back to work

start the new job tomorrow. I'm not excited. I'm hoping for snow. Weatherman says I won't get it. Guess it'll be fine. I'll just keep thinking of the money in the bank for our trip next summer. I've not even started, and I'm already counting the days till vacation. How spoiled am I?

Interview part 2

So the interview went well. Mostly it sounds like a decent job and a good place to work. The funeral home is corporately owned, so i'd get to participate in a 401k again. Who knew how good that could be. The money is livable, right where Steve told me to ask for (which I didn't ask, they just told me). The hours are fine. On-call every third weekend, which is also livable. Directors at my last job worked the weekends on a rotating schedule. I wouldn't have to work unless a service were planned or a death occurred and the family didn't want to wait till Monday to come in. I wouldn't have to do removals because they have two students who do them all. Removals are picking up dead folks from the place they died and since it seems that most people choose to die in the middle of the night, not doing removals is a very good thing. Two things could keep them from offering me the job. First is the other person they've been talking with about the position. He flies in from out of state next Monday for his interview. So, he may win. Second is that I don't have a college degree. Sad but true. Without a degree, I can't graduate from intern to funeral director. The state says I have five years to get the degree. Denny says he'll give me two. He also said if I did some online work he'd give me a designated hour each day to do it, so I'll have less homework during the evenings. He also said they'd reimburse my tuition. I had an appt this afternoon at the community college to see what they had to say about a timeline. I missed it but can go in a few minutes during their walk in time.

All this to say I wasn't even sure i wanted to work yet and now I might have a new job AND I'll be going back to school. Guess we'll see what happens.

interview

So, I've got an interview tomorrow and somehow I'm not all that sure how i feel about it. Friday I looked on the state funeral director's website to see what i need to do about my intern license. It expired on my bday in December, but since I'm not working I don't have a director to be signed up as my mentor. Well, I clicked the employment link and a funeral home right here in my city had an opening. I right away grabbed the phone and thought if Kiki answered I'd talk to her, anyone else and I'd just hang up and not worry about it. Well, Kiki answered. She used to have my last job before me and she's the reason I went into the industry, well she's not the reason, but she encouraged me. I've thought before when I've talked to her that she thought I should stay as an office manager and not be a director. So it was a little hard to blurt out, I saw you guys are hiring for a fd, but I did it. She was very excited to hear from me and she right away gave me the cell number for the manager who'd taken a day off. She said their home has switched to central prep, so I wouldn't have to worry about learning to embalm. whew! Central prep is the way a lot of corporate owned funeral homes work. Bodies are taken to a central location where embalming, dressing, and casketing are performed. Then they go back to their own funeral home for services. It was a concern for me, as I've realized I really have no interest in embalming, but then how can you really be a funeral director if you don't deal much with dead folk. Hmm. Anyway, the manager, I'll call him Denny, goes to my church. I've seen him there and also he's come to my old work a couple times before to chat. So I felt only a little uncomfortable to call him at home. I hurried and called before chickening out and he was also very glad to hear from me. He told me he'd have to rethink his whole strategy and would love to talk with me more on Monday when he's back in the office. We chatted a couple minutes and I hung up with my head swimming. When Steve got home from work, I no longer felt so guilty about sleeping till 10am, since I'd gotten such a positive vib from both Kiki and Denny. Crazily, I feel a little like I'm not quite ready to go back to work though. Steve has been amazing in the past couple years and I don't wanna push my luck, but I also kinda like being at home. Let's see, quit a well paying job with tons of benefits and stock options; stay at home and remodel for almost a year; take a low paying job with no benefits in a funeral home of all places; quit again so that I can travel around with him for a couple months; now when it looks like another job may come my way poor Steve has to listen to me whine about "maybe I'm not ready to work again". Yes, I DO know how good I've got it. I'm not saying I think I'm a shoe-in for this job, I wouldn't be that arrogant, but I wasn't prepared for how happy they both were to hear from me. Denny called me this morning and asked me to come in for an interview tomorrow. He said he's heard nothing but great things about my work and he'd love to talk with me more. I figured that Friday he'd be calling directors I worked with to see what they thought of me and it sounds like I was right. So, I guess it's a good thing I bought that new suit Saturday. Gray wool, lined of course. It looks pretty good on me, if I say so myself. I sure hope I can remember the dry clean only part though! Anyway. I'll go in tomorrow and see what they have to say. Wouldn't it be awesome if later in the week they were to offer me a position that's Tuesday thru Thursday? I'd take it for sure! :)

Job Hunt

Today the official job hunt begins. Well, I updated my resume and that's about as far as I've gotten. Does that count? I know which funeral home I want to work in next, I just don't know if they want to hire me! Guess maybe next week I'll have to tell them they do, no huge hurry...

I feel as though I don't have much of a purpose lately except to be a "lady of leisure", whatever the heck that is. Two solid months of traveling with Steve have left me fat and happy, but now I need to do something about the fat part! Maybe it's the turning of the new year and maybe it's the beginning of letting go of Corey but today I am ready to start fresh. Well, again, not in a huge hurry...

This year I'd like to get a new job, begin to run again, learn Italian, well conversationally at least, and remodel my kitchen. The kitchen will probably not get done because of Italy in September and that will probably take the budget, well part of it, enough to slow it down. Right now I better finish with my resume. Well, right after i read some blogs...

Corey

I fear I am losing my mind. Corey is dead and has been since November 1st and I seem to still be moving through a fog. I feel like a murderer and I am haunted by his small face, his eyes looking into mine. He was my 8 lb poodle and I put him to sleep. That sounds so noble, like i did him some huge favor. Like the end result isn't still the same. He is dead and I am not.

I tell my grandson that Uncle's in heaven now. "Did God take Uncle Corey?" "yes", i whisper. "Then I don't like God. You tell me where heaven is and I'll go get him back!" I try to explain that Corey died and then God took him. It's lost on his not quite four year old mind. "

This is my first Christmas without Corey in twelve years. He was a pound puppy when I got him, well not a puppy but at least five years old. I just had my first birthday without him. He won't have another birthday.

I can see it in the eyes of those around me. Okay, enough now. But I am driven to tears at the drop of hat. I will take his toys out of the living room today. Family starts arriving for the holiday and even I recognize that it's time to move them, if only for the extra space which will soon be devoured by presents. Presents. Bah.

We are looking for more lights for the tree in a Christmas box, digging through the closet under the stairs. Steve tells me to look away. I have no idea what he's talking about and wonder how he's secreted away a gift for me amongst lights and ornaments and angels. There is no gift. I see that what he is trying to shield from my eyes is Corey's elf outfit. And I know that Steve can not bear to see me cry again. It's not as though I sit around crying. But it's not as though I am present in our lives either. I am stuck in between and unsure of how to get back. I've been traveling with Steve since I quit working and everytime we come home, it's fresh and new all over again. Corey is not here to greet me. Corey did not fly along with me. Corey is not.

It's Christmas and there should be cheer. I am raging inside. The last two days I am the woman I despise. Ugly, snapping, belittling Steve, barking orders at him, barking, ha, barking. I just want my effing dog back. I am compelled to go into the back yard, move the little pile of stones, and dig him up. I want to hold him, please can't he lick my cheek one more time. In the first week, Steve understood and he held me and gently talked me through the need to dig him up. Now I can not tell him that the feeling is just as strong. I know what death does. I know that what is buried is no longer my dog. But I am unable to focus on that and instead he is still fluffy and soft and he remembers me like when he was young. In my mind, he is no longer the blind old dog, but a younger version of himself, when he always knew who I was. There is no senility, just his regular grumpy, psychotic self. He was crazy. Anyone who met him had no doubt of his mental capacity, but he was my friend. My secret keeper.

It's my birthday and Steve tells me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. Even though we have agreed there will be no surprise dogs, I am still anxious. Excited and revulsed that there could be a small squirming puppy heading into my arms right now. And then the weight of the book rests heavily in my outstretched hands. A sigh of relief. Another of remorse. A travel book, for Italy, next summer. I am delighted and disappointed. We have an agreement, but still for a second, I hoped and yet I feared.

I remind myself that I did not lose a child. I remind myself of the words I've rehearsed. Old, senile, arthritis, going blind, good life, long life, happy life, incontinent, pain, biting, "for his good", no more suffering. I remind myself of his age and of his physical and mental ailments. I remind myself of the families I've worked with. Of their first Christmas this year without their loved one. I remind myself of all I am blessed with, of the love in my life.

There is no need to remind myself of the friendship of Corey.

hmm....

Well, I've started this post lots of times and then find I can't continue it. The last two months have been difficult. I came to the decision that I was not being the best person I could be due to the management, in fact I was becoming a person I don't like, so Steve and I made the decision that I'd quit my job. I've been out of work for three weeks now. In January I'll start looking again and will see what comes up. There are so many things to say in this post yet I find that i still am unable to open myself up to do so. Maybe soon.

humor

one of Skip's stories

So Skip and I were talking today about the casket mix up and he told me that a couple years ago he had two Russian guys. He was embalming the second one and someone had set the clothes near the table for the first guy. Well, Skip ended up mixing the clothes, he said, "Heck, they both had long names that I couldn't pronounce." So the family came for the service the next day and said the guy looked great only they didn't know whose clothes he had on. I was laughing so hard. I can't imagine how I'd feel seeing my dead husband in someone else's clothes. I asked Skip what he did and he said, "Whaddaya think? I switched the heads!"

Then we were both laughing so hard.

It's what we say to each other alot ever since one of my girlfriends emailed me a joke about Bubba the Mortician. There's probably a website of Bubba the Mortician jokes somewhere, but i've not looked for it.

It was very good for me to have Skip to make me laugh today. I needed it.

the man's an idiot

JK (Jargon King) is stupid. Plain old stupid. I had a viewing yesterday for the father of a well-known author who lives here locally. She's also a member of my church (not that i know her, several thousand people go there at different service times, plus i probably wouldn't know her anyway, not quite the same circles we run in, although she was mostly down to earth and very nice, and she gave me two signed books). Anyway, this isn't really about her, although i was a little intimidated to be honest. It's about the viewing of her father. The family was scheduled to be there yesterday at 4:00 for the family preview, followed by extended family viewing at 5, and then public viewing at 7pm. At 1pm, JK tells me there was a little bad news. According to him, the casket company sent me the wrong size casket. I ordered a 1X and he said they sent two regular sized ones, one for me one for the Gardens. He told me how he'd measured mine and it was regular and he called the company and they told him mine had not been delivered, so he measured the one he had again and determined it to be his. So he put his tiny little old lady in it. Only to then somehow find out it was mine. I was livid. LIVID. I just looked at him. I said, "Didn't you or anyone else think to look at the family name on the delivery sheet?" "Well, uh, um, No." "Didn't you wonder why it had handles on both ends, not just the sides?" "What does that have to do with it?" Oh my word. According to what he's told me, he supposedly managed 44 funeral homes for one corporation. According to what he told our courier it was 66. So, supposedly he has a TON of funeral experience, yet somehow he doesn't know that this most common of oversized caskets, has handles on both ends. "Why didn't anyone call me?" "No disrespect intended, but we didn't think you'd know." There was no point arguing. It was done. So what was being done to fix it. Well, let me back up. At my funeral home, we don't have a very good lift system. In fact we have a horrible one. Once before I got there Skip lost a big man while using it. Then last summer, me and Szechwan and another guy lost a big lady. It was mortifying. We all three cried. Szechwan got hurt trying to catch her and the lady was fine. Last week Skip, who's all of 5'6" and 150 lbs, plus he's over 60 and just had a heart attack a few months ago, got whirled around by someone he had in the lift. The guy was in the air and Skip was pushing him to the casket, when he started to whirl and took Skip with him. He said, "It was just like a blippity blip three-ring circus" and "I thought it was in some sort of blankety-blank rodeo". (add your own expletives, you'll probably choose the right ones) Anyway he grabbed the casket and got the guy wrestled in. But he wasn't willing to take the chance with my big guy. Skip planned to use the stationary ceiling lift at the Gardens to put him into his casket, which is why my guy and his casket were over there instead of at my funeral home. And of course Skip was at my funeral home doing some embalming when JK decided to help out.

A long and angry story short. Tiny lady in my 1x casket. My guy is dressed with no place to go. The casket company saved the day and five guys built me a new one, delivered it to the Gardens AND stayed to help Skip put my guy in it. Then he (Casket Company Guy) helped Skip get the casket in the van so he could drive it over to me, all by 4pm. How amazing is that. Except. JK had already made me call the family to tell them viewing would have to be an hour later, "because the casket company had delivered the wrong casket". I didn't know what else to tell them, so i lied like he told me to. Then i hung up the phone and cried. And cried. I am so overwhelmed with work right now and then a huge screw up like this. I was so frustrated. The family was mad.

When it all worked out and the casket company saved the day, JK called me and told me to call the family back and tell them they could still come at 4. I refused. They'd already rescheduled what they needed and I thought it would be much less professional to call them back and say never mind. I'd already done as much damage control as possible and didn't want to give them any reason to question the situation more.

The viewing was great, it really turned into more of a service kind of thing. Great music, lots of sharing. The real service was today at a church and JK came to my home when it was time for the family to come over for a last viewing before closing the casket for good. He wanted to apologize to the family for the casket company's mix up. What???? I forbade him from speaking to them about it. There was no point in drawing it to their attention any more. They were pleased with how he looked, the chapel was full of flowers and their viewing was a wonderful time of great stories, there was no reason to remind them that we'd messed up. I tried not to let JK be alone with any of them.

The best part of it all is that the Casket Guy called me this morning to verify that i wasn't angry with them because he doesn't want to lose my business. He said JK gave him back the extra one (the real one that the old lady belonged in) and that they'd measured it at their warehouse, and it definitely was the narrow or regular-sized one. He said aloud what I knew. JK messed up and put the lady in the wrong one and then started trying to blame everyone else. I thanked him profusely for saving the day and told him how happy the family was even if they saw him later. He and his crew totally saved us on this one. It was reassuring to know that everyone involved knew what really happened. It all would have been much easier to stomach had the idiot just admitted it rather than blaming others. Even today he started in with it again. He's an idiot and somehow i still gotta figure out how to treat him with respect for the position he holds even though I do not respect him. This is a lesson I keep getting in life. Mostly because I've worked for a bunch of idiots, I guess.

long week

I'm exhausted. Completely. At least today I only got one more new call. I'm floating ten calls right now and I feel like a juggler. The new manager, Jargon King, calls me from The Gardens every morning and puts me on speaker phone for their morning meeting and asks how they can help me today. I've said no thanks because the last person who came to help had no idea what to do and it took longer to teach her how to use the typewriter and the copy machine than it was worth, until yesterday when I asked for someone to come over and do a preneed arrangement for me. That idiot had no idea what to do. He stammered and stuttered and said, "Uh, we have four services today and we don't have anyone to help you." I wanted to ask, "why then are you wasting my time, i'm too far behind to participate in the pretense that you're supporting me." The Boss's daughter piped up that maybe her older sister could come over and help. JK then spewed some crap like, "oh, now there's an idea, I didn't realize we could utilize her knowledge in this way. Noelle, I'll see what I need to do in order to facilitate making this happen for you. I'll get you the support you need to be successful today and we'll be in touch to fill you in on a timeframe." All i could think of was, "ok". Gone was my own silver tongue. IDIOT (spoken aloud in true Napoleon-ese after hanging up the phone ).

Ok, here's a few of my families.
1. Dad, 80s, natural causes. Daughter, 40s, caretaker for him and for Mom, who has dementia. Dtr brought Mom to arrangement conference. Dtr has the biggest circles under her eyes, she's exhausted, and she cries, for what i think is probably the first time. She's given up her own life to care for her parents who aren't wealthy people and she has no idea how she'll pay for a 650 dollar cremation. I am deeply saddened when she pushes Mom's wheelchair out to the car.
2. Wife, 58, liver cancer. Diagnosis to death = 6 weeks. Husband, devasted. Four children early 20s to early 30s. Two grandchildren who'll never get to know her. They're all in shock. Her daughter and I have swapped emails about the folders. Her last one was signed "love, X". I cried to see it. She's so vulnerable right now that she absentmindedly included me in her circle of trusted ones. She and her dad, Husband of deceased, came in this afternoon to make sure the CD she'd burned would work in our sound system. It did. I think she just wanted to come in to sit in our chapel for a few moments. Husband said she was a little upset with him cuz he'd had a drink before coming in there. I chuckled and said I often want to have a drink before coming in.
3. Boy, 12, brain cancer. He came to us from the same social worker as the Stripper's son some months ago. Born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Ward of the courts. Passed from home to home all of his life until 3 years ago when he got to go to Guardian's home where he became a part of a real family for the first time ever. Guardian and Social Worker made the arrangements together. The three of us cried alot and I didn't even know the Boy. They're having a memorial service this weekend at a local high school cafeteria where there'll be corndogs, hot dogs, cookies, and fun stuff that a 12 year old boy loved. No vegetables and no fruit because he wouldn't have eaten it. How fun.
4. Husband, 60s, blew off head in front of wife. Held gun to her head first and said he should kill her because then there'd be no way for him to chicken out and not kill himself. After terrifying her he pulled the gun back to himself. Asshole. She's so angry. And confused. And sad. There is nothing more selfish than to take one's own life. They just bought a new truck and a fifth wheel and were planning their retirement. I am trying not to judge him too harshly because i don't think that suicide should cancel out the entirety of a life. It's an act of desperation and I do understand feeling that way. Maybe it's why it's so draining to me. I've felt that desperate before, I get where he was coming from. But I chose to think of those around me whereas he chose to wallow in himself. That's the part I don't understand, making the decision to ignore the pain of family and friends left behind and making the decision to take the most selfish path there is. I just don't get it.

I long for 95 year olds who die peacefully in the night. I'm a little tired.

meme (i don't know how to pronounce that)

Tag, I'm It
Patience tagged me and since I'm worrried about the cost of her therapy should I ignore her, I decided to play along. No fancy fonts or colors or anything but questions and answers.

1. Are you happy/ satisfied with your blog, with its content and look?
Yes. It's plain, but it's functional. Content has been a bit lean of late though.

2. Does your family know about your blog? Only my husband

3. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing? No. I'm not embarrassed, but i've also not shared it with some people.

4. Do blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts? Maybe i'm a little too dense or perhaps a little too shallow because i read blogs for entertainment, not so much for changes in my philosophy.

5. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself? Commenters and my own exploring. Although i've not really been able to come across any subject i've been looking for. I just land on random blogs.

6. What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog? it's kind of weird to see that the count goes any higher than the number of times i look at my own blog in order to click the links on it.

7. Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures? no. Well, they're all thin and beautiful and absolute fashionistas (am i using that word in the right context?)

8. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging? it helps me clear my mind sometimes and entertains me other times.

9. Do you think that bloggers’ society is isolated from the real world or interacts with events? isolated.

10. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing? I've not been criticized in my blog nor would i care if someone who didn't know me in real life said anything critical.

11. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them? There are political blogs?

12. Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers? didn't know about it.

13. Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die? Not until reading this question. I think it would be appropriate for my husband to write the last blog, which could tell all about my funeral. tee-hee.

14. What do you like to hear? What’s the song you might like to put a link to, in your blog? I would not like to hear music. I would leave the blog without bothering to read.

1. Name the person, with link, who tagged you. Patience
2. Complete the questionnaire without changing the questions. Ok
3. Tag people. No

Catalogs I get in the mail

ho hum

Well, New FD is gone now and it's quiet in my home again. It's kinda sucky. We don't always stay busy enough for two people, so the workload is fine right now, but if I get any more new calls tomorrow, I might officially be overwhelmed. I've had four calls this week, plus did all the pre-planning for one that will die soon. Have I explained that before? When we get a new death, we call them first calls. A first call is simply the count of a new death, maybe it means when the family or hospital or whoever first contacts us to report the death. My home does between 18-24 calls a month. Our big home does between 75-85 a month, quite a difference. It also explains why they don't seem to be in a big hurry to get me a new director. They're too busy keeping their fingers in the dam across town cuz directors are quitting like crazy.

I'm pretty angry this week with The Boss and New Mgr. Well, i don't actually know if that's true. My husband Steve (similar to my wife Kara who hates hearing birds out her window in the morning when she's trying to sleep, but that's a different blog and has nothing to do with this rant) travels alot and i miss him more than usual lately. Sometimes I don't mind that he's gone so much, sometimes it's overwhelming. Summer seems to have passed us by. No camping or hiking or almost anything outdoors. I can't believe it's almost fall. Anyway, Steve's schedule is impossible for the next three months, even some weekends he'll be gone. So, what I don't know is if i'm mad about work or if work feels overwhelming cuz I'm unhappy with all this quality time alone. Well, I do have the little dog, but he is entirely insane now and I don't know how much longer I can watch him suffer. I am so rambling. My dog's a' dying, my husband's traveling, and my job is sucking. I could be a country singer. Or not. I might not be hating my job like think I am, it could be just that I'd rather be traveling with Steve, which he'd like too. But at work, they ARE taking advantage of me and they don't seem to care. If I were the owner, I'd want to pay people less and have more money for my own vacation home in the mountains, so i get that that's how life works. Owners get benefits, employees not so much. That's fine AND I would never complain as long as I felt that I were valued and treated fairly. But I'm not right now. They're paying me to be the receptionist when really I've run the place since the first funeral director retired and now I'm doing everything and I'm being paid very poorly. The pay is a pretty big deal to me, since I make now what I earned in 1990. Not that I didn't willingly take this job, I did.

I am so whining right now. and probably not making sense. Just thinking out loud really and wondering why my dang "Magic 8 Ball" even hates me and gave me every synonym of NO when I asked repeatedly, "Should I quit my job and travel with Steve?" I even tried to trick it by asking, "Are you certain that you're pointing me in the right direction?" but then it changed it's tune and yelled out "Most Definitely". What the heck.

New Mgr is an absolute putz. I think I'll call him Jargon King as he spews crap all day long and thinks it's okay to do so as long as he smiles that pearly white smile with that impossibly spiked hair in that ridiculous pinned striped suit with french cuffs and those dang things what are they called? oh yeah, cuff links and even pants that have cuffs, which is amazingly stupid since he's short and they make him look shorter. Well i think he's short, probably 5'10", but don't tell my son I think that's short, cuz i'm taller than him when I'm wearing heels and it reminds me of working for a Japanese company where i always had to slouch so I wouldn't be towering over engineers who didn't want to be looking UP at me while they were telling me what to do.

My dog is continuously growling and snapping at air. I've not slept well this whole week cuz he growls all night long even if I put him in bed and shove him under the comforter so that he can't hear any outside noise.

And I'm so tired of stupid people who call me at ten to 5 and ask what time I close and when I tell them 5 they just say ok, I'll be right there. Then I'm stuck there till 6:15 and miss my hair appt, which is fine because it was just a trim, but I really couldn't afford to miss the eyebrow wax as any second now i'm sure I'll have a full uni-brow. Not to mention the granny mustache.

AND I'M NOT MAKING ANY DANG MONEY! Whew. I'll hush up now.

new FD. Again.

Well, tomorrow is New FD's last day. He gave his notice a couple weeks ago. I'm beginning to get a complex. I keep them for about 6 months each and then they leave me. Ha. The first one retired. The second moved to the state where her husband lives to try to be a real married couple. And now this one is going to another funeral home. He says he really likes working with me, but he knows that he's going to keep getting dragged over to the bigger FH and it's entirely too stressful. So the home he's going to is about the same size as the one we work at now.

We did get a new manager, finally, and New FD is a little bummed to be going now, just cuz he'd like to have his own stories to tell about the new guy. Everyone seems to know everyone in this industry and no one has anything good to say about Manager. In fact, most things are down right weird or stupid. He's probably around 40 and he dresses like a stereotypical pimp. His hair is ridiculous and although I've not seen her, his wife is said to be overtanned and blonde blonde. Pretty people, yuck. I guess at one place he used to work, he used to take off his shirt at lunch time and go cruising around in his topless jeep. That probably sounds tame, but this is a mostly straight arrow middle class man industry and parading oneself draws attention unneccessarily. At another home, I guess he used to take the company suburban cruising down a street known for prostitutes.

Anyway I wasn't so much meaning to write about him or really even about losing New FD, just change once again. It's constant in this job for me. Change.

dreams

Mrs. B died last week at 86, a long full life, the kind I've grown to like burying. Her two dtrs-in-law came in to make the arrangements. They sent her sons in the next day just to sign the forms. The one dtr, Alice, and I really hit it off. She's very outgoing and she volunteers for a grief support program for children who've lost someone, so she's sort of in my industry. Friday she brought in clothes for Mrs. B, she'd planned to come in Thursday but ran out of time. After she visited for awhile and told us some jokes, she was headed out. I walked her to the door and she said, "Noelle, Keep Mrs. B in tonight, no more letting her out to run around naked." I was like what??? She said she dreamed during the night that I'd let her out and she went to Alice's house to get some clothes. Then she was going to her granddaughters house to get a different outfit. Alice told her no she she couldn't go around town naked and she frantically called me to come and pick Mrs. B back up. Then she woke up in a panic. It made me laugh but also tickled my memory to the dream I'd awaken in a panic from Thursday night. It was weird. I rarely have dreamed about work, well that I remember anyway. But I dreamed that I was sitting at my desk when someone called, they were very excited, speaking quickly and loudly, just short of yelling and asking me to look for it. I didn't know what i was to look for, they said look in the back or out the front door but you have to find it. I looked out the front door and it was pitch black. Not the black of night, because night to me means street lights, cars passing, business lights, this was just plain black. I was scared. I went back to the phone and said that I couldn't see anything and I was so sorry. Then I woke up with heart pounding and sweat pouring. I don't know if Alice's dream came into my dream or mine was part of hers or what. It was very odd and freaked me out a little. Monday Alice thanked me for keeping Mrs. B. in all weekend. We both laughed, but neither laugh was genuine.

Abe Lincoln

A few weeks back me, Skip, and New FD went to a casket place to hear their schpiel (sp?). They had a BBQ and a traveling road show for sales. I didn't eat and my feet hurt from standing so long and listening. But they did have a lifesize replica of Abe Lincoln's coffin. It was pretty cool. Way smaller than I thought it should be. I guess I always thought of him as really tall and thin, but the coffin didn't seem that long, like maybe a 5'10" person would fit easily.

Anyway. I'm working with a family now whose Dad just died. I did the preneed for the mom and the dad last December. Mr. Z was the president of the local chamber of commerce some years back during our country's bi-centennial. So, he'd grown a beard sans mustache and he looked very similar to Mr. Lincoln. Apparently he liked the look and kept it. At some point he jokingly told his son and daughter that it was actually him, Mr. Z., not good old Abe on the penny. His kids told their friends and soon everyone knew he was on a penny. As his kids grew and had their own children, they were also told Grandpa was on the penny. One of those kids grew and now has two daughters and they are positive Greatpa is on the penny. It's a wonderful thing for kids to think. At the service next week, we'll hand out little envelopes with a shiny new penny in them to all who attend. I think it's a great touch.

The great granddaughters are awesome. They came with Mr. Z's daughter to pick up his urn. Dtr was having a hard time, so I walked out with her carrying the urn inside a velvet bag. The great-gdtrs were waiting in the car. I was so surprised when one said, "What's in that bag, Noelle?" She knew my name. It made me smile. I said it looks like you dropped something out the window. It wasn't my place to say, "Greatpa". So she said, "what's in that bag Noelle has, Gramma?" Her Gramma said, "Buckle your seatbelt". I chuckled. She got into the driver's seat and I handed her the urn. She sat it in the passenger seat and the older girl (9 yrs?) jumped out of her seatbelt and reached up front and knocked on the urn. "What's in there?" Knock, knock, knock. I thought his daughter was gonna die. She looked at me and whispered, "She knocked on Greatpa". I laughed right out loud and then finished a conversation she and I'd been having inside, "yep, that's exactly how God wants us to love Him. Just like a little child full of enthusiasm and curiousity." She smiled and then she knew it was okay for the little girl to knock on the urn. And it was okay.

This is a family of symbols. They don't say good bye, only see you later. And when leaving one another's homes, they wave till they can't see each other any more. The first time they left my office, I stood on the porch and waved till I couldn't see their arms sticking out of the car waving to me anymore. I felt a little silly to be standing there waving with tears streaming down my face, but I didn't care. I just kept waving till I was sure they were gone. I went back inside, wiped my eyes, and went back to work. Next week we, as a chapel full of family and friends, will wave goodbye to Mr. Z after the service as his family carries him out. I'm kind of looking forward to it in a weird way. I've grown to really care about his family, they're just good people.

Today I'm reminded of what an amazing job this is. Getting to share a little part of a family's life in such an intimate way. It's really an honor to get to be a part of their lives even for this short a time.

Skeleton Fingerprints

Really.
Or not.
Last week I was cleaning the windows at the front door. It's actually a wall of rectangular windows in the lobby. I don't know why it's my job to clean them. Or to clean the dang toilets either, but I'll try to stay on task. Well, usually there are toddler-sized hand prints on one of the bottom windows, probably the child of one of the church members (we rent the building to a church on Sundays and Wednesday eves). This time there were skeleton fingerprints on the outside of the window by the door. I'm sure there's a logical explanation, I think someone was trying to open the door with their right hand and maybe lost their balance and grabbed the framing with their left and then their first three fingertips dragged across the window. That's the best we can figure. HOWEVER. It looks exactly like an x-ray pic of three fingers that are kind of curved like they were going to grab a baseball. It's very fun, so I didn't clean that window. ;)
I've showed it to everyone who comes in and have heard lots of fun stories. OK, I've showed to everyone in the business who comes in, not to families. The Crematory Gal told me today that she used to work at one place that had a wall full of windows like ours. A guy came in, well a dead guy, it's not like he walked in, but he came in with a gunshot in the middle of his forehead and a very horrified look on his face with his mouth open. A couple days later as she was going into work, there he was staring at her from one of the windows. She got someone else to come look and they saw him too, in shadows, his face with the bullet hole and open mouth. Everyone saw him even if she didn't tell them what to look for, just to look. "Somehow" that window pane was broken a few weeks later, I think she did it, but she wouldn't admit it. The pane was replaced and in two weeks, he came right back. He was still there when she went to work somewhere new.
She was laughing when she told me she asked her husband last night what he thinks it means when someone hears voices all around them, whispers in the background. She said, "spirits?". He laughed, "no, schizophrenia".

an old draft

July 6th
So last week, I stayed home Wednesday after being so mad and leaving early Tuesday. Thursday and Friday were then insane. Absolutely. The screaming inside my head was back in full force before it even fully subsided. It's seven days later and i'm still not okay again.

We had two casualties of our own war. The first was a family who we were able to fix things with. We got their mom out late (one hour late) for viewing. They were very pleased when we got her out (even though I had to change her lipstick color because the director who came over to help wouldn't listen to me and put on "natural" color when she wore bright red. Her family didn't want to see her in "natural", what an idiot. I did enjoy the I told you so. Except that removing and re-coloring is very difficult. Sometimes the lips are built up with a wax like substance so they look better, so then it's hard to get one color off and then be successful in getting another color to stick.) The service went smoothly and they ended up happy. Well as happy as can be when burying one's mom. Super great family.

The next family, not so happy. I woke up the last three nights fretting over how to make things right, which we can not do. There are two of us here, me and New FD. We sometimes get help from the other funeral home, but they've had no one to help us except the aforementioned director who came over to help dress the women in these two paragraphs. They're always busy busy at The Gardens and this past week was one of their craziest as well. Everyone was determined to have their service before the 4th of July. It was horrible for this family. Everything that could go wrong did and then some. I'm sick about it. Literally. Sick. I want to be equitable and say that some of it was my fault, but I'm not fully buying it. But, to say that it was New FD's fault isn't entirely true either. He's not a self-manager and I can't tell him what to do. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming but I'm just so dang angry. Not so much with him, just at how horribly wrong the whole week was. We can't fix things for this family and neither of us knows what to do.

Little Miss Ainsleigh

I am now the proud grandmother of a beautiful little girl. Ainsleigh Noelle was born yesterday at 5:55 pm. (just in time as my sister's 25th anniversary wedding vow renewal was at 7pm and I didn't want to miss it!) Ainsleigh weighs 7 lbs 2oz and is 20 inches long. Yesterday she just looked like a raisin. Today, absolutely beautiful! We went back up to the hospital last night after the anniversary party and again today. I'm already ready to go back again. Tomorrow night we're on big brother duty and maybe Monday night as well.



I'll be back to myself soon I think and there will be TALL tales of death. But perhaps I was more worried about Ainsleigh and about the family we messed up with than I realized. New FD and I talked at length yesterday about that family (they wrote a letter of complaint) with our Boss. I started to cry, how embarrassing. Not because The Boss was upset with us, but because the whole thing just makes me sick for the family. We explained what happened and how we tried to remedy it (taking flowers to them and apologizing before we knew they'd sent a letter) and The Boss actually was mad with them for being whiners. (he's so lame) We were actually defending the family's anger, it was weird. I even confessed that on top of it all, I forgot to turn on the AC in the chapel before the service and once it was full of people it heated up to 76 degrees in there and everyone was fanning themselves. They didn't even complain about that in the letter and actually it does make us chuckle in a sick way. It was the icing on the cake. Steve reminded me, as did Sayre, that we didn't kill anybody, so it could have been worse. I'm trying to let go of how guilty I feel about it all, learn from it and move on. Ainsleigh's birth is helping. The cycle of life is so amazing to me.



She's a beautiful little angel.

kinda quiet

I've started lots of posts, they're all sitting in drafts. We blew it with one family and it's been difficult for me to post anything as feel sort of like a fraud. Yes, in the same time period, a lot of other families were pleased with our services. But one family became a casualty of war and there's no excuse for it or way to fix it. We were too short staffed and too busy and we did a poor job. You can mess up a drive through order and still get another chance to feed that mad customer. We can not change the experience someone has when burying their mother. It doesn't go away. It's not like we dropped her or anything horrible, it was a series of small mistakes that added up to one big disaster. We're still trying to work it out with them (and with the owner), we being me and New FD. It's been a difficult few weeks.

On the other hand, we got several return families (good for us, way sad for them), but it tells us we're doing a good job overall. One lady even brought me a beautiful bracelet as a thank you. It was so humbling.

So, for the most part, funeral life is okay. For one family it was horrid and I'm still trying to evaluate and see what I can do differently in the future to keep it from happening again.

Thanks to those of you who've wondered where I've been...