Monday on Wednesday

Back from days off and glad for it. Walked into work this morning to be greeted with a slow house and a fresh family to meet with at 11:00. Perfect. I love being able to come in here after days off and get my feet wet slowly. It always takes longer to adjust when its balls to the wall before you get your first cup of coffee.

Family this morning was sweet. Kind, caring, TIGHT little unit that obviously was going to miss the old guy. They kept him at home for as long as they possibly could. He spent most of his time dying at home on hospice with only a few weeks in a nursing home when it just got to be too much for his wife. I respect that highly. So many people these days are willing to shuttle "mom" off to the home before they even attempt to try and take it on themselves. I suppose it could be an indication of how much investment "mom" put in, but most of the time it seems like it's simply a matter of convenience for the family. It is not always about convenience folks. Sometimes its about doing it the hard way. The less convenient path is usually the one that offers the most rewards.

leave

I work 10 days in a row, then get 4 days off. 6 of the 10 days are spent being "on call" at night. This means that at any given moment of the night/early morning, I must get up out of bed, put on a tie, and go to gather a loved one from wherever they might pass on. Home, hospital, care facility, side-of-the-road, 2nd story-no elevator-three-hundred-pounds. any time, night or day, now questions asked. I am about a half an hour away from my highly coveted 4 days off and am looking extremely forward to it. It can be said, however, that I do not dread my "days on" though. I just need the 4 days to recharge the old batteries.

It was a good week.

another quick one, with a promise...

I am promising myself to really sit down and pound out my manifesto on this thing in the next couple of days. Right now I am waiting for my colleague to show up so that we can go to a house and pick up someone's loved one. I really need to wake up early one morning and sit down with a cup and explain myself. That won't be happening right now but I do foresee it in the future. For now let's postulate on presence...

I had a service today with a particularly good minister. Two things that he did impressed me greatly. One: he didn't use the podium or the microphone. He didn't need to! there were only about twenty people in the chapel. Not everyone would be able to step out form behind that box and just talk to the "congregation" (I still don't really know what to call a group of people at a funeral. "the grieving" doesn't work and "the crowd" seems to cold so we'll just have to keep mulling that one around for awhile. ) Two: he had presence. He had enough presence to simply express and console without PREACHING at these people. It was pretty simple really. He explained why they were there, (someone died) gave them permission to grieve, and opened a window to say good-bye. Not rocket science but he did it with tact and sincerity. What he did not do was tell them it was all going to be okay because the loved one believed in jesus and that made it all fine. He allowed them to be human and be sad. Amen.

First Post

Today has been a very normal day at the mortuary. I had no families to meet with but have plenty to do right now. I really should not be wasting my time posting. I really need to get this thing started though. I think this will be good for us.

SO! I have two bodies to cosmetize and place into their caskets for tomorrow and the next day. Neither one is going to have a very extended viewing, (an hour before the service) but I would like to get it done so I won't have to worry about it later.

I need to think up names for everyone here....Maybe they will all get avatars of some sort...hmmmmmmm...I will have to get back to this later.