There has been an explosion of streaming channels available to the public in the past couple of years.  And, with that growth of channels comes the need for programming.  So, it is probably not a surprise that we are finding more programming available in all types of genres  — including a genre that seems to be “Death Care documentary”.

On Wednesday, November 26, HBO Max will premier a three-part documentary from the Investigation Discovery Channel.  The title of the series is “The Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder” and you can access information on the program, including a trailer preview, here.

And, here is short article from Deadline titled “Investigation Discovery Explores Rocky Mountain Mortician Murder” that may give you more insight as to the basis for this production.

Here is the “Find a Grave” site, including the obituary, of Colorado funeral director Byron Paul Griffy, whose 2012 death is part of the subject of the series.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Dwight Thompson, a seasoned social worker, psychotherapist, and former funeral director with more than 20 years of experience in mental health and grief care will highlight the monthly interactive Peer Support meeting for September.  The online peer support meeting for funeral service workers sponsored by the Cremation Association of North America (CANA) will take place tomorrow night, Tuesday, September 16.

To learn more about the Peer Support meetings and learn how to participate click here.

According to a press release sent out by CANA, “Stress impacts your brain’s ability to file and refine all the important details from your busy day in realtime.  When you finally get the chance to decompress after work, your brain attempts to sort the information it couldn’t properly process earlier.  This can lead to mistakes:   a mental reminder to have the conversation with the receptionist accidentally transforms thought into action—as if you’ve already had the conversation.”

The press release continues with this information, According to Dwight (Thompson), many funeral directors are experiencing the painful consequences of minor, stress-induced errors.  “I have seen colleagues reprimanded for mistakes that could have been prevented if we recognized the overwhelming pressure and workload they carry.  In these situations, the issue of stress is completely ignored, and the employee is blamed for something the brain simply can’t handle under such conditions,” explains Thompson.  “Funeral professionals need support with relevant checks and balances to ensure that they can cope with the intense realities of stress and its impact on their mental and emotional well-being.”

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Tomorrow night is June 17th and it is the 3rd Tuesday of the month so that brings us the Cremation Association of North America (CANA) sponsored online Peer Support meeting.

The monthly Peer Support meetings are for all funeral home, cemetery, crematory, and other Death Care workers.

According to information from CANA, tomorrow night’s Peer Support meeting will be led by Glenda Stansbury who will facilitate “a discussion for funeral professionals on managing through chaos”.

Again, according to the CANA information Ms. Stansbury is “. .  a professional educator,Marketing & Development Director of InSight Books,and Co-Founder and Dean of InSight Institute Certified Celebrant Program.  Glenda Stansbury is uniquely skilled in facilitating this peer support meeting on navigating uncertainty and finding resilience.”

The meeting is live and online through a Zoom link.  It will take place on Tuesday, June 17, at 8 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm Central Time, and 5 pm Pacific Time.

For more information and to learn how to participate please click here.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

I have to admit the subject kind of crept up on me faster than I thought because I had wanted to do a full-blown article on the value of the Mentor/Mentee relationship prior to this notice. . . .But, like a lot of things in my life – it didn’t get done in time!!  —  Maybe I need a mentor in “time management”!!!!

I wanted the article done because of how much the mentors in my life have meant to me.  As you may know, my father died when I was a teenager and many people in my small hometown wanted to make sure that my life had the appropriate life examples in it to make a difference to me as I grew older.

Yes, I had a local funeral director mentor and a funeral director mentor from my internship. . . .but I also had teacher mentors, church and faith mentors, a banker mentor.. . . .and over time even mentors who gave me confidence to do other things.  In a nutshell, I’ve learned that mentors are incredibly valuable in one’s life.

That brings me to the real subject of this afternoon’s Funeral Director Daily edition.  The Cremation Association of America’s (CANA) Peer Support meeting for tomorrow night is about Mentors and how they can help you. . . .Don’t miss it.

You can participate via Zoom and to learn how to access the meeting you can click here.  The event is scheduled for tomorrow, February 18, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, 7:00 pm Central Time.

According to CANA’s information on tomorrow night’s meeting it will showcase how  “Mentors provide guidance and support to help the growth and development of their fellow professionals. Jeff Holcomb will bring his decades of commitment to the profession to talk about the power of peer support and mentorship. At Tuesday’s meeting, he’ll focus on the key role of a mentor in providing patience, compassion, and understanding in support of a mentee’s future.”

Related CANA News — CANA’s Cremation Symposium is just around the corner. . . Learn more about it here.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

By now, in your households, the gentle quiet, peace, and calm that was yours prior to the start of the winter holiday season has been restored or is almost there today. For those with families, we have potentially shared hours of remembrance of days of our youth with those of other generations in our families. If we have not been together in person, thanks to Skype, Zoom, and Facetime, some virtual gatherings occurred as well. Togetherness is always the theme of our holiday season, and the love of family is something we can count on to make our days better.

For many of us, we have blended families at the holiday season and as a wise grandparent used to say, “There’s more of us to love this year!” Others were missing key family leaders—matriarchs and patriarchs—who were central to the location and timing of our gatherings. A grandparent or their generation is usually the top of the pyramid by which people collect and when they are gone, it’s so easy for individual families to scatter to other directions, or think about where they personally prefer to be, rather than always heading home to grandparents’ destinations.

The losses we have sustained do not escape us, though. It is different, and it is unique for the first year we are without ones we count on so strongly to “make” our holidays just like they always were, are no longer with us. Our reactions vary, from being able to speak out loud of those who are new to the family, just as much as those who are missing this year. A family member will often step up and take a role as a leader for a new generation to gather.

Photographs are taken for all the special occasions, and these are the treasures we preserve to pass on and share with future generations to come. In the “old days” photographs were prints placed carefully in scrapbooks, either the paper pages with the little black triangular corners to anchor them in, or behind individually peeled back pieces of plastic that go across the placed pictures to seal them away from the air that could ultimately cause them to disintegrate, fade, or age with time.

At such family gatherings, it becomes so important to get our senior family to sit with us and identify all the people in the photographs (and then write them on the back of the photos) to explain who the people are and where they fit in to our family and friends like extended family. Stories of how people came into the family, when and where, are another integral part of our family history that will be shared forever for generations to come.

Making sure we have peoples’ best recollections is key, particularly when adult memories are sharpest. As newer, younger adults, we often think we have forever to ask our senior family about the days of their childhood, what it was like growing up, and how it seemed that their hopes and dreams were realized. No matter what generation we’re considering—the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y, or Z, there are always factors that impact our lives in a particular decade.

Although there are times when we think we have it rough, it is nowhere nearly as challenging as the generations before us. The problems are equal in emotional impact, perhaps, but in reality, we are better prepared with each passing year to accept and accomplish challenges we face, thanks to technology, opportunity, or breakthroughs in medicine.

For example, in the 1970s in Bryan-College Station, any person with a serious heart condition had to drive regularly to Houston for appointments, cardiac care, all operations, and recuperation before coming home. Today we are spoiled by having a vast riches of the most gifted physicians, nurses, and medical personnel here living and working among us. Equipment is readily available to give us superb scans within minutes, far beyond our wildest imagination at the time.

The next decade we face, even the next six years until 2030 will be filled with new inventions, technological breakthroughs, and solutions we haven’t even considered yet. What will become future yesteryears” we cannot even imagine. It is so important to make audio, video, and permanent records of today, now, to have to compare and contrast against for generations we have not even yet given thought to. Tomorrow’s holiday memories have yet to come, but they will all be based on the yesterdays those older than us have left us as their treasures to remember forever.

As you glance around your living room this week, and you hear the gentle echoes of children’s voices raising when they enjoyed cookies, package discovery and unwrapping, you see shadows of their tiptoeing around trying to catch a glimpse of Santa, if they could, hold those memories close in your heart. Journal about them if you will take a few minutes, and 25 years from now, those children will be sitting in your living room, with children of their own, and will be delighted to have a record of what they were like at “that age.”

Thank you for all your faith and confidence in our family in 2023. You honor us with choosing us to care for your family in one of the most important times of your lives.

The best gift you can offer the future is to record the past, today, in great detail, to preserve history for generations to come. It is truly a gift that does keep on giving. As Carly Simon once sang, “Stay right here ‘cause these are the good ol’ days. These are the good ol’ days.” Wishing all of you a blessed, bright 2024 ahead. From my family to yours, Happy New Year!

Cody D. Jones ‘02

Owner & Community Member

It’s coming up on the 3rd Tuesday of the month and that signals that all funeral professionals can log in to learn and participate in the Zoom facilitated Cremation Association of North America’s (CANA) Peer Support event.

I find that tomorrow night’s event happens in a timely fashion as it preceeds the holiday season.  It focuses on “Grief” and supporting our own emotions while we are serving families.

Here’s what CANA says about the upcoming event in their own bulletin:

“As funeral professionals, we know that the common responses to grief are not linear. Grief brings sideways turns, unpredictability and huge obstacles, and no two journeys are the same. But sometimes, we forget to extend ourselves and our colleagues the same grace that we give our grieving families. We don’t have all the answers, especially when we’re facing our own mourning during challenging cases and community turmoil.”

CANA goes on to promote the event with this information:

“November Peer Support facilitator is Kelly Manion, Director of Consumer Marketing at Homesteaders Life Company. Kelly is a grief support specialist with nearly 25 years devoted to purpose-driven work and over a decade of experience in the funeral service profession. She offers valuable resources to those who are grieving. By providing space to talk about our grief, she’ll help us understand the unique ways people grieve and how to maintain our care for ourselves and our colleagues in the midst of it.”

CANA’s Peer Support Network will take place on Tuesday, November 19 at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, 7:00 pm Central Time, and 5:00 pm Pacific Time.  You can register and learn more information about this free event here.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Well, here we are — Election Day 2024!  Tomorrow some will be happy, some will be sad, some will have joy, and some will have angst in their hearts.

I get it — we all want to win and in a divided country it certainly seems like only 50% will.  But you know what, for all of us, we will be back to work and the politics of the moment  — whether we agree or disagree with the outcomes will probably not change the relationships with those we work beside.  With whatever work we do, the goal should be in completing the task.

What about us funeral directors?  The next time our phone rings to go to work, we won’t know if it is a Democrat or a Republican family calling us. . . .and, it shouldn’t matter  — we are called to serve all of those who need our care.

For today’s article I offer a reprint of a Funeral Director Daily article that is over a year old and titled, “Confessions of a Retired Funeral Director”.  I think it captures my point-of-view of where I feel today about the end of the election cycle. . . . and I think it comes to a point of understanding I’ve reached that what we do for others is much more important than what side of the aisle will win today.  —  Moving forward is about recapturing our humanity and trying to create a world in which we care about each other. . . .I hope you enjoy the article. . . The reprint begins here:

Confessions of a Retired Funeral Director” — originally published in June 2023

I had an incident in church on Sunday that both the party I was involved with and myself laughed about at the time.  However, when I returned home I thought about the situation and wondered to myself, “Is it just me in this stage of life or is humanity, in general, losing its focus on what really matters and our respect of it”.

And, I think on a deeper level the answer to that question will have ramifications on Death Care and the businesses that serve it.  Quite frankly, the level of profitability for those in our profession from funeral homes to suppliers may be affected more than we think moving forward on how we answer the question.

So, I was coming back from communion on Sunday up the side aisle of the church.  My friend, Diane, with whom I went to school with years ago was sitting on the end of her pew and I was going to pass right by her.  Her father, Franklin, died in January at age 99, was immediately cremated, and there was a delayed public committal service about ten days ago at a local cemetery.

I leaned over as I walked by and asked, “Did everything go okay at Dad’s committal service?”  She said “Yes, just perfect”.  Over time I’ve learned that honesty is the best policy and then said, “I had planned to come, but Friday is my golf day”.  We both laughed and went on our way following church.

I got home and started thinking.  For 33 years as a funeral director I made an effort to attend “every” service that was conducted by our funeral home.  And, I sometimes drove 5 hours one way to attend a one hour service of a friend’s dad or mom’s funeral service in another community. . . .or even 3 hours one way to attend my Batesville rep’s father’s visitation.  It’s just what I did. . . . I felt good about doing so and I also felt like it was about respecting and acknowledging a life that has been lived. . . .A life our Maker gave on this earth, that should be respected and acknowledged.

Now Franklin was a great guy!  Somebody everybody liked.  He was not unlike so many of the Greatest Generation that I served as a funeral director.  He was a veteran of World War II serving in the Pacific. . . . He came back and raised a family in our community while working in a blue collar employment position. . . . He served as an Honor Guard member at many funerals that I conducted. . . .I grew up with his children. . . and on and on.

I should not have missed his public service to acknowledge and respect those facts.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

The bigger question however, is our society and will its seemingly lack of respect and acknowledgment of human lives lived eventually dismantle the Death Care profession as we know it?  Attendance at funerals is lessening and quite frankly, many families have taken it to the level, through Direct Cremation with No Services, that they don’t even give us a chance to pay that respect. . . . However, let’s not chastise them,  maybe they are just taking the public’s lead, like my absence at Franklin’s service,  and think that nobody is interested or will spend their time in coming to the service anyway.

I could go on and on, but I worry about a society that seems to be more concerned with ourselves than we do with others.  Whether it is me golfing when I should have paid respects to a wonderful human being or it is our politicians that are more concerned with carrying out their party’s extreme wishes, which helps them self-preserve and protect their own positions,  rather than moderating to the wishes of the 70% of moderate non-political Americans in an effort to bring America forward.

In any event, my 30-second exchange in church on Sunday has made me take a new look at my actions.  I know that I will stray again, but I want to re-focus my energy on “helping others” more than I help myself.  I hope, for the good of our profession and the good of our country, others can do the same.

By the way last Sunday, July 16, happened to be my father’s 105th birthday.  As I’ve done on every July 16th since his death in 1977 I went to Kinkead Cemetery to visit. . . . . .but, on this Sunday I also took the time to find Franklin’s grave and pay my respects to his life.

More news from the world of Death Care:

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

NFDA Special Advocacy Bulletin: EPA Set to Release Formaldehyde Draft Risk Assessment Tomorrow

The day funeral service has been waiting for since 2019 is almost here. NFDA has learned that tomorrow, March 15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will release its draft risk assessment of formaldehyde.

The EPA selected formaldehyde for a risk assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2019. TSCA requires the EPA to periodically conduct risk assessments to determine whether particular uses of various chemicals present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.

This draft risk assessment will indicate whether formaldehyde poses an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment and at what level. Following the publication of the draft risk assessment in the Federal Register, there will be a 60-day public comment period. The EPA will then take comments under advisement and finalize the risk assessment. We will be asking funeral service professionals to provide comments to the EPA about the impact of their decisions on funeral service. This is a time where the profession needs to speak with one loud, unified voice!

If the final EPA risk assessment finds that formaldehyde presents an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment, it could result in the agency taking actions, such as:

• Establishing very low exposure standards
• Enacting management restrictions
• Setting standards that funeral directors and embalmers must meet to embalm with formaldehyde and issuing violation notices and penalties should they not comply
• Strict exposure controls and exposure limits for remaining permissible industrial or commercial uses, with strict recordkeeping requirements
• Phase out periods for restricted uses ranging from 180 days to 10 years, depending on the product
• Prohibition of consumer uses
• Prohibition of most industrial and commercial uses

NFDA will share more information in a Special Bulletin as soon as we have had time to analyze the draft risk assessment.

NFDA will also host a free webinar for members at 10 a.m. CT on Wednesday, March 27. NFDA Senior Vice President, Advocacy, Lesley Witter, will share vital information about what the draft risk assessment may mean for you and next steps in the TSCA process. Be among the first to learn more and register for The Number Is In! An Update on the EPA Formaldehyde Review and the NEW Proposed Formaldehyde Exposure Limit.

NFDA Takes the Lead for the Profession

From the moment the EPA selected formaldehyde for review in 2019, NFDA has been the leading voice for funeral service.

NFDA provided multiple rounds of oral and written testimony to the EPA. NFDA has also educated Congress and the EPA about the importance of formaldehyde in the embalming process and the right of Americans to hold an open casket funeral.

Additionally, NFDA commissioned the peer-reviewed and published NFDA Formaldehyde Exposure Study to offer current data that characterizes expected formaldehyde exposure in the 21st Century.

NFDA’s scientific study found that the level of exposure to formaldehyde for funeral directors and embalmers during an embalming is less than current Occupational Safety and Health Administration permissible eight-hour and short-term exposure limits. NFDA’s data shows that trained funeral service professionals can effectively manage their exposure to formaldehyde to well-below current occupational limits – information that has been shared with the EPA in both oral and written testimony.

The results of this study were published in the peer-reviewed scientific Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, lending weight and credibility to the findings and presenting a stark contrast to existing scientific data.

This EPA risk assessment is a multi-phase process that is expected to last until at least 2026, likely longer. NFDA will keep you informed as it continues to engage on your behalf and that of the profession.

By now, in your households, the gentle quiet, peace, and calm that was yours prior to the start of the winter holiday season has been restored or is almost there today. For those with families, we have potentially shared hours of remembrance of days of our youth with those of other generations in our families. If we have not been together in person, thanks to Skype, Zoom, and Facetime, some virtual gatherings occurred as well. Togetherness is always the theme of our holiday season, and the love of family is something we can count on to make our days better.

For many of us, we have blended families at the holiday season and as a wise grandparent used to say, “There’s more of us to love this year!” Others were missing key family leaders—matriarchs and patriarchs—who were central to the location and timing of our gatherings. A grandparent or their generation is usually the top of the pyramid by which people collect and when they are gone, it’s so easy for individual families to scatter to other directions, or think about where they personally prefer to be, rather than always heading home to grandparents’ destinations.

The losses we have sustained do not escape us, though. It is different, and it is unique for the first year we are without ones we count on so strongly to “make” our holidays just like they always were, are no longer with us. Our reactions vary, from being able to speak out loud of those who are new to the family, just as much as those who are missing this year. A family member will often step up and take a role as a leader for a new generation to gather.

Photographs are taken for all the special occasions, and these are the treasures we preserve to pass on and share with future generations to come. In the “old days” photographs were prints placed carefully in scrapbooks, either the paper pages with the little black triangular corners to anchor them in, or behind individually peeled back pieces of plastic that go across the placed pictures to seal them away from the air that could ultimately cause them to disintegrate, fade, or age with time.

At such family gatherings, it becomes so important to get our senior family to sit with us and identify all the people in the photographs (and then write them on the back of the photos) to explain who the people are and where they fit in to our family and friends like extended family. Stories of how people came into the family, when and where, are another integral part of our family history that will be shared forever for generations to come.

Making sure we have peoples’ best recollections is key, particularly when adult memories are sharpest. As newer, younger adults, we often think we have forever to ask our senior family about the days of their childhood, what it was like growing up, and how it seemed that their hopes and dreams were realized. No matter what generation we’re considering—the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y, or Z, there are always factors that impact our lives in a particular decade.

Although there are times when we think we have it rough, it is nowhere nearly as challenging as the generations before us. The problems are equal in emotional impact, perhaps, but in reality, we are better prepared with each passing year to accept and accomplish challenges we face, thanks to technology, opportunity, or breakthroughs in medicine.

For example, in the 1970s in Bryan-College Station, any person with a serious heart condition had to drive regularly to Houston for appointments, cardiac care, all operations, and recuperation before coming home. Today we are spoiled by having a vast riches of the most gifted physicians, nurses, and medical personnel here living and working among us. Equipment is readily available to give us superb scans within minutes, far beyond our wildest imagination at the time.

The next decade we face, even the next six years until 2030 will be filled with new inventions, technological breakthroughs, and solutions we haven’t even considered yet. What will become future yesteryears” we cannot even imagine. It is so important to make audio, video, and permanent records of today, now, to have to compare and contrast against for generations we have not even yet given thought to. Tomorrow’s holiday memories have yet to come, but they will all be based on the yesterdays those older than us have left us as their treasures to remember forever.

As you glance around your living room this week, and you hear the gentle echoes of children’s voices raising when they enjoyed cookies, package discovery and unwrapping, you see shadows of their tiptoeing around trying to catch a glimpse of Santa, if they could, hold those memories close in your heart. Journal about them if you will take a few minutes, and 25 years from now, those children will be sitting in your living room, with children of their own, and will be delighted to have a record of what they were like at “that age.”

Thank you for all your faith and confidence in our family in 2023. You honor us with choosing us to care for your family in one of the most important times of your lives.

The best gift you can offer the future is to record the past, today, in great detail, to preserve history for generations to come. It is truly a gift that does keep on giving. As Carly Simon once sang, “Stay right here ‘cause these are the good ol’ days. These are the good ol’ days.” Wishing all of you a blessed, bright 2024 ahead. From my family to yours, Happy New Year!

Cody D. Jones ‘02

Owner & Community Member