It’s Monday, October 27, and much of the Death Care universe is centered in Chicago, Illinois, attending the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) International Convention & Expo.  I had my schedule of the convention mapped out and was looking forward to attending my friend Doug Gober’s session on “Customer Loyalty” this morning”  and learning from the Glenn Gould, Jeff Smith, and Chris Farmer sessions tomorrow.

As I write this on Wednesday, October 22, however, I’ve cancelled my attendance as it just happens to be one of those years where “Life” got in my way.  I’ll miss seeing old friends and meeting new ones.  I’ll miss learning about new products and services to help those who deal on the front lines with families who have lost loved ones.

I’ve been retired now for over a decade from owning and operating a funeral home and working everyday as a funeral director.  I notified a couple of my friends, whom I make a point to see every year, that I would not be in attendance this year and, in part, received the following reply from one of those funeral directors, “I’m dragging my feet this trip a bit. Having problems getting a spring to my step. New teen suicide this morning also has me down.”

When I read that it put me back into remembering my days on the front line of funeral service and days where, I too, “got down”.  I don’t know how many days I went to work and got a call from law enforcement or a parent about an auto accident or suicide.  Those types of deaths happened with “friends” and “church members”, and “Little Leaguers”.

Like I surmise from that funeral director, I always dreaded going and seeing the families, most of whom I knew in our small community, under those circumstances.

Those arrangements and services always took an incredible amount of effort.  I was numb to anything else going on in the world for those four or five days during the time period of arrangements to burial.  The effort it took to serve those families almost always sapped me and when the services were over I needed time to decompress.  I was lucky to have an incredible wife and family that seemed to understand my situation at that time.

It eventually got to the point that I would ask myself, “Why do they always ask for me?” . . . .Because secretly I wished that these families didn’t.

However, I eventually reached a point where I said to myself, “Somebody has to take care of these people and no one will do it better than me.”  That attitude helped me see the end of the rainbow for funeral service. . . . . regardless of the effort involved, it was my duty and responsibility to see these families forward  — if it wasn’t my duty to do so, I concluded, whose duty was it?

So, in Chicago today, enjoy the Expo floor, enjoy the seminars, but most of all, give support to each other because as a funeral director you know the effort needed to help grieving families in a society where most people just don’t understand.

May God Bless your efforts.

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

Do Animals Understand Death?

Do animals understand death? Substantial research so far indicates that the answer is probably yes. Many species share humans’ basic neurochemical profile, which means we have certain emotional structures in common. Studies of  primates with offspring show neurological activity similar to that of the human brain experiencing love – a foundation which could translate to other cognitive similarities.

Certainly reactions to death range widely, sometimes driving other members of a species away, potentially a fear-based response, but research also documents what looks like empathic recognition of loss. 

Elephants in particular are responsive to the remains of their own dead, gathering around a body in groups, even caressing severely decayed remains gently with their trunks. Their graveyards have amazed humans for years, as does their tendency to return to them to visit the remains there. 

Mother gorillas may carry their own dead, mummified infants for weeks, grooming the remains. And marine animals like dolphins and whales appear to care for not only their dead, but also their injured and ill (a phenomenon called epigenetic behavior). Many animals also appear to mourn.  

Higher-ordered thinking

These are, by the way, all species with substantial brain volume. Their neuroanatomy shows some well-developed features similar in function to our own, specifically in the neocortex, which humans use for cognition and consciousness. 

Dolphins and apes show a high encephalization quotient (EQ), a measurement comparing the actual size of their brains’ neocortical volume compared to what would be expected for their body size (that is to say, their brains are larger than we expect them to be). Whales and dolphins also possess a complex, folded cerebral neocortex (the brain ridges and fissures we call neocortical gyrification) – the part of the brain that processes language, information from our senses, and social skills. It’s far more elaborate in them than in any primate… including humans. They’re likely more talented thinkers than we are. 

More than Instinct?

Interpretations vary. Instinct is, obviously, a powerful motivator in creatures of every species, but behavior consistent with the drive for survival and its protection shouldn’t, on its own, imply awareness of death. What a human might see as an empathetic gesture could be simply be an instinct we can’t understand properly in the social context of another species.

Even so, the possibility of an animal’s recognition of a dead animal as permanently lost, and their responding to that loss emotionally, is not far-fetched. It’s useful to recall, for context, the extreme similarity of our own DNA and genetic material to the rest of life in the natural world. While it’s true enough that there are vast differences between us and other creatures (see our inability to fly, breathe underwater, regenerate severed limbs, or grow 8 inch incisors), we nevertheless share 99 percent of our genes with primates, and a full 60% — more than half of what makes us up as living beings — with fruit flies. Scientists devote whole labs for the study of the modest fruit fly specifically because their biological processes are so similar to ours, so let that be a lesson to you. And — perhaps not really difficult to accept these days – we share a full 50% of our genetic material WITH ACTUAL BANANAS. Which explains a lot. 

Comparative Thanatology

This question of the different ways Creation’s Creatures respond to death is such a prevalent source of inquiry that it has its own field: Comparative Thanatology. It’s a prudent pursuit —  given death’s ubiquitous presence in nature and the clear evolutionary advantages of possessing the concept of fatality on some level for survival’s sake creates a case for built-in capacity of its recognition in evolutionary terms.

Even if we label it an instinct of preservation, ultimately the animal kingdom’s many elegant, multilayered species know death when they see it, as much as we do – a detail which is also an existential unifier. 

It would be shortsighted indeed not to interpreted such insight, however variously it many manifest, for the profound statement it is about what makes us all, fundamentally and effectively, similar as living beings.