Funeral directors, also called morticians and undertakers, arrange the details and handle the logistics of funerals, taking into account the wishes of the deceased and family members. Together with the family, funeral directors establish the location, dates, and times of wakes, memorial services, and burials.
They arrange for a hearse to carry the body to the funeral home or mortuary. Funeral directors prepare obituary notices and have them placed in newspapers, arrange for pallbearers and clergy, schedule the opening and closing of a grave with a representative of the cemetery, decorate and prepare the sites of all services, and provide transportation for the deceased, mourners, and flowers between sites.
They also direct preparation and shipment of bodies for out-of-State burial. Most funeral directors also are trained, licensed, and practicing embalmers.
Embalming is a sanitary, cosmetic, and preservative process through which the body is prepared for interment. If more than 24 hours elapse between death and interment, State laws usually require that the remains be refrigerated or embalmed.
When embalming a body, funeral directors wash the body with germicidal soap and replace the blood with embalming fluid to preserve the tissues. They may reshape and reconstruct bodies using materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax. They also may apply cosmetics to provide a natural appearance, dress the body, and place it in a casket.
Funeral directors maintain records such as embalming reports and itemized lists of clothing or valuables delivered with the body. In large funeral homes, an embalming staff of two or more, plus several apprentices may be employed. Funeral services may take place in a home, house of worship, funeral home, or at the gravesite or crematory.
Some services are not religious, but many are. Funeral directors must be familiar with the funeral and burial customs of many faiths, ethnic groups, and fraternal organizations. For example, members of some religions seldom have the deceased embalmed or cremated. Burial in a casket is the most common method of disposing of remains in the United States, although entombment also occurs. Cremation, which is the burning of the body in a special furnace, is increasingly selected because it can be less expensive and allows for the memorial service to be held at a more convenient time in the future when relatives and friends can come together.
A funeral service followed by cremation need not be any different from a funeral service followed by a burial. Usually, cremated remains are placed in some type of permanent receptacle, or urn, before being committed to a final resting place.
The urn may be buried, placed in an indoor or outdoor mausoleum or columbarium, or interred in a special urn garden that many cemeteries provide for cremated remains. Funeral directors handle the paperwork involved with the person's death, including submitting papers to State authorities so that a formal death certificate may be issued and copies distributed to the heirs.
They may help family members apply for veterans' burial benefits or notify the Social Security Administration of the death. Also, funeral directors may apply for the transfer of any pensions, insurance policies, or annuities on behalf of survivors. Funeral directors also work with those who want to plan their own funerals in advance. This ensures that the client's wishes will be taken care of to their satisfaction.
Most funeral homes are small, family-run businesses, and many funeral directors are owner-operators or employees with managerial responsibilities. Funeral directors, therefore, are responsible for the success and the profitability of their businesses.
Directors must keep records of expenses, purchases, and services rendered; prepare and send invoices for services; and file all required State and Federal employment reports and tax forms. Funeral directors increasingly use computers for billing, bookkeeping, and marketing. Some are beginning to use the Internet to communicate with clients who are planning their funerals in advance or to assist them by developing electronic obituaries and guest books.
Directors strive to foster a cooperative spirit and friendly attitude among employees and a compassionate demeanor toward the families. Increasingly, funeral directors also help individuals adapt to changes in their lives following a death through aftercare services and support groups. Work Environment Most funeral directors work in funeral homes that have one or more viewing rooms, a casket-selection room, a preparation room, and sometimes a chapel.
Some may also have a crematory on the premises. In general, the occupation is safe, but funeral directors occasionally come into contact with bodies that had contagious diseases, but when the appropriate safety and health regulations are followed the possibility of infection is remote. Funeral directors often work long, irregular hours, and the occupation can be highly stressful. Many are on call at all hours because they may be needed to remove remains in the middle of the night.
I also like listening to pop music at work, while I'm embalming or doing paperwork, and I have friends who can always make me laugh at the end of a difficult day. Asking someone to pay the bill is really awkward.
It's hard to talk about money when people are in so much pain. It took awhile for me to appreciate how much work goes into the operation and it's very stressful work. Once I came to that realization, it became a little easier for me to get down to the bottom line and ask, "And how are you going to be paying? Being around dead people all the time will probably change the way you feel about death.
Some funeral directors say the job normalizes death for them. I'm still one of those people who would rather live forever. I don't want to die in a car accident, because I've seen people who died in car accidents, and I don't want that to be me. If it's an icy day and we're out driving, I'm a horrible person to drive with, because I'm always like, "You know how many people die from car accidents on icy roads?
At the end of the day, you're helping people get through something. Our job can feel almost like a version of grief counseling. People are, in most cases, really thankful for what we've done.
Even during the really difficult funerals, people will tell us, "Thank you for taking care of this and taking care of us. Follow Arielle on Twitter. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The Truth About "Getting Abs". Jamie Reed is a funeral director in Oklahoma. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses.
You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. Additionally, Funeral directors have many other responsibilities including preparing obituary notices and distributing them to media outlets according to the wishes of the family.
They will also arrange for clergy and pallbearers, schedule the opening and closing of a grave with a representative of the cemetery, prepare and decorate the sites of all services, and ensure transportation for the remains, mourners, and flowers between sites. Funeral directors are also responsible for overseeing the preparation and transportation of the remains for out-of-state burials, following accordance to the laws and regulations.
Funeral directors, most of whom are trained, licensed, and practicing embalmers, generally handle embalming. At larger funeral homes, two or more embalmers will be employed along with several apprentices.
Like refrigeration, embalming is a sanitary and cosmetic process by which a body is preserved and prepared for burial, which is required by most states if more than 24 hours pass between death and the funeral. Embalmers begin by cleaning the body with germicidal soap and replacing the blood with embalming fluid to preserve the tissues. In cases where there is disfiguration or maiming, an embalmer may use materials like clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax to reshape or reconstruct the body.
To give the body a natural appearance, they also may apply cosmetics. Finally, they dress the body and place it in a casket. Funeral directors and embalmers keep embalming reports, itemized lists of clothing and valuables accompanying the body, and other relevant records.
Although entombment does frequently take place, burial in a casket is a common funeral practice in the United States. Cremation, the incineration of a body in a special furnace, has gained popularity in recent years, partially due to its lower overall expense and convenience.
With cremation, funeral services can take place anywhere, at any time, and even months later for all relatives and friends to be able to attend. Even when cremation takes place, many families still choose to hold memorial services. A funeral service held for a cremation is not different than one that precedes a traditional burial. Cremated remains are commonly put in an urn, a type of permanent receptacle much like a vase, and then given a final resting place.
The family may bury the container, place it in a mausoleum or columbarium, or have it buried in a cemetery urn garden. Funeral services usually take place in a home, place of worship, funeral home, at the gravesite, or crematory.
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