What I learned about death from burying my best friend’s mom
Saying goodbye once is hard enough to do for a loved one, having to do it twice while grieving through 10 months of administration and paperwork errors during a pandemic makes the experience one I will never forget. Training in every profession is necessary but in the business of death, it’s not only just a nice to have, it’s a have to have, and one that must be done well, professionally and with the upmost sensitivity.
We’ve all been there (or at least seen them online) – that crunchy event at the baseball game where the proposal goes awry, the maid of honor declares her love for the groom during the wedding ceremony or in my case, it was a funeral of disastrous proportions. One that was unexpected and 100% preventable.
Lola has been one of my best friends since we met wearing the same New Kids on the Block jacket in the hallway of my middle school. She was one grade lower than me, but it didn’t matter, we had the same interests and ended up hanging with the same people. We just clicked. Through working together at the local movie theater, college, moving away from each other, marriage, babies and so on, we’ve been through all the stuff friends support each other through. So, when her mom who lived out-of-state passed away last September during the COVID-pandemic, the administration of managing her death from afar completely flipped the “regular” process we’ve known of grieving, planning the funeral or memorial and then being able to move on.
Lola had to deal with special arrangements to fly to manage the packing and moving of the personal items left behind and the fact that with all the recent deaths, the morgues were unusually full. Any thought of a “quick” cremation and heading back home in a reasonable amount of time was unheard of so she had to wait. And wait she did. As her friend, I checked in with her often learning about the woes of not being able to even make a date to plan a memorial let alone bury her mother’s remains with her father in our hometown. It was months before she would be delivered to Lola’s home in a beautiful wooden box engraved with her name on it. Though relieved to finally have her mother’s ashes with her, it would be months longer to be able to bury her.
She reached out to the cemetery where her father and brother were buried years before as her mother had purchased a plot next to her father. They settled on a date three months out when the Priest was available, the area could be properly prepared and hopefully the pandemic will have subsided enough to where we could all gather. Lola called out-of-state family and her closest of friends to inform them of the date.
That sunny Friday we all gathered at the beautiful cemetery on the hillside in our hometown to say what we thought was our final goodbyes. My dear friend held her young son’s hand tightly as the priest sprinkled holy water on the box and read some words.... and that’s when the golf cart arrived. Yes, the golf cart. Zipping down the hill in a hurried fashion was a fifty-something year old lady shaking a folder in one hand and barely driving the cart with the other. She was making such a ruckus coming down the hill the group of fifteen of us graveside looked up. The priest had just made his way to his vehicle as his part of the service was over, but the lady’s presence intrigued my two friends and I as we stood there watching as she leaped off the golf cart and made a beeline straight to Lola. She stopped abruptly when she reached her, straightened her misshapen skirt as she began gathering her footing preparing what to say. We watched in awe as she informed her that due to not receiving the right paperwork in time, they would be unable to bury her there that day. Lola was informed she’d have to file the proper paperwork for an out-of-state person, pay another state-mandated fee, wait for the original certificate to be mailed from the newly-approved, local mortuary and THEN they could bury her next to her father. Through tears Lola stated that she had thought she turned in everything, she ran to the car to get her a folder with all the details, but the representative was adamant – her mom was not going to be able to be able to go to her final resting place that day. Lola crumbled. Nine months after her mother had passed away, this chapter still could not come to a close.
After going back and forth with the assistant said she would need to go back to the office to look for more details and verify the email communication. As the remainder of the family stood by in confusion and anger at what this meant, another close friend and I stepped in. We told Lola to lead the family to the wake and we would handle the rest. People slowly dispersed leaving us to manage “the box” and sort out the details with the administration.
We anxiously made our way into the cemetery office as the employee frantically scanned through emails to ‘prove’ she didn’t have the document required. I calmly replied, “How could this have happened? Wouldn’t this be something you would have called the appointed person prior to the service? Why would you do this on the day and in front of her family?” She continually repeated the same account, that she was just ‘filling in’ because the actual person was on vacation, but she cannot be left with any ‘items’ there because it was not done properly. It ‘could not happen’. After going back and forth we concluded that I would be tasked with holding onto Mom and would be managing the processing and delivering of the paperwork needed. Had some simple processes been in place my friend would not have had to experience the trauma of a leaving a funeral service with the remains above ground.
As an events producer for my day job, I live with checklists – when the form was not received by “X” date it should have triggered a reminder on the operations end at the cemetery then phone call should have been made to explain the process (again if necessary) for the family to know that nothing can happen without that paperwork. The miss was in the reminder and that was in their hands for the clarification of details for our loved one’s observance. In no way should someone from the office interject themselves at the end of a service. Special care should be taken when working with families of the deceased and an understanding that nothing is normal for anyone during that time – but when you slap the COVID pandemic on top of that – you have a masterpiece of a ‘not normal’ death.
As I made my way through their cemetery and onto the local mortuary, I reflected on my own father’s passing many years prior and how I had no idea all the items that come when someone dies and if you happen to be the next of kin, or the person appointed, you are now the one in charge of it all. The administration of death is a beast. The emotions of the circumstances plus the logistics and financial decisions can easily work up to be one of the most traumatic events one can go through besides the actual loss of your loved one.
Training in the field of customer service in the funeral industry must be one of exemplary service (think at the level of butlers/house managers/and the like) and with all my engagements at the beginning of that morning, it was a total miss. Then I walked into the mortuary to pay the mandated $37 fee for our out-of-state Floridian resident to become a permanent resident of California officially (again) and my mind completely changed. This place was calm, serene and everyone I encountered was extremely put together. Opposite of the cemetery with stacks of paper everywhere, their attendant frantically searching for the email, at this location, their professionalism was the solace I needed on the weirdest of days. Their administrators reviewed for me exactly what was going to happen and all the items that were needed. I provided them the items requested, they made a copy and they let me know that once they have the original certificate in hand, they would call me to pick up or they could mail it to the cemetery. Easily communicated and I was on my way back to meet up with my friend and her family.
It took three weeks to get the original certificate needed into the hands of the proper person at the cemetery to get a new date to ‘re-intern’ Lola’s mother. I had been connecting with the cemetery weekly to confirm the snail mail from “all the way across town” finally delivered the original certificate they required in order to move ahead. During the last call she mentioned, “We should probably discuss the ‘re-intern’ fee at this point. It’s to cover the labor to make the space again. How would you like to cover that $700?” I chuckled in response, “Well,” I said matching her snide attitude, “According to your paperwork and policies, it should not have been opened the first time so I am sure that any subsequent fees will be waived because of the status of how this was all handled. Don’t you agree?” From the pause on the other end of the phone line, I knew that it was a solid ask. “I’ll discuss with management” she said curtly, “But your date is now confirmed.” With that I hung up, mixed emotions of anger as well as happiness that this was almost over.
Ultimately, management waived the fee.
That Monday arrived and I flew up to be with Lola, her husband, and my mom as we went to say goodbye again. The workers from the cemetery stood on the side while we placed the box on the velvet covered table. We nodded an ‘okay’ which gave them the go ahead to begin the placement. We stood at a close distance as they began to put her….in the wrong spot. Yes, the wrong grave. The form he was holding showed her father’s location, not the one that was next to it. He informed us that he was planning to move her Father’s headstone to dig under. The man showed us his paperwork and then we motioned to the new mound next to it, sharing the actual location and divulging the circumstances around the placement. He apologized for the error and then correctly placed Lola’s mother in her permanent resting spot. Though we all felt the 3-minute panic episode was more like “You’ve got to be kidding me!” but it was handled and the four of us made our way to a local gathering spot to toast closing the chapter on the most unusual of endings to an already unfortunate goodbye experience.
Recently a colleague of mine passed away far too early due to cancer and her memorial was one of the most beautiful, heartfelt gathering of souls to honor the life she had created during her years here. We all deserve a seamless goodbye. Losing a loved one is never easy but when lack of compassion affects the operations of a funeral, that moment of interruption will be felt by the family forever. In the end, Lola’s mother is now finally at rest next to her husband of 41 years and all that other stuff was just a good story for her final adventure.
MT
