterflies came to me and told me the bugs were there. I told him to bring them inside, the cold would kill them left in the car. So, of course, he left them in the car. When the time for the release came, he took off the lid and gave the box a little jerk to get the butterflies to soar free and about a hundred tiny little carcasses exited the box and quietly crashed to the ground. In one cemetery they had dug out a tree, leaving a huge hole. Then it snowed almost two feet and the hole was nowhere to be seen. With about seventy five people around, I found the hole. When they pulled me out, I said, “Now you all know where it is at. You are welcome.” Another time it was a small country cemetery that barely had room for the hearse to pull in. So, everyone parked on the street. The night before it had rained and then froze over. It was treacherous. I helped people out of their cars and up the little hill to the grave site and then back again when the service was over. I had gotten the last person safely to their car and was headed toward the funeral home van when my feet flew out from under me in full view of everyone. I hit the road so hard I was dazed and it took me a few seconds to realize I was sliding slowly downhill on my back. I finally stopped when I grabbed the van’s bumper as I went under it. And then, there was the time after a Catholic funeral we went to the cemetery. The priest rode with the funeral director and I followed with the hearse. It was snowing and raining at the same time and the cemetery, like most cemeteries around there, was all up and down hill. The grave site was down in a little gulley and I worried that the pall bearers would slip with the casket. As I waited for the pall bearers to reach the hearse, the funeral director walked up to me and, with a disgusted voice, said, “Take care of the priest. I’ll take care of the casket.” We did things just so there, and this was out of the ordinary. But he was in charge that day. I walked up to the other car and opened the door for the priest. The man was sitting in the seat, sobbing. He had a little bottle in his hand that actually said ‘Holy Water’ on it. “Sir, are you OK?” I asked him. He looked up and through the tears said, “I can’t get the holy water open! I can’t bless the casket!” One whiff of his breath and I knew he was falling down drunk. I took the bottle from him and attempted to twist the cap off. It would not budge. In my mind I could see the alter boys back at the church laughing about how they glued the cap on. “Oh, what am I going to do? I can’t bless the casket!” “Sir,” I said, “it is nasty out here. Just shake the bottle over the casket and no one will see that no water comes out. No one will know.” “HE will know!” Now, I am thinking that the Lord also knows that the priest is three sheets to the wind, but I let that go. “Sir, we can’t get the cap off and we have to do this thing.” I hauled him out of the car and walked him to the top of the hill. With my right hand under his left arm pit, I walked him down the muddy hill side to the grave. Once he started the service, he was flawless. Training and habit took over. Afterward, he bawled his eyes out because he didn’t properly bless the casket. When the funeral director and I got back to the funeral home, we had a serious talk about protocol.

   I know people assume that funeral home people have a twisted sense of humor and that it centers on the ghoulish. Maybe in some funeral homes it does. I don’t know. Our funeral home and our people were not like that at all. During my nine years at the funeral home, I really feel I worked with a bunch of heroes. Men and women who were often profoundly affected by the grief of the ones we served, but who offered care and consolation. Often, I would see one of our staff sitting with someone, holding their hand and praying with them. I love those people still today. Good friends all. I wish all of you could have met them. And the humor we shared was sometimes a lifeline.

Never give up on the joys of life. There is enough sadness and suffering and pain. Look for the smile.

Blessings.