Eight: The Shift

Brett, 37

I’ve worked in the funeral industry for 20 years … in February [2019]. [I came] straight out of high school into the family business. The plan was never to end up here. I thought I’d work for a bit, earn some money, go travelling, then go to Uni and then start whatever career I was going to have.

So… it was as much of a surprise to myself as to anybody else that once I did start working here I thought, actually, I really like this job and I guess, it sort of fell on my feet a little bit. If dad wasn’t a Funeral Director, I would never have been a Funeral Director I don’t think.

I’m always intrigued about our staff. What made you pick being a Funeral Director?

For me, it seemed like an easy choice to do a little, gap-year sort of a job. That then turned into a job that I actually really love and [I] probably couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

I wanted to be a Physio, only I didn’t really have any passion for it. I was flicking through the book that they give you in Year 12. So, I thought I’ll do that. I [ended] up never doing it. I found that actually this is what I enjoy and what I want to do.

The satisfaction level is very high, I think, in this job. Doing a good job is very meaningful to people. The people that we deal with obviously come in at the worst time in their lives. We can only do the best job that we can and, I guess, their grief is for them to deal with with their family and their friends. The way we can help is by giving that person the farewell that they want, that’s important to them.

[Also a bit of the logistical stuff. Taking up a bit of the slack and making it easier for someone to go through that process.]

A good example is that we say to people, “Would you like us to organise the flowers? You are welcome to do that yourselves of course.” Most people say, “You guys should just look after it”. It’s one less thing to worry about. So all those logistical things… and then you get to the end of the funeral and people give you hugs and kisses and send cards, the odd bottle of wine, boxes of chocolates and stuff.

That’s really kind of people to do that when they’re the ones who have suffered this big loss. To take the time to write a card… you don’t become jaded to that sort of thing.

[It’s comforting in its own way.]

We deal with some pretty horrible situations and sometimes physically confronting things. You know if you would be a good Funeral Director or that maybe you should be doing a different job if the negatives outweigh the positives.

If those shitty situations that you have to deal with, if you take that home and you don’t have the satisfaction you get from actually turning that situation into a helpful experience for the people, then that’s when you get into trouble.

There’s definitely a perception out there in the community [that there is exploitation of the bereaved] and it’s definitely something I’ve heard about.

We are Funeral Directors in a regional area so our idea is that we need to look after everybody. Rich, poor, Catholic, Muslim… Whatever. At the end of the day, there’ll be a bill for the funeral. We want the bill to be paid so there is no incentive for us to upsell or land people with a bill that they can’t afford.

When we do [a] funeral arrangement, we have to be as conscious of that as the families so that they’re not making decisions that, at the end of the day, are going to affect their ability to actually pay the bill. That they are not going over and above what’s affordable to them.

Sometimes people do. Naturally, people want the best for their loved one and sometimes they consider the best being an expensive casket when really they might only be able to afford a more basic casket.

Our job in that situation would be to say that we can perhaps spend a little bit more on the flowers and have a more basic casket or have a flag or something personal over the coffin if [they] are worried [about] what people think.

We’ve got the same incentive as the family in not overspending.

There’s financial assistance out there with different government departments and things like that. Sometimes that means, particularly with the Department of Communities, they will pay for an entire funeral if people don’t have any means. The funeral is [then] governed by what the Department of Communities say.

Sometimes it’s actually talking to families about that saying, “You are eligible for this funding but it means”, to use the casket example, “You can’t have the flash casket. This is the casket that the Department of Communities pay for but you are not going to be left in the situation where you have a debt that you can’t manage.”

Finance is definitely a big part of what we need to talk about with people.

We have to have one person who signs the contract. The person that signs the contract generally is the person who is going to pay the bill. They’re also the person that we have got the agreement with [and] they would make the decisions. Sometimes choosing that person from the family can be difficult for the family. Sometimes it’s straight forward.

[Almost like an Executor?]

It gets a little bit complicated as far as legal authority goes because the Executor might be someone who is not even in the family but then they do have an ultimate authority. If there is a conflict, the Executor can sort that out but only if they are following instructions that are in the Will.

Sometimes conflict can get really complicated. Often the conflict’s more about the service itself. Where it’s going to be? What day is it? Are we going to have a viewing? “We don’t want these people to be there at all” and that sort of thing.

It’s not usually about finance so much. Not that I’ve seen.

Quite often you’ll have different opinions on different things. To use the coffin as an example again, one likes the white one, one likes the timber one or whatever. Generally it’s not a huge deal, they’ll sort themselves out.

[There are] some things we can help with or give advice. Part of what we do is probably a little bit of conflict resolution at a very basic level. But things like that, we don’t really want to step in to that decision.

[Conflict] is definitely happening more often. I’m noticing a lot more family conflict which is understandable when somebody’s died. If there’s an issue that goes back years and then you have a death, you’ve got grief magnifying all those emotions and everything.

People feel left out of decision making or that they didn’t get what they wanted. Funerals can be pretty stressful times anyway but when there’s conflict, it does get magnified.

I’m yet to see a brawl break out [laughs] it’s only been verbal thus far. It’s trying times for people.

Often times as well, the funeral and the arrangements go well and then the conflict happens afterwards. Like the death certificate or the Will doesn’t go the way people want it or “now I’ve got the ashes and I’m not giving you anything” and that sort of thing. There’s lots of those sort of those trigger points along the way.

Whenever people say [that there should be an open floor during the funeral] we do caution them because it [can] really work well. Sometimes you get the people that love an audience and then other times you get nobody that comes up and then it’s awkward silence.

A lot of families, when you are making arrangements, will have some pretty dark jokes and they’ll always apologise and say, “Sorry, it’s just how we get through it”. You can understand it. It’s one of things that if you can’t laugh at something, what can you do?

There’s a lot of characters out there … at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be a reflection on the person’s life. If the person was a character and had some funny stories and that’s how people knew them, if they didn’t have some of those funny stories then people would walk away going, “What was that about?”

You’re only going to go to someone’s funeral if you love them or like them and what made you love them or like them is the good times and the good memories that you have. That’s what the funeral should be about. The reason people are sad is because you are not going to have anymore [time] with that person. It’s like remembering all that stuff and then going, it’s a real shame we’re not going to do that again. That was good times.

[The funeral can also be a counter to the preceding months. So, for example, if someone was quite ill, the funeral can be a positive end to that experience.]

For example, if someone might have been quite ill for a period of time – maybe they have Alzheimers or they have been battling cancer for five years or something – and then that ends. The people take it as an opportunity to go, “The last 5-10 years wasn’t mum. This is what mum was.”

They look further back and go, “We’re glad that’s over”, because she would have hated it when she was struggling or the pain was too much. “Let’s not remember mum for that because that’s not who she was, that’s just something that happened to her towards the end of her life.”

Our job [when someone is traumatised by the death of a loved one] would be to point those people in the right direction where they can get help. We’ve got some relationships with different people, some counsellors and various centres. There’s people in the community and that’s their job.

We have to be careful not to do that because it’s not our job.

We’ve got our part to play in the whole grief and bereavement thing. Getting things right. Helping people craft something that’s meaningful and then executing the plan…. And that’s enough. It’s enough to worry about.

You go to grief training sessions and different events where you have grief counsellors and everything. The common theme seems to be that 80% of people are going to get through it ok. It’s going to be a battle but they’re going to, with the support of family and friends, get to the other side… Not the other side…. The initial grief will deplete enough that they can get on with their life.

There’s a percentage of people that actually do need professional assistance and so we don’t need to help the 80% and we can’t help the 10, 15, 20% that need professional guidance. We say to those people that this is a place that you can get assistance or this is a person who you might want to speak to.

I’ve got three boys and I can already see, particularly with one of them, [that he] doesn’t want to talk about feelings. [He] bottles things up and he’s only seven. It doesn’t seem to be anything to do with how we have treated him or nurtured him, it just seems to be entirely his nature.

I’m pretty passionate about getting people to talk about death and dying and bereavement because it’s a fact of life. You can’t avoid it.

If bravery is a quality you’d associate with being manly or masculine, then people should confront those issues, feelings and everything. That is actually being brave. It’s not being brave by holding it in and bottling it up. It’s not being strong because it has to come out.

[It can come out in bad ways.]

Exactly, the other part of a funeral is having the support of your family and friends and community. If you bottle it up and say, “Mum wouldn’t want us to cry”, it’s going to come out because you can’t hold it in forever. It’s much better for it to come out at a funeral where everyone is there for the expressed purpose to support you than for you to be sitting at home at midnight after a bottle of Scotch wondering what you’re doing with yourself.

I’ve had a few experiences [where we’ve done the funeral service for someone I know personally.] Nobody that’s close to my age. It’s been uncles, grandparents, that sort of thing or people I know, but not close friends, that have been a similar age.

I guess you never know how you are going to react to being directly involved in the funeral until it happens and then it’s like, “This is why I’m a Funeral Director”. I feel like I can do something. I’m glad I’m a Funeral Director because I can actually do something. I’ve got a purpose in this whole situation.

[Rather than just being an observer of the process.]

Yeah… Knowing what I know and doing what I do, if I had to just sit there in the crowd and [be] a mourner without having some way I could help, it would be really weird.

I’d done a few funerals for people who I knew that were younger but they weren’t close friends. I did have close friends that were friends with them and things like that.

I studied in Canada for a couple of years, did a funeral service course, worked over there and became an embalmer while I was over there as well.

While I was over there, my uncle – who’s not really my uncle but close enough – he died. He had a brain tumour and was expected to die.

Being on the other side of the world, I thought in the lead up that I wouldn’t go back for the funeral because it was so far.

But then as soon as I heard that he’d died, I [decided] that I have to go back for the funeral. His wife wanted to see him with a viewing and everything. He was going to be embalmed and I thought, “I have to do that.”

I wouldn’t want anyone else to do it. I’ve embalmed the odd uncle since.

It’s not something that I could have said beforehand. I think once it happens, when it’s somebody that you know, everybody wants to help in the way that they can. I happened to have these particular skills and that’s my way that I can help.

I think it would be different for different people as well. My embalming tutor in Canada actually embalmed both of his parents… I don’t know if I could do that but, again, I didn’t think I would have done my uncle either.

[Laughs] If I stuff something up, I’m not going to kill them so I can see why the surgeon [shouldn’t work on a close relative].

If I did the embalming [of a close relative] and I didn’t do a good job, I’d rather that than someone else did it and they didn’t do a good job. I’d be annoyed and pissed off.

I think it’s great and I love it when people [dress the body]. I think lots of times it’s difficult for people. Lots of people just go, “No, why would I want to do that.”

There’s a certain segment of people that go, “I’d love to go do that”, and they really get something out of it.

We don’t help if people don’t want us to but often they’d like us to just be there. If we need to help roll or something then we can do that.

Being in the room in those times with people, you can really see that it’s almost like a little weight gets lifted off their shoulders.

[It’s a ritual and, regardless of their affiliations, ritual is actually quite important.]

I’m quite interested in that whole thing as well. Rituals, ceremonies, shared rituals and things like that.

Personally, I’m not religious at all but I think we might be losing something, as a culture, chucking the baby out with the bath water as we move away from religion.

To me, there’s no truth in any sort of religious ceremony or anything like that but I think there’s meaning.

Having a hundred people in a space where you are using symbols and rituals to express things that aren’t easily said, I think there’s something that’s almost a little bit primitive in that sort of thing.

It’s hard to put things into words and we use symbols in rituals to replace the words. In some ways, people get their own meaning from it but being in a shared space where those ritual things are happening does something for people.

[There is a mild detachment. Maybe when it’s a bit more abstracted, it’s easier to reconcile?]

Kind of a bit like art. You sort of get your own meaning from a painting.

Same [with religions], people sitting there drawing their own meaning, even though it’s explicit in the ceremony that this is what [is happening.]

I don’t think we’ve necessarily got any replacements for those ancient rituals that have got anything more than surface value. I do like the petals, like people putting petals on [the coffin], or people throwing earth in the grave. I think they’re quite good.

It’s something I’ve thought a lot about but I don’t really know the answer to.

I just think getting people together in a group, sometimes words aren’t enough. It has to be something that’s not just tacky or surface level. People actually have to feel engaged in the ritual.

[One of the key motivators for faith and religion is the fear of death so you have to wonder, if you don’t have religion to reconcile that in your life, how do you deal with that problem? That awareness of emptiness? I have been thinking about the fear of death also being a key motivator in creativity. This whole idea of creating something that lives past yourself. You feel, in some ways, that you then have an ‘afterlife’.]

I had to give this talk at an art gallery so it made me think about how do I relate death and funerals to art. This idea of ‘mortality salience’. It’s a psychological term. Basically it’s when people are aware of their own death, that they retreat to those things that are culturally significant. If someone is confronted with their own mortality, they don’t go, “I need to buy a sports car”. They don’t need another iPod.

[It can be something quite simple. In times of conflict or stress, some people will go into a kitchen and cook a lot. It can be practical but it’s also a way for people to deal with their own grief as well. They making something and they are helping. There’s a connective tissue there that makes a lot more sense rather than just standing back.]

In some of the psychological stuff, all great art is motivated by sex and death. It’s creation and destruction. At those times in our lives [when] we are approaching death, creativity manifests.

Outside of actually doing the practicalities of a funeral, I did a eulogy at my uncle’s funeral which I found really good. I found it a really good experience. That’s the only eulogy that I’ve done.

It’s funny, I can’t remember really any details about my pop’s funeral. I was 15.

Nan’s funeral is actually a real blur. I hadn’t been a Funeral Director for long, I was about 20 or 21 [when she died.]

She was really feisty. She was about 4ft [laughs] … short and skinny. She wouldn’t have weighed 50 kilos probably.

She used to live just over there where the chapel is now and was probably the most head-strong person I could think of.

She was stubborn. She still had a wood stove so when we did the renovations here, we built a new house and she had to have a wood stove in it. She refused to have an electric stove because it doesn’t cook the same.

When the house was there, she still had a wash board and a bucket. This is in the late 80s and mum had to twist her arm to get a twin tub washing machine.

“I done it this way for that long. I don’t need these crazy new machines!”

She never learned to drive and would walk back and forth into town every day.

She wasn’t the warmest person but very caring person if you know what I mean. She’s not the cuddly grandma but still very loving. [We had a] great relationship but she [wasn’t] like an open and warm person. [She] would do anything for anybody but she was very practical.

We used to have lunch there every Friday at nan and pop’s house.

I’m an only child. Nan and pop had two kids, dad and my aunty. [My aunty] had two kids so there are two cousins on that side. [My aunty] lived in Perth with her family so down here it was just nan, pop, dad, mum and I.

I don’t know if we ever had any deep and meaningful conversations, probably not. She wasn’t that sort of person really.

[Nan and I] are very dissimilar in a lot of ways.

She had Emphysema and wasn’t allowed to smoke but she used to sneak cigarettes. [Laughs] Maybe that’s why she wanted the wood stove, in hindsight, to mask the smell?!

You’d pull up in the driveway and you’d could see nan standing in the kitchen looking out down the driveway.

“Were you smoking?”

“No, no!” [laughs]

The Emphysema killed her in the end so she probably shouldn’t have been [smoking].

She was getting on. She almost died probably half a dozen times but she battled back.

[She was a] 87-year old grandma who had Emphysema so I wasn’t under any illusions that she was going to last much longer.

She was the only person that I was there when she died. That was quite weird.

We knew it was going to happen at some point. Didn’t know exactly when. It was that definite, completely natural transition from alive to not.

The funeral itself is the weird thing.

She used to drink Port and lemonade every night of the week, every now and then a Scotch. Technically she was probably an alcoholic. She’d buy a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of Port every week [laughs].

What I do remember is coming in here with my cousin and we had a Port and lemon and sat there with nan and stuff.

Maybe when you’ve got adrenalin going through you, it all becomes a bit of a haze. At the time you don’t realise but then afterwards you look back and go, “Shit… I have got no idea what happened.”

I’d been a Funeral Director at that time for 3 or 4 years. Everything went well. There was no problems.

I don’t think I spoke at nan’s funeral but I couldn’t tell you. I was probably a pallbearer but I can’t remember.

I saw her every day in the lead up and we spent an evening with her before the funeral. I don’t know if there was a [public] viewing. I imagine there would have been.

[Nan was] buried and I walk past [the grave] a fair bit. It’s down a fairly common route in the cemetery. I’ve never been there for the expressed purpose of going to see nan and pop – they are in the same grave – but I acknowledge it when I walk past it.

I don’t think they are there. I’m glad there’s a headstone with their name on it but I wouldn’t go there to remember them. I understand people that would.

I suppose the idea of the headstone is that it’s a focus that people can go to. A physical thing that you can look at or touch but it doesn’t hold anything for me. I think that’s just me.

From my own belief, they’re dead. I will never see them again. It’s like when you have read a good book and you put it down. You see it on the shelf and you go, “Do I want to read that again? No…. I’ve already read it and I’ve got good memories of it. I’m glad I read it but it’s finished.”

[At the same time, 90% of people won’t ever throw the book away.]

When I left Canada, I had a shit load of books and, rather than pack everything up because I had lots of stuff to ship home as I’d been there for two years, I went to this second hand bookshop and sold them all for $15 or something. I still regret it.

[We did the same thing with some records.]

I think people are more like a good book than a record. You want to listen to a record again, whereas with a book, maybe seeing it on the shelf is like a headstone.

I’m a pretty open book. I tend not to keep things inside. I don’t get very upset. I’m not expressive with my emotions but they are still expressed. I’m pretty stoic as well and I’m accepting of things. If you can’t change it or we don’t care to then why spend too much time worrying about it.

There’s an old clock [of nan’s] that doesn’t work but it’s a nice old clock and that’s on our mantelpiece. I do definitely attach that to memories of nan. When we walk in, there’s this sideboard that was also hers. They’re practical things what you would get from a Will or something but I do attach them to nan.

[Do they function like the book?]

I would say they are more important than her headstone in that respect.

It’s been an enjoyable conversation. I like talking about this stuff. I do think it’s good to talk about it.

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