It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, an anomaly for us. Usually there’s at least one funeral and a visitation to start and possibly even a family or two coming in to make arrangements.  But this Sunday was different in a nice kind of way.

I was the only living human in the building—or so I thought—until I heard voices as I came down the service hall headed toward the garage . . . which just happens to be where my office is. At first they were hard to pinpoint.  Women?  Yes . . . maybe . . .  In the lounge?  I opened the door off the hallway and cautiously stuck my head inside.  Nope.  The room was dark and no one was lurking in a corner—at least not that I could see.  Perhaps on the carport?  I didn’t have my keys so I couldn’t look—and after all, if they were on the carport that was exactly where they needed to stay.  But as I got closer to the prep room, the voices grew louder.  That was a little odd since we only had one gentleman and he was not prone to conversation at the time.  I punched the code into the lock, opened the door, and stuck my head in.  To my surprise I found a hairdresser cutting said gentleman’s hair and as I began to speak, the head of one of the funeral director’s appeared from around the door frame.  My observation that I had begun to believe the dead were conversing with themselves was met by the hairdresser’s observation that the ox was in the ditch, indicating this was the only time she could fulfill the family’s request before visitation started bright and early the next morning.

Her presence in our prep room that day gave me pause for thought. Everyone with an ounce of common sense knows that in order to have Sunday visitations or funerals you have to have funeral directors who will work on Sunday.  But there are so many more people that are required to make that happen.  Hairdressers are often asked to spare a few minutes and come to our building to work their magic.  The guys at the service center in Selmer may have to deliver a casket so we can begin a visitation that evening for a family we saw that morning . . . which means the office secretary on call also makes an appearance to enter all the information into the computer so she can generate the register book and memorial folders.  And if there is no secretary on call, one of the more technologically literate funeral directors will fill that role.  The housekeeper comes in to make certain the building is ready, the lounge and restrooms are clean, and all the trash cans emptied from the day before.  Florists may be asked to open their shops or work overtime to provide at least the family pieces on that day—and if the orders were heavy enough before then, there will be long hours making sure each one is filled.  Ministers will arrive to visit with the family and conduct the service.  Musicians may be on hand to provide live music rather than what we can download from iTunes.  Are we serving a veteran’s family?  Then the military honor guard from their particular branch of service may be called upon to fold and present the flag and play “Taps” while members of the VFW end the service with a 21 gun salute.  And we haven’t even talked about the folks who may have to drive from Jackson to deliver and set a concrete vault and all the equipment . . . or our own crew who always makes certain the site is ready and the grave closed after everyone leaves.

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, there are many other tasks in life that require a host of people for completion, funerals being one of them.  There is a lot of work behind the scenes, done by people you never really see and probably don’t think about, to be certain that a family can say good-bye to someone they love without having to worry about the details.  And sometimes we are working to get the ox out of the ditch because, for whatever reason, the timing is difficult to accommodate.  But you know what?  The amazing part of the entire process is that everyone does their part willingly, because they know how important the end result is to a family in mourning.  No matter how large or how small the task, they are all necessary to reach the goal—a family cared for during one of life’s most difficult times.

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