073 - On a couple important choices

Funeral homes and helping people with unresolved conflicts.

Welcome back (or welcome)!

I write here because I’m committed to giving you tools and stories to be helpful in times of loss. And sometimes, even to be helpful to yourself.

This week, I’m encouraging you to think about funeral homes. And resharing some ideas about helping people who might have regrets.

(If you want to support this work, you can buy a coffee (or a book).)

(in Eglise Saint-Thomas in Strasbourg, France, my photo)

Pick a funeral home. Right now.

I’m asking people all the time about the funeral home they want. By all the time, I mean each time someone dies in one of our hospitals, one of our chaplains asks the next-of-kin, “What funeral home will you be using?”

We ask gently and sensitively. Often, this is a decision that is the first of many they will be making without being able to talk with the person they always discuss things with. And it’s a designation we need in a timely manner.

I almost wrote, “It’s a selection that needs to be made quickly.” But that’s why I’m writing to you. You can decide about funeral homes and about cremation or burial now. Not in a written or contractual way, necessarily. But you can do a little research and say, “This is where we want and this is what we want” right now. Tell yourself. Tell whoever will be your healthcare agent. Put a note on the refrigerator. Now.

It’s a gift for the moment after the sudden event, or after the long month in hospice or after the long week in the ICU. That isn’t the moment for research. Particularly when you can say, “You know, if anything happens, I think Fairhaven will be helpful for us.”

And, if you want to pursue other options, like body donation, or special locations, the time for that research is sooner rather than later.

Hit comment and tell us what funeral home you just picked.

By the way, at parting.com you can do some research about funeral home options. Enter your zip code and answer some questions and you will get a list of funeral homes in your area, with phone numbers and estimated prices.

Funeral homes can pay to have a premium listing, which will put them at the top. This doesn’t mean those are the best or even in the zip code. So be cautious. But having the list can be helpful.

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Go ahead and cry

I talked with a person recently who had been told she should stop crying. She was less than two months out from the loss of a child. I was, as you may expect, pretty annoyed. I may have talked about spiritual malpractice.

This week I read a wonderful reflecting on tears.

Here’s an excerpt of Sacred Tears by Christine Vaughan Davies:

“To sit with our own or others’ tears can be healing and holy. Crying can be cathartic. I cannot count the number of intense hospital shifts that resulted in me crying in the car, the shower or on the shoulder of another person. My tears are a way of honoring the suffering I see. They also serve as a prayer and a release.”

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Sometimes people have already made their choices.

(I wrote this when there weren’t as many readers here. It’s worth sharing. I have these conversations regularly.)

I got an email from a reader recently asking about how to be helpful when family members, near death, haven’t resolved conflicts.

As you know if you’ve been reading here for long, my approach is to say, “try this, it may be helpful.” I don’t know details of particular situations. And so, at best, I can suggest frameworks for thinking.

So I suggested some things to think about.

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Thanks for asking!

1.     A few months back, as chaplains, we were working to figure out some next-of-kin things and who was going to make medical decisions and stuff. It was a difficult situation, and I'd spent some time on and off the job thinking about it. And then I realized that the person had, in fact, made some decisions about who they were and were not going to stay connected with years before they arrived at the hospital.

I realized that their choices to disconnect didn't have to become my burden to fix. I could be helpful, but I didn't have to own it. I could be sad at one level, but I didn't have to make it right. That was pretty freeing. (And only took me decades of working with people to figure out). 

2.     It's possible that a person has reconciled with the idea of not being reconciled. 

3.     If I understand, we're talking about parent in their nineties and sibling offspring who are at least in their late sixties? So everyone is adult? And may not have a core value of forgiveness? 

4.     You know, if you have nothing to lose, you could say to the parent, "You and I both value being honest. And you and I can both be cranky. And my job is to make sure people don't have regrets when they get around to dying. Like not going sky-diving. Or not having last words with people. Or not getting or giving apologies. So I need to ask you: Are there any regrets like that I can help you with?" Maybe not that blunt, depending on your relationship, but probably that clear. And then go from there. But you would have done what you could. 

5.     Because that's our challenge, right? To do what we can? Not to fix things, not to take on what isn't ours and not to abandon what is ours, but to do what we can. 

6.     And if one person in the family is the one driving process of regret and reconciliation, a conversation about why it matters so much to that person may be in order. 

7.     Recently, a friend was deciding whether or not to travel several hundred miles for the funeral of a family member. My friend had visited recently, and the situation had been complicated for decades. I said, “I give you permission to not go.” Sometimes the most helpful thing we can offer is permission to let go of unhealthy expectations.

You already know all this. Relationships are hard. But God is gracious, holds us close, and doesn't expect us to do what people aren't willing to let him do. 

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Thanks for stopping by.

Let me know the questions you may have.

See you next week.

Jon