For ten years now, I have been a proud funeral service professional. I started in late 2014 as an apprentice funeral director. I graduated from mortuary college with a degree in funeral service in 2016. By 2017, I was a licensed funeral director and embalmer. The following year, 2018, I added a life insurance license.
We are now in 2024. It’s only been ten years, but a lot has changed in the industry’s landscape. Cremation has taken over full-bodied, traditional burial. There are more women than men in funeral services. Requirements to become a funeral director have mainly stayed the same, but the oath to remain a funeral director seems to have died and been buried.
A professional funeral director is composed and empathic and wants to create the best possible funeral for grieving families. One enters funeral service to become licensed, yes, but for the privilege to serve said grieving families. By going through your apprenticeship, schooling, and passing your state and national board exams, you get the privilege to be a funeral director.
I consider what I do an honor. I believe being a funeral director is a privilege and not a right.
Each state has its requirements, some less than others (Colorado notwithstanding), but not just anyone can sign up and become a funeral director. One goes through an accredited mortuary science program at a college campus. You don’t just skate by, either. You need to meet the grade requirements to continue this noble path.
After graduating college, there’s your apprenticeship, sometimes served during your time at school. Usually, an apprenticeship is completed within a year or two. What follows are board exams, taken locally to the state, and nationally, in two categories: Science and Arts.
There’s ethics. There’s mathematics. There’s history. There’s passion. There’s heart. There’s caring for what you do, where, and who you do it for. There are long nights. Long weekends, birthdays, and holidays. There’s working 24 hours straight at times. And yes, you don’t get paid a whole lot when you start. That’s the nature of the beast and the literal point of serving an apprenticeship.
It’s to learn and put in your time. Not to call in every week or bemoan the fact that you don’t make as much as ten-year, fifteen-year, or even twenty-year funeral directors do. Should someone who works 40 hours a week earn a livable wage? Yes, 100%. But again, the point of an apprenticeship is to earn your (suit) stripes. Get in and get out. Graduate. Pass your boards. Become licensed, and never go through it again.
Today’s funeral service apprentices and first-year funeral directors seem to have lost that reverence. Gone are the days of putting in your time to receive the privilege and honor. Here are the days of everything being handed to those who haven’t put in the time, or have the care. The respect. The empathy.
I’m talking about taking funeral service, for all that it stands for, past and present, and wanting to unionize it. I’m talking about Teamsters and the Union they represent showing up to funeral homes and picketing something they know absolutely nothing about.
Is there a time and place for unions? Sure, maybe. But a funeral home is not one of them. Death is not something you can label a “9 to 5” and throw money at. Unsafe and unfair working conditions? Tell that to your family when your mother passes away at 2 AM and you want a funeral home to come right away. That’s what we do. And it’s an honor to do so.
If you think I am joking around, I’m being as serious as the death I see every day. You just read about my history, and path taken to become and maintain being a funeral director. This is also just my opinion and does not represent anyone other than myself. Some of you might read this and be for a union in funeral service. That’s cool. I’m open to reading your article about it. Here’s my side of it.
Most people in the world don’t know what it’s like to sit across a mother who just lost their child, and plan a dignified funeral for them. To hear that mother tell about the pain and heartbreak of losing her very heartbeat. I’m not asking anyone to know, either. That’s my job.
My job. My life. My dedication.
What about funerals for World War II Veterans? Someone else’s mother, husband, brother, niece, and on and on. We all have loved ones. We all have someone or multiple someones in our lives that mean everything to us.
Now imagine it comes time for their funeral, and there are people outside the funeral home holding up signs. Not causing a ruckus, but causing a scene, to be sure. Imagine taking the focus off the value of life, and turning it towards a sign of lies. Imagine the disrespect, disgust, and anger you feel reading this. I feel it, too. This is reality. And the worst part about all of this is when “funeral directors” themselves join the cause.
When someone passes away at midnight, it is the funeral home that is there, not some stranger with a sign, sleeping in his or her bed, collecting your “union dues.” When a family wants a funeral to be held on a Saturday, or Sunday, because those are the only days that fit their family schedule, or maybe even have meaning to them; the funeral home doesn’t blink an eye. They are there.
And so am I. This is exactly what I signed up for. I signed up for the privilege to serve these families, in any way that I can.
A union wants to take that away. A union wants to make it all about them, to show the world lies, and cast doubt and shadow on funeral services. A union wants to collect dues like the ferryman collects his take.
Another transaction. Another line to cross. Sign to hold. Clock to punch. Nobility tossed out the window. Cast aside, as if people aren’t human that need caring for. Or that death isn’t reality.
What could be more noble, and respectful, than caring for the dead? To guide the aforementioned grieving mother through this new process called death? The honor of serving a WWII Veteran? You would think those within funeral service understand this. After all, this is exactly what you, I, and they, signed up for.
Would you walk up to this mother, and tell her that her baby doesn’t matter? Would you spit on the American flag, or tell the Veteran his service meant nothing? It’s a free world, sure, and Veterans fought for that right, don’t get me wrong. But just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should.
Going back to the world of today, that seems to be lost on newly apprenticed and licensed “funeral directors.” Anyone who wants to join a union or stand alongside a union and “fight” for what they believe is right, is crossing a line. A line that cannot be uncrossed, or undone.
They are spitting on everything their colleagues do every single day. They are disrespecting and disrupting funerals for babies, Veterans, and anyone else who now has to bury a loved one.
It’s unbelievably callous, and heartbreaking to see someone who went through the rigors of being an apprentice, mortuary college, and their board exams, now thinking they should skip what they signed up for and have everything handed to them.
Death doesn’t live by a schedule. Death doesn’t live at all. Death comes knocking on your door at any given time. When someone loses a loved one, death has been placed on their door.
A grieving family now has to drop everything they had going on in their life, pay a lot of money, and go through this process.
To stand outside a funeral home and picket and cry foul about wages, hours, cleaning crews, or God knows what else, is one of the most disrespectful things I have ever seen and known of in my life. Anyone who crosses this line, after going through everything we had to do to become licensed, will always have “funeral director” in quotes to me.
They are no longer a funeral director in name, or in spirit. By law, in their respective state, sure. From those who actually show up day in and day out, and love what they chose to do? Never. I will never show a “funeral director” who pickets the same respect I show those who went down the same path that every single one of us has had to do before. One who maintains the oath, and status quo of being a funeral director.
Life isn’t about getting everything handed to you. Sometimes, you have to be willing to work, and work hours, or days, that don’t make sense to you. If this isn’t appealing to you, then funeral service might not be for you. There is a difference in getting taken advantage of, or not having days off. I’m not talking about working every day, every month, or being on call every night.
I’m talking about knowing what funeral service is about, and who it is for.
Funeral service isn’t about you or me; it’s about serving a family who just lost someone. You can’t regulate that. You can’t pretend to care when your actions show you do not. You can’t fake being a funeral director when you aren’t one. You can’t tell me picketing outside the funeral home, while a mother grieves her son is you “caring.” It’s you being selfish.
I signed up to be a funeral director with compassion and empathy. I want to create and run the best funeral I can for the families I serve. I didn’t sign up to disrespect the dead. To those who have, I ask that you leave the funeral service business. You are not one of us, and nor will you ever be. You have no place in funeral service.
This is the sad reality of funeral service in today’s world. This is what happens when people want funeral homes to give in to picketing and unions. It takes away everything I have put my life into the past ten years. It takes away those who came before us and those who want to carry on tradition, servitude, and honor.
A privilege. Not a right. Lest we forget all that we signed up for, which is serving grieving families. I choose to be on the side of service. Not funeral service and an unholy union, but simply funeral service.
- For daily thoughts on life, death, and everything in between, feel free to follow me on Twitter (X), LinkedIn, and Substack.
- Want exclusive content? Any of my four published books are available for purchase through Amazon.
Life, Death, and Everything in Between. 