If you’re a regular follower of the funeral homes’ Facebook page then you know that every once in a while, we’ll focus on someone who has died. If it’s a recent death, there’ll be pictures of items the family brought, perhaps some of the flowers sent by friends or the piece that graces the casket, and a summary of that person’s life and especially of their character. It’s never done unless we have the family’s permission—and we’ve never had a family say no.
But the folks we feature aren’t always those who have recently left this world. Sometimes, we reach back into history and bring you soldiers who died in combat, movie stars who lived a long and productive life, children who were tragically struck down, whether by illness or accident. There have been doctors and lawyers, teachers and students, farmers and merchants, homemakers and heroes . . . and a few villains. Every one of them—whether known world-wide or only to their families and closest friends—every one of them had a story to tell. And really, that’s what our profession is all about.
We are storytellers.
In the present, families come to us carrying in their hearts the bits and pieces of the person they’ve lost. Sometimes they know exactly how they want to honor them, but often they struggle under the burden of grief. So, they hand us those bits and pieces . . . where their loved one grew up . . . where they made their home . . . the special people in their life . . . the things they enjoyed . . . They hand us those bits and pieces and we take them and weave them into the story of that person’s life. Then we help them tell their story.
But when we reach back into the past, we have to search for those pieces. Ancestry . . . FindAGrave . . . published death notices or news reports . . . perhaps even history books . . . they can all contribute to the puzzle that is the story of their life. We never find all of the pieces. Sometimes we don’t find any. But when we do manage to uncover the past, we are often surprised by what we find . . . the struggles they faced and overcame . . . the tragedies that haunted them . . . the impact they had on the world around them. And then we share their story with you.
It has been said that everyone dies twice. The first when we draw our last breath. The second when our name is spoken for the last time. No one’s story should ever die with them. We are all storytellers . . . and we all have a story that needs to be told.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
