The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues this fall. For tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour See You on the Road. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Meet Bill Villanova. Bill's an undertaker. He's graduated in mortuary sciences, and he is one of the most interesting conversations I think I've ever had.
Enjoyed this one. I want to talk to you about your job.
But the thing is, before we talk about your job, because looking at your story it's I mean, you're a decorated Coastguard, right, a decorated member of the Coastguard. Now, the Coastguard is an area of the service I don't know much about. I don't think many people do. Can you talk me through what the coast Guard does?
The Coast Guard, for the most part, they're you know, on duty twenty four to seven. You know, underneath the Department of Homeland Security. I had the honor of working alongside some very very talented men and women. I was with the Coast Guard Auxiliary and just what do you do that you get on a boat and yeah, yeah, so well, no bad guys. But we did safety patrols
alongside the actual Coast Guard. We also had you know, we worked alongside them on some ships as far as they're you know, working in galleys and doing a port security during fleet week, and in New.
York you need a lot of security for that. Oh my god, that's still a thing. I've forgotten about that.
Oh yeah, yeah, well it's verry big both and then all the port areas here, you know, along the West Coast and the East Coast. But you know, as a career, I've always been dedicated to funeral service. But for me, it was always about volunteering and giving back to the community.
And when I say interested, yeah, thank you. And so when I was younger, I started volunteering with the fire department in my local community, right, and I saw the opportunity to participate with the with the US Coast Guard in the auxiliary program, so I started to do that as well. And I did that for just about ten years until my life became more demanding. And then you really, you really can't serve too many masters.
Right, I get it.
So let me let me talk to you a little bit about the funeral business, which you ran and which you're still in, right, sir, Right, So, because it's an unusual thing, my presumption is a family thing or is it something you were drawn into?
Because you are someone who's clearly.
Drawn in a service, and in a way, funerals are kind of that. It's definitely a service and your intuitions correct. So was your family in the business when you were a kid? Is that how you were? You were pulled into it?
When I was younger, I would cut the grass at my godfather's funeral home, and I would paint the stones on the driveway and then help with visitation and funerals. And my dad died when I was sixteen, so the male figure in my life was my godfather. So I spent a lot of time at the funeral home, right, And it was a normal transition for me to go into funeral service, and having that opportunity was I don't want to say it was simple, because it was a
lot of work, a lot of dedication. Ultimately had to go to college and get a degree in mortuary science.
Is that really?
I wasn't aware that it was so tight well, I guess, of course it must be. I mean it's white and varied, and we'll get into that in a bit. But I guess you know, the tragedy of your father dying and your sex thing, which is awful and I'm sorry about that. That's a very tender age doing something which I'm guessing is getting the interest of a lot of the other
kids at that time as well. Did it make you feel kind of weirdly apart from it or did it give you a kind of did you feel like this is something special and it's my family does this and we feel a little.
I did feel special, yeah, you know.
And and even you know, funeral service, you know, wakes and visitations, you know, would go to nine ten o'clock at night.
My friends were ready to go to the bar. Oh you see, my people we go for days, you know exactly.
So you had this opportunity to work in a profession that was really it's a celebration of life like it is today as well, right, and so it was it was a normal thing to be around that it delayed me getting to some of parties and doing things with my family, even holidays. Yeah, you know, death doesn't take a holiday, right, and so you're always available to a family. And that's something I learned at a young age.
So it's kind of a vocational position then, right, it's not a job for everybody because you're dealing with I said, you're dealing with death.
That's what you're dealing with.
And in our society, you know, old society, it's been in our Western society, there's still a big taboo and a kind of a lot of fear around it, right.
You know, there is, and it is taboo. There is some fear.
You know, people feel that if you speak about death going to happen, if you discuss funeral services, you know, automatically you're accelerating your own mortality.
It's like you're inside Maha, Bill, And that's and that's good too.
So, but that opportunity for us to have those discussions about funeral service it is taboo. But we should be having those discussions now, sure. And you know, when we think about all the things that we prepare for. So I prepare to come here today to be with you and thank you again for having me, Craig.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you being here, and we prepare to you know, where we live, who we marry, where we go on vacation. All these things we prepare for. We should prepare for our funeral service. It's really a gift for our families. I have everything written down and like a like a will, like a will, I have a lot of information there, but it is going to be elaborate.
It is going to be elaborate for you, man. I'll share part of it with you.
So my thought is that as I leave church, if we can, when I enter the vestibule in the rear of the church, the doors will open, the vestibule be filled with smoke, love. The casket with the pall bearers will go into that smoke, and the doors would close.
Oh this is great.
They would hustle me down the stairs to the hearse, and the hearse would pull away, and then everybody would leave the church wondering where I went. You've gone, and only my family and friends will know where I am.
That's beautiful, all right.
Let me tell now you're one of my friends, Craig, I'm gonna let you know exactly where I'm going to be.
Where are you going to be? I don't know? Okay, well you know, all right? Well, here's mine.
I need you to tell me technically possible as and b later on maybe give me an astem at price wise.
So I think in Scotland absolutely, Okay.
I'm on the beach in a Viking longboat, right, I'm tied up there, you know, on the pyre that will be lit. That's the boat's pushed out on a flu tide. Right, I'll be pushed out and as the wind takes the sail and carries my boat to see my two sons will fire flaming arrows into the boat and the boat will burn as I head out to Valhalla.
So is that normal? Is well? Is it normal today?
No?
But was it normal at one time?
Yeah?
Certainly.
But you know, just to ground that conversation, we're a society that's based on rights and rituals, and so for you to even say that now, whether you're joking or not, I'm kind of half joking, all right, but that is something that if that's if that's what you aspire to have happened, then you start to plan that now, right right, And so if we do need to speak to you know, the councilmen in Scotland, right because you need.
I mean They're not going to let you just put a dead body on the in the water. You gotta get a paramit, you gotta so if it can happen, we can make that happen.
Pretty much.
That's how we approach every day at Frankie Campbell. Do you get a lot of unusual funerals? Are they a lot of them? Kind of cookie cutter? No, where Frankie Campbell is is anything but cookie cutter.
All right.
What I mean is, do a lot of people want I like the casket here, I want the thing here, want the chart here?
These are the you know, it'll be rolk of ages.
It'll be amazing grace and we'll all go to the church yard and then it's ham savages and O'Malley's right.
Okay.
So the first thing that we do is we always approach every funeral and we sit with the immediate members of the family. We make sure we put our pen and pencils down and just listen to them, get an understanding of what is important to them.
How can we celebrate this person's life.
Now, whether you are fifty or eighty five, whatever your age, you have a legacy and it's up to the family to share that information with us so we can create a service celebrate that person's life that's both personal and memorable.
So nothing's cookie cutter. We approach everything fresh.
So whether it's music or decor a specific casket or.
Or the Viking boat, wherever it is, whatever it is.
And maybe some and we have some families that have multiple space, multiple places for services. Maybe there is a service in New York, and then maybe it's another service that's in Glasgow where the disposition, final disposition will be.
So that's when the body is put away.
How do you protect yourself because death has such a you know, it's it's painful. You know it's painful because
you're saying goodbye to people. Then you don't want to say goodbye now most of the time, and even when it's time, it still contains grief for the living obviously, and there are there will be certain days I'm sure that you've dealt with for you like this is you know someone who's too young, someone it was a tragic accident, you know, whatever it is, a youngster, I mean, something that is really hard.
Is there a clutch.
Mechanism that you can put in for yourself to protect yourself from that that pain or do you feel all of that pain?
Craig every director that I know that's a good funeral director. As much as we want to shelter ourselves from these very emotional events and the loss of a child and untimely death of someone or maybe you know it was a couple that just celebrated their seventy fifth wedding at Verse, there are these special moments and it's up to us to be in the moment and to be with them, and nothing prepares you for that, but you hope that. I guess do you get better at it as you've
been doing it longer? I think I think you do get better at it because we then are able to maybe talk a little bit more. When you're early on, you really don't know what to say to the family, you know, Is this the awkward moment where I should be giving someone a hug and embracing them and letting them know that it's okay to grieve or even to laugh. Yeah, but we need to be there for people, and that is that's what's important.
I remember that from my parents' services. They died within three years of each other, and I do remember at the funeral service, looking to the funeral director for guidance and how to be because I didn't know how to be and I figured it wasn't cognitive, but I guess the reaction was I'm looking like, I don't know how to be here? How should I be here? And you know, to his credit, he was very good to like, sit here, there is your dad there, this is how we're going
to do it. We're going to you know, and then we're all going to walk over here and we're all going to do this. And somehow that structure was comforting, I think, because there is the great unknown that you're
dealing with and literally in the room. So let me ask you about this, because we're all human, because we'll all die as you you know, you as a young man at your godfather's funeral home, right, you see dead bodies for the first time, I'm sure, and that's something that many of us still don't see throughout our entire lives. But you see that, and it will have an effect on how you view the world because everybody's experience does. Do you have opinions on life after death? Do you
have opinions on what goes on afterwards? Have they changed from when you were sixteen and first doing it to where you are now, how does it look for you?
Now?
I've had the pleasure of being around a lot a lot of clergy, and our conversations. I've been asked a lot of questions, and our conversations have been challenging sometimes, right, because clergy, you know, whether you're a priest, a pastor a rabbi, you know, they're the pillar in that religious community where they have their belief right, and sometimes these
conversations challenge that belief as well. I do believe there is something greater, that there is something that is more powerful than just us here today, right, And whether it's a feeling.
Maybe it's a hope.
Maybe we want to feel that that gives us this hope for an afterlife.
But I can share a quick story with you.
Years ago, a friend of mine came to visit me and we were sitting in the lobby of a funeral home and at one point we both looked to the same direction, her to the left and myself to the right. And at the end of the conversation she turned to me, she says, earlier, when you look to the right, what did you see? And I said, I kind of thought I saw somebody walking past the door, and she says, how would you feel if I told you I saw the same thing. So we looked at each other. I said,
what are you talking about? And she said that people transition from one state of life to another and they have to show themselves before they can fully transition to where they need to be. So I was surprised to hear that from her, but that now, so I was in my twenties when we had that conversation. It kind of drives things home a little bit. So I kind of hope that there's something great for us, you know,
or we just complex organisms that you know. I have a you know, an acuity to do certain things and to build and to be a performer and do all of these things, and then we die and it's all gone.
I don't know, it seems like a law getting dressed out for nothing. If we're that complex and interest and then it all just goes away, it feels like it feels like a shame. But I think that my personal belief is the and it waivers from day to day. But my personal belief is that I think that we've got time wrong. I think that's what it is. I think that we think time starts and moves forward in one direction all the time, and that's that's what happens.
And I'm not entirely sure now I think that's what it is.
I think time is different.
How how well, in the sense that everything exists all the time at the same time, but we travel through
it in are conscious but it still exists. And what I mean by that there's a and I'm going to be I'm going to really bad at this, but the idea of traveling in astrophysics, I think it is as a guy called Professor Brian Cox, who did a wonderful documentary about it on British television, and he talks very eloquently about this, and he's a professor of physics at Oxford University, and I'm a vulgar lounge entertainer, so he's
a better source for the information. But basically talking about the idea of that everything exists all the time, and that for you and your friends sitting in that funeral parlor forty years ago, thirty years ago, whenever it was twenty years ago, that's still there. But now your thinking is here and your being in the moment is here. But that's still there and was always there and will
always be there, and the universe exists. Like that, maybe I need less coffee and no hashish ever in my life, but it's too late for any of these things to have happened.
What about are you a religious? Man? Does it?
I'd say that I'm religious, spiritual, spiritual, But you do you.
Touch yourself to any particular and like, are you a Catholic? Are you? I'm Catholic? Right, But that's probably.
More background as much as Anathon, right, it's background.
You know.
I do believe that we all have some type of religion that that we connect to. For me, you know, it's Catholicism. In my twenties, I went back to the church to sing in the choir because I felt that that was important to me at that time. And I hope that everybody has whatever it is for you know, each person, for you and for everyone that there is something that they have, and that's that religion for me is Catholicism.
I Craig Ferguson will be on the road once again this fall, bringing the Fantasy Rascal to or two your region. For tickets and full list of tour dates, go to my website. The Craig ferguson show dot Com slash Tour, Come and see me live or don't.
I'm not your father.
What about the mechanics of mortuary preparation? Which is I mean, until today, I did not know that it was something that you had to go to.
I mean, I obviously I imagine there.
Was training involved, but I didn't realize that it was something you needed to a degree. And so obviously it's an involved and a complex subject.
So Craig, you'd probably be surprised, obviously you were today to hear that you go to college to get a
degree in mortuary science. Afterwards, you take your National board exam for any like any profession you need to take a board exam, right, and then we complete a year long residency, just as I got a doctorate that well, yeah, you know, possibly yes, And then you take your state law exam in the state that you wish to practice like an attorney, right, and and then you you start your career in funeral service.
It's very interesting to me because the question I want to ask you is that how complex is it is about the preparation of the remains?
Is what does it consist of?
I mean, the education could consists of anything that that is in and around funeral service. So and it's the basics though, right, Just like in any profession, you know, you can learn certain things how to do it. You know, you can go to trade school and learn how to cut wood, but you know you do need to get more advanced in your in your training and your apprenticeship to learn how to build a wall or build a house. So this gives us the basics on what are the basics.
So the basics could be how to conduct a funeral. You know the components of a funeral.
So it's an emotional training as well as a physical training course.
You know the standard which a procession of cortege which you know who goes first, hierarchy and families, right, and you know where the pole bearers need to be. In some churches the casket will be parallel to the altar. In other churches it's perpendicular.
You know.
When we're talking about services for families of the Jewish faith, you know those funerals happen as soon as possible.
Then if you have you know.
Ye, my people and the people right man, right, my mother was around for about two weeks, could be right, so and and then that that is, you know, several days of visitation.
And I know that in some some communities, I think in in England and Scotland, even though there are funeral homes, they still have visitations in homes.
They sometimes do.
Yeah, I think mostly now, I mean, I think you can do it, like you say, but I think mostly now it is in is in funeral homes because it is I think, to do with the volition of of the mourner, so that you're not putting position where you're suddenly in the room with the deceased, and or particularly with kids. You so you can say would you like to see grandma? Would you not like to see grandma?
You know?
I mean it's I was with my mother when she died, and then they asked me, you know when they said would you like to see her?
And I was like, no, you were with her.
Yeah, she's gone and that's what's left. And I didn't think it was necessary. But everybody's different, you know, And I know my brother and my sisters went this here, and I don't know. It seems like it's a very personal thing. It seems to make you very empathetic. You seem to care very deeply about what people feel. Is that part of your training or is that who you are?
No, it's who I am, you know, and that's you're trained to You're trained to complete tasks in any profession, but in funeral service you're trained to complete tasks and you know and prescribe methods or whether it's a policy or procedure, whatever we have to do, possibly with preparation or with logistics, working with churches and outside entities, and you know, transportation that that's that is just day to day.
But really a good funeral director, you know, needs to connect with people, needs to connect with families and have the ability to be mindful and be present. So that's you can't teach that, you know. Have you ever been a funeral and been dealing with some money? So I really dislike this person intensely.
Even although they're going through a terrible period in their life or a very difficult period in their life.
I can't wait to get away from her.
I've been in situations that have been trying, and I may not always agree with the things that are happening around me, but you know, at the end of the day, I'm a professional and my focus is to do my very best for everyone. You know, I think that if I was ever put in a situation where I felt morally or ethically compromised, I would need to take a big pause and question whether or not this is something that I want to continue with. So you've never been
in that situation, then I haven't. And part of it, I don't think is luck, Craig. I think it's you know, the way that we approach our services, the way that we approach everything that we kind of set a standard and we set the parameters and I think everybody kind of works within that so we don't let things get out of hand.
What about if you get a situation where someone wants to have an open casket for the deceased, and perhaps it's been an accident where the results are you know, dramatic and difficult to look at. Is it part of a mortuary preparation to try and create you know, you know, to try and give the person a look which is not going to alarm the mourners.
Is that part of it? Absolutely?
Our ability to you know, part of our preparation is embalming, and that is.
Who isn't bombing? Quite sure what that is?
Certainly it's a temporary preservation, so we can make sure that a family's loved one is in a state that is as appealing or as pleasant as possible. And in situations where someone dies of an extended illness or if it was a tragedy that was that compromised the person, we put a tremendous amount of effort and use all of our talents to make sure that a family can if they wanted to have an open casket visitation, if they wanted to even just have a private time together,
and we can afford them that. And that is important more than you know, Craig, because I have had families that said, oh, you know, we don't want to see mom, but then a month later they say, was Mom in the casket? Or you know, I'm wondering, you know, did she have her dress on, or you know, did she have those rosary beats with her? And that's why it's so important to just even if it's just a half an hour together.
People have to take photographs because now the phones are everywhere and people take It's like they don't trust their own memories anymore.
So some people have to have a photograph of things. Do they photograph that people. I'm sure people do you know.
One of the policies that we have for our staff at the funeral home is we're not allowed to use you know, our phones in oh obviously in those areas, but we.
Can't control what a family member does.
And I'm sure it happens, right because that's that's that's our society now.
Yeah, No, it seems so kind of I don't know. It does seem a little odd to me. So what's the what's the wildest one you've done? Have you ever done a funeral? Me? Though?
I don't even know ifho We're going to start with us, where the hell are we going to get helicopters and three canfet cannons?
Well, we've had some some quite unique. Uh, we've had unique funerals.
We we work with private charter jet companies that help us with transfer tation.
So if someone dies and they're rich and they die far away, they can get jetted.
Home absolutely, okay, Yeah, and if and if need be, we provide you come home.
And Spirit Airlines do they have a service to I.
Don't know Spirit, but we do do private private aircraft AFT and there's also commercial aircraft.
So I was going to say.
I mean, look, the way I feel like leg room at that point is not going to be an issue. And so if you're going to just like go home in the bugs you go over to the box, it's uh, well, you know what I'm saying is if my honey, if you're listening and I peg it overseas, don't splash out, keep the money and I'll come home, you know, coach or.
Splash out and call me, said the jet.
So what about the fact that socially, you know, the idea that you I mean, you're a very gregarious, upbeat man.
I don't know you well, we just met, but you.
Seem like a very gauged and cheerful individual. Best friends now, yeah, So what was it like socially, particularly for a young man like you know, at the time of your life when you're looking to maybe meet someone and get you know.
What's it like beating a party?
Go, well, I'm studying I mean mortuary science. I can make you look great, but only if you're you know, horizontal.
Yeah, you know it was, it really is.
It's a conversation starter sometimes and it's a conversation ender. I remember one time friend of mine where we were at a club. It was actually in Stanford, Connecticut, and we were having a great time. We met a couple of people there and as soon as this one woman, you know, she found out that I was a funeral director, and that's where the conversation ended.
Right, But I'm guessing at the same time, Look, I can introduce you to some emo girls just go crazy for this stuff and be like, oh my god, he's so great.
Are you a family man? You have kids?
Yep, I'm married. I have three children. So how did you meet your wife through a friend? I had a great friend, Lewis. He invited me and her to a New Year's Eve party. I got there early, like I did today. I got there early. I drank a bottle.
Here's the thing.
I'm going to tell you something, by the way, about now that we're best friends, you're an undertaker.
No one wants to see you.
You see what I'm saying, Like, be late man, the last possible minute.
All right.
So I get to this party early and there was a bottle of homemade wine there, which was absolutely tasty, and I drank this entire bottle of wine. I fall asleep on a chaise lounge and in walks my soon to be wife, Sandra, and turns to our friend Lewis and says, where's this guy you want me to meet?
And there I was sleeping on the couch by Well. Now at this point you and me are still very similar.
Yeah, so so what happens you? Yeah, I mean obviously you you too? You guys start going out together. Was she intrigued?
Was she was? Did she know the business at all? Well, she knew who I was.
I don't think she knew the business, but you know, she I guess she understood that I was a decent fellow and and that was really what was important.
Really, it was important for me too. Did you like take her, you know, to look at the funeral home and stuff? Because I have this image of I'll tell you where this comes from, because it's not really from you.
My wife when she was very young, she her best friend. When she was a.
Little kid, the family were undertakers, so she when she was a little kid, they used to sneak in and look at the dead bodies that were in the you know Wayne, Yeah, and and I think it made her who she is today, and that is a.
Very well rounded individual.
So so was was there because there is there's this kind of silicious forbidden No, my goodness, what the henck? You know?
Did that play into No, not at all, you know, and you can and you can tell through our conversation here, I will tap dance right along that that edge with the conversation, and I'll never I'll never pop to the other side.
Right, Yeah, that's interesting.
You you have practiced in this, you I do so, you know, thirty years in funeral service, the you know, the only profession I've ever known. Uh And and I've had the opportunity to share so many important stories and have conversations with folks. And it's important that I feel comfortable about my profession so I can share it with you the right way.
Right.
So for my my friends, for my for my wife or my children, I've I've always they've always been part of me and.
Work, and so it's and so it contains less Do you think for your family the idea of mortality can contains less fear?
I would say so, yeah, yeah, I would say so, you know, but I think they also, I guess appreciate life a little bit more. And I can't tell you how many times I've been in the car on the phone with a family. I'm driving it and I know I'm going to have this conversation on the bluetooth, and I'm telling my children be quiet, you know, daddy's on
a important phone call. Or I'm in the house running from room to room because the kids are crying and I just need to get to a quiet space so I can speak to a family.
And those are things not just that I do.
Every funeral director goes through that that has a family, So they're speaking to someone who's just lost their loved one, and you need to afford them that opportunity. You need to be present for them, and you need to put your family on hold, you know, whether it's fifteen minutes or an hour.
It's fascinating because in our conversation, clearly what you are is a very empathetic, very sympathetic, very caring human being.
And yet the stereotype of.
An undertaker is more kind of like the Victorian vision of death, you know, the man in the black stovepipe.
Hat that it is your time, sorry, I'm here early. Well, you know, and I'm glad that you mentioned that so well.
In the UK you have the funeral directors, they still wear the morning seat.
They still do.
So we still wear we wear a morning suit but with a contemporary jacket no tails. At Frankie Campbell, our directors wear that suit. And we still believe in some of the things that that is done in the UK, like paging way. So if you ever see the funeral directors walks in front of the herd, that's paging way
and that's we do that today. Right. So when we have a funeral and we're leaving from Frankie Campbell that we're coming on to Madison Avenue, you'll see that there is a funeral director walking first by himself and then here comes the casket being shoulded by our casket bearers and the family follows behind it, you know.
So and it's New York, so people are leaning on their hornge and guess what.
We shut the street down. We shut the sidewalk down for everyone good. And that's important.
Yeah.
When I was at my father's funeral, which is one of the saddest days of my life, and that this was in Glasgow. Yeah, in Scotland. It is about gosh, it's a wild bag now and maybe seventeen years ago. So I was at my father's funeral and when we left the church, we go to some other place I can't remember us for our services. I guess it would be the crematorium or something. There was a big area and my father's casket was piped in by a bagpipe who was maybe the worst bagpaper I've ever heard my life.
And my brother and I are pole bearers, and.
We I can feel him, you know, as we're walking down with my dad on our shoulders, and I can feel him starting to laugh. He's getting we're you know, we're cut out, but he's giggling. I can feel his shoulder going, and then of course I started. And we're walking in and all the pole bearers who all loved this man and the casket are just weeping with laughter
and trying to hold it. And of course everybody else there news what we're laughing at, and this piper is carrying on murdering, amazing grace murdering it.
It lent something to the experience.
I'm pretty sure I heard my dad giggle a couple of times as well. It has there been moments where you so I kind of contain my laughter. I'm going to have to excuse myself for something.
And that it happens, and the family's laughing right, right. So there are times, whether it's at the funeral home, at the church, at the cemetery, where the family makes a joke and you want to laugh along with them, and sometimes you try to fight it back because you need to be professional, and that happens.
But along the way we learn little things.
To even provide a little levity, and so I'll share one with you. You know, at the cemetery, sometimes the family will turn to us and say, you know, please invite every back to everyone, back to you know, six thirty, you know, Madison Avenue, right, And you know I may turn around and say everyone's invited back to three sixty Madison Avenue, and the family will turn around. So no, six thirty Madison Avenue. I'll say, please, don't go to three sixty. They're not going to be ready for you.
It'll be no food. You have to So you got to you got to know when to, you know, these little tips and tricks. Yeah, you have to the days of being this stoic funeral director that's unapproachable with a gray face, those days are gone.
You know. Families are changing, communities are changing.
And we need to be responsive to that, you know, and to understand that this isn't about you know, what it was. We need to be what's happening now, and that that's about the celebrational life.
That what I mean you talk about community.
These are changing and people, you know America, particularly in New York, you know. I mean, it's just wave after wave of new culture coming in and has always been that way. And so there are different ways of dealing with the dead and in different cultures.
Do you do non Christian or Judeo berus? Do you do?
Muslim burials? Do you do I don't know. I can't think of other ones. I mean Shinto, I mean, what do you do?
We serve every culture, every race, and.
Do you have to bring in people for example, if you're doing it like a Japanese you know, do you have to bring in guys that you know can deal with that, right?
You know?
If we're working with with a Buddhist family, right, if we need to bring in a Buddhist monk or whatever it may be, we we identify all of the very best resources for every family.
All right, So you pull it together and you and you make it happen based on the faith of the correct the families.
Has there ever been a point where you've thought, you know, I don't think we can do this one, you know.
Like if like if someone says, you know, if it's a Satanist or something, you.
Know, well we have we haven't got that far yet. Yeah, you know, so I don't think that society has crumbled that far. That faith is touching, you know, that that that we we have, we have that type of services happening. But no matter what we do, we do have to base uh, a service around the person. And so if it's if it's religious, if it's a ritual, maybe the family is not religious at all, but they want to
create something that's memorable. Maybe it's you know, maybe it's around it's around music, you know, maybe.
It's it seems to play a huge part, you know, and it's you know what.
You wouldn't know this, but I grew up playing in a bagpipe band. No, I wish you to have this guy you to be He would have been horrible.
So my dad was.
He was six foot four, He looked like he came off of the doer's bottle familiar with.
And so yeah, playing.
The bagpipe band with my dad, And so if music is important. And the bagpipes, you know, is one of those instruments. You know, it's either good to bring you to tears or it's going to make your blood boil.
And get out of my way.
If the bagpipes are playing and I need to get something done, you know it's a call, right. But music is important, and whether that is live music, whether it's music that's being played in the funeral home. Someone loved Elvis, they love the Beatles, whatever it is that is important, and you have to listen. I mentioned about being present.
We were meeting with a family once and there's a trumpet player, last name is Batti, and family mentioned how much they love to listen to this gentleman played trumpet and I left the arrangement office ahead of the other director and I went to our system and I put this trumpet music on. And as she walked into the lobby, she looked over at me and she pointed, she says, you're special. Oh that's nice, But that's what we try to have, not just for me, but for everybody.
I think you get a lot of joy out of this.
I mean, this is for I find intriguing that it's not just the satisfaction of a job well done. There is a sense of uplift in what you do. Because I are you frightened of death?
Wow?
Now I am like, I'm frightened, for I would be. I'd be scared to die now, only because there's a lot that I you have kids. I have kids, and there's a lot that I still want to do and want to accomplish. But I think at some point in
my life, I think I would embrace it. I hope that if I get to this final hour where I can turn to my family and friends and say I have lived a magnificent life and it's so, you're gonna be sad, but you know, I'm I hope I'm right be sad, but you know, and I want you also to be happy about all the things that we have done together and the celebrations that we've had, and maybe listen, who agrees with everything that your family does.
We've we've had some more arguments too, right, Yeah, of course, But that is scared now.
But I hope that I can find peace in the future where I can share this legacy and people can celebrate my life.
So we discussed you very briefly. We discussed your your Catholic. You're and that's your faith. And then the Catholic faith as I understand it, which is reasonably well. I think there is a continuation of consciousness after death. I personally have my doubts about that. What about you, It doesn't make you not a Catholic.
But now doubt and you're right and listen through doubt, through question, you know, that's that's how you reach these higher levels and whatever.
Faith without doubt is not faith, it's something else.
If you I I really believe that if you don't have doubt, then how can you possibly have faith? You must. It is an essential component. It's like it's like the B and A B L T. You gotta have it or it's not. What you say is yeah.
So I do believe that there is something after I do believe that that we we we move into a different level.
Uh.
And and that's about that that afterlife. Uh, you know, the consciousness. Does it happen? Is it is it? Is it seamless? Is it is it interrupted? Does it does it stop? Is it in a different form? I don't know. I mean, who knows. Uh.
There's a lot of people that say.
Are you comfortable not knowing. Yeah, I see that. I think that's very evolved ession. I could say I am comfortable without not knowing.
You know, you don't need to know how the hot dog's made, right, right, And I'm comfortable not knowing that.
Right, I got it, I got it. What about what frightens you?
Then?
What kind of a death? I mean, I presume you haven't been around, or maybe you have. I don't know the actual moment of death. For many people, you usually your work begins after that, right. I had a couple of years ago I had was my brother in law. Actually, you know, my hands were on him when he passed away with my sister in law, and it was very emotional, and I'm glad I was there for him.
I'm glad I was there. You guys clothes for her.
Yeah, i'd say we were close, you know, And and it's actually brought me closer to my sister in law, you know. From that that point, I think we have so much different relationship now.
I don't know.
I mean, it's interesting because I feel that obviously it has an emotional impact on you, and I hate to see anyone uncomfortable or or upset. But the idea that someone you care about passing still up says you. I think is a huge testament to your humanity, given the fact the field in which you work and I have made a complete one eighty on on what I think about because I had I think I had a rather grizzly fascination with what you do for a living and
I just haven't spent some time in your company. Is very interesting because it you demystify it a little bit. You don't take any of the pain away, but you've demystified it a little bit.
Is that how it is for you?
I guess that that is what I want it to be for you. Yeah, that's what I wanted to be. I want it to be for everyone that we can that I can and funeral directors can share what we do and we can be honest and let people into, you know, our circle and to help people, help people, you know, come to grips or maybe they need to realize that funeral service is something that is very important in today's society. You know, if we were sitting here years ago, we wouldn't have a plastic cup or a
paper cup in front of us. It'd be you know, a china or glass, right right. You know, today everything is very disposable. We need to guard ourselves when it comes to funeral service from it being just about the disposition. We have to think about the service itself. We need to celebrate that person's life and you need to That's.
One thing that Catholics really do well. I mean you got to give them that. The I mean, you guys go at it. There's like all sorts of prayers and ups and downs and join and ends and here and there and smoke going on, lights flashing.
And I'm like, man. But the thing is, I have.
Noticed if you go to a funeral and it's conducted for me, if it's conducted with palm and theater, there is some kind of weird closure at the end of it. The grieving process is facilitated by that. I think I understand what you're saying. Yeah, you know the craig.
So if you know the way that I can I can kind of couch this for you is that you know, there's always two people sitting in the back of the church, right, and the two people are either saying to each other when I go, don't do this for me, I don't want any of this. That means you're doing something wrong. But if those two people are sitting in the back of the church or the funeral home and one buddy nudges them and says, you better do this for me. I want this right here, then you know you're doing
something right. You're striking this cord and and you're you're saying to people, hey, listen, it's okay.
You know, play a c DC. You know at my funeral.
You know, I don't want to have, you know, a bunch of I don't want to have a bunch of you know, cut flowers.
Bring in some trees for me, you know, you know, do something.
You're going to have the trees because I know you got the smoke. Absolutely you're going to have the trees. And you have a high Catholic Mass. So we got we got the priest there, we got all the we have in the choir.
I don't know if you'll have the choir, I think okay. And we're definitely not having that bagpiper from Glasgow. You know we'll get We'll get a We're going to get a good piper from the f d N.
Why I gets from New York where they can play the thing the like to be fair. He was the only bad backpack compared in Scotland.
But so he definitely was not at the at the Edinburgh Military tattoo.
No no, no, no, no no.
This guy, I don't know if he I think that it was his first day. I tell you one thing I did see you you can tell me if you think this is wrong or no. I thought it was very bleak. So gas station in Scotland about I don't know a year ago or something. I was there and I was getting gas and hearst pulled in the to get gas.
No, they need gas like every other vehicle. I get it.
Yeah, but there was a casket in it and the guy gets out, the guy who's driving it. He goes out, and he goes in the gas station. Nothing all we go like GM or something and and and then came back out and he gets in the guy and he drives away with I don't know if there's anyone in the casket. By he got a figure there.
Was well, you know, you know, we always try to win for fur. There's when there's long distance funerals or long distance maybe it was that was that, you know, there's and you caught him probably at the one time right, right, And it's limited the amount of time that you have to bring a hearson to a gas station, but usually it's during a long distance transportation. You really have no choice, right, and that I have to believe that that's the reason why he did that.
Well, you know what, I think that it's touching and good that you. I think it was probably just a guy going, no, I need petrol, I need petrol, you get you know. Never mind know McPherson wed they may he was never that petrol station.
That gives wake there you go. But it's been an absolute joy talking to you.
I wish you well, Uh, I wish you success, and I feel that your business is is it really genuinely the only recession proof business?
Uh, it may be one of them. I don't know if there's any other ones.
Pizza making as maybe discount haircuts, yeah, because I figured like if you get poorer, you still need a haircut, you get you'll make a little more.
Money you get a haircut, you know, so maybe discount haircuts undertakers and pizza. It's a fascinating world that that you inhabit, and I I'm really.
Touched by our conversation. You're wonderful, keep going, Thank you, thanks great