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Health & Fitness

How did you wind up in Funeral Service

So many people all through my life have asked this question.

At a very young age, maybe 14 or so I had decided that my life would be best spent as a lawyer. I loved people, enjoyed all interaction with people and felt that my life would be best fulfilled working with people of all backgrounds, thinking I could make all wrongs right !

My late father opened our family funeral home in 1943 in our present location at 773 Moody Street, Waltham, as a youngster I was always fascinated at what my Dad did for a living, I could never quit get a grasp on why someone would choose funeral service as a life's work.

Then as I grew older and wanted to work I began to assist my Dad by working around the funeral home, at first cleaning the automobiles and keeping the home clean, then after beginning to drive I was elevated to cleaning and driving the automobiles.

Then I began interacting with the public during funerals and visitations, and I would hear people tell me how helpful my Dad was when they called him to care for their loved ones after death. It was then I began to realize that funeral service was not at all what I thought it was from the outside looking in ! I thought that they cared for the dead, but soon found that, that was not the case at all, funeral directors cared for the living the survivors who suffered the loss of a loved one. to me it was like a revelation, wow here I was growing up, upstairs over a funeral home, not even realizing or knowing what my Dad did.

Within months of this time I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my lifetime, I wanted to serve people at that time in their life when they needed someone to care for their dead and assist them with the details of final disposition.

So my life in funeral service began, and in 1970 I assumed ownership and began to operate the funeral home. Later that year I purchased another location in Belmont and have since operated both of these locations and today have two of my three sons working beside me in funeral service.

I have felt so privileged to do what I do daily my entire life. I have met, made and kept my closest friendships through interactions with people I have met during their loss.

If my Dad were alive he would be angry with me about starting a blog, I once asked him why our funeral home never advertised, when most all others did, were we not at a disadvantage ? He simplay said to me almost as a matter of fact, "Wayne I do not make baseballs for a living, people here know what I do, I do not want to sell death, and I never met anyone who wanted to buy it !" Wow I was impressed.

But more and more over the early years I found that people had all sorts of curiosities about death and dying. In response to peoples inquiries I asked my Dad to allow me to purchase some books to display around the funeral home, I forget what the name of those were, something like facts about death, he was not pleased but allowed my experiment so to speak, and time after time he saw the books disappear, and I think at one point he thought I was hiding them, but he then realized himself people had a thirst for knowledge of funeral service and funerals. what had been a generatiion of a Taboo subject, it was coming out of the closet, people were asking questions in advance of need.

I only wish that years ago I gently pushed more of my friends to buy their cemetery space, many of those close to me, I made them buy it, I remember one day after a particular funeral attended by many of my friends, I called about eight of them and insisted that they purchase lots in the space where they had been earlier that day for the funeral of a friend, those graves on that day were $ 375.00 today they are 3300.00 dollars, those friends that I made buy these graves always kidded me, why why, but when they found out what the price of these are today, they say Thank You !. I was just worried that people would think me goolish ! So I only made those I could take the ribbing from buy them.

So that is the reason for this blog. Funeral service has so changed that I believe my Dads services were completed at the cemetery, and I believe that if we are to serve our families properly, the biggest part of our responsibilities begin at the cemetery, to assist and to guide you from your loss until you regain your balance of normalcy.

If you have loss a loved one you know exactly what I am talking about, I have been educated for years and continually revisit educational venues for grief and loss, and when I lost my best friend and wife, I did not deal well with my loss, kind of like a ship in a storm, with a broken rudder and no sail.

So now that you know my life story, I hope to begin to share some helpful information and create some food for thought and maybe guide you into having that thing they call the "Conversation of a Lifetime".


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