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DRAFT DAY 2025
Working in Death Care, You See It All
If one thing goes wrong, more problems often follow
We are all going there, and we are all going to meet the same fate. That eventuality can have so many different endings!
For over a decade, I have worked in the Death Care Industry. Every day, I enter my workplace, greeted by over forty-eight thousand souls who have traveled beyond the pall. I don’t need a more vivid reminder that we all will join our forefathers one day. My office is on a large cemetery complex campus that includes a crematorium, a mausoleum, a funeral home, a flower shop, and a family center. My office overlooks the cemetery park.
When I started my second career in the death business, I was a former high school teacher, newly arrived in Iowa from forty years in California. My tenure there began in the flower shop, as I had also been the co-owner of a successful flower shop on the coast of California run by my husband. After being hired, I spent a short stint as a designer before becoming an interim manager.
Due to my background in teaching and public speaking, I was asked to train to become a Certified Celebrant. Celebrants were new to the funeral business in the United States after having become common first in Australia, then Great Britain, and then…
