Centuries Funeral Home

Throughout my adult life I’ve felt that ministry is my calling, and I still do, but when I went into part time retirement, I began looking around for another part time job.  When you’re in ministry, you conduct a lot of funerals, and in the process you become somewhat familiar with the funeral home business. I had noticed that funeral homes sometimes employ part time workers to help with funeral services. I thought I could probably do that.

I began to call around, and one of the persons I called was Tom Omick, who managed the Centuries Funeral Home in Shreveport.   Tom asked me to come in for an interview, and he offered me a job on the spot.   I worked for Centuries for about a year and a half.  After I spent a long period of recovery following brain surgery, and made the subsequent decision to move to Iowa, I gave up that work. I was with Centuries for about a year and a half.  It was an extremely interesting experience, and I enjoyed a wonderful relationship with my co-workers.

If I thought I knew something about the funeral home business because of my association with funeral homes when conducting services, I was badly mistaken.  I was a rookie in every sense of the term.  I was not given special treatment because I was a “man of the cloth.”  I think they probably assumed that I was a naïve cross between a country bumpkin, and some kind of Holy Joe who doesn’t even bleed real blood when he’s cut.  As a matter of fact, the workers sometimes had a pretty good laugh at my expense. Our funeral home was owned by SCI in Houston.  They own more funeral homes than anyone else in the world.  Early on the extent of the corporate structure was impressed on my mind.

A few weeks after I started I reported to work one day, and after I clocked in I walked by the snack bar.  Tom was visiting with a gentleman whom I had never met.  I introduced myself and asked the gentleman what role he played in the funeral home.  With a completely straight face, Tom told me that he was the executive vice-president of SCI.  Up to that point, Tom had been totally serious with me in every conversation that took place. I was horrified.  I was a rookie funeral home worker, and here was a big dog from Houston.  As it turned out, he was a worker like me from the funeral home across town.  He was there because we needed extra help.   It didn’t take me long to figure out things were not always what they seem.

I wore lots of hats at Centuries.  I drove vehicles, greeted people at the door, worked visitations, served as an emergency pall bearers, ran errands, carried flowers.  I learned how to wash a funeral coach.  You soak a bed sheet and pull it over the top of the vehicle.  I had no specialty. My official title was “funeral home worker.”

It was an educational experience.  I learned a lot about the different ways people handle grief, and what does and what does not bring them comfort.   Two experiences stand out in my memory.

On one occasion we had just concluded a graveside service.  The minister had completed his remarks and shook hands with members of the family.  Normally people go their separate ways after that.   But on this occasion no one moved. Then I heard someone begin the song, “Until Then.”  Pretty soon everyone was joining in the song.  I even sang with them.  I thought it was a very healthy way to deal with grief.

On another occasion, I had driven the family car from a church building to the cemetery.  As we rode to the cemetery, occasional sobs broke the silence.  When we got to the cemetery everything seemed to go wrong.  The Marine Corps was supposed to come and fold the flag, but they got mixed up on the time. We offered to fold the flag, but the family said, “No we’ll wait for the Marines.  It was over a hundred degrees, and we waited for about thirty minutes.   Then we learned that there was some procedural matter that we had overlooked.  A document had to be generated at the office and brought to the grave site before the casket could be lowered.  We probably waited another thirty minutes.   The family would not leave until everything was done to their satisfaction.  I also remembered that I had not placed the flag on the casket in the proper manner before the start of the service.  One of my co-workers had to walk to the front, while a hundred people are so watched her correct my gaff.

I dreaded the trip back to the church location.  I was prepared to become to brunt a lot of angry frustration.  Instead, when they got in the car, they started laughing and joking.  The ride back was totally different that the ride we had taken an hour before. Because they waited to get everything right, they felt they had achieved closure (No one really achieves closure when they lose a love one, but I won’t quibble about that).   When I let them out of the family car, they were gracious in their expressions of gratitude and appreciation.  

People don’t always handle grief the same way, but I really admired the folks who were in these two situations.