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    What to Know Before You Go: An Insider's Answers to...Questions About Death, Grief and Funerals
    What to Know Before You Go: An Insider's Answers to...Questions About Death, Grief and Funerals
    What to Know Before You Go: An Insider's Answers to...Questions About Death, Grief and Funerals
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    What to Know Before You Go: An Insider's Answers to...Questions About Death, Grief and Funerals

    By Scott Mueller

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    About this ebook

    As a second-generation funeral director for Mueller Memorial, Scott Mueller has been around the funeral profession his entire life. In that time he has been asked many questions about what goes into a funeral, why we need funerals, and how to make a funeral a meaningful and personalized tribute to a beloved family member or friend.

    By the end of this book, you will be better informed about what you want from the ceremonies and celebrations that can surround a death. From the functional to the frivolous you’ll get the answers you need for a memorable funeral.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMay 14, 2014
    ISBN9780988550025
    What to Know Before You Go: An Insider's Answers to...Questions About Death, Grief and Funerals

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      Book preview

      What to Know Before You Go - Scott Mueller

      Author

      Introduction

      I’m sure you’d rather be reading a book about exotic Morocco, tying the perfect fly lure, a torrid romance, or just about anything other than the exciting topic of funerals. Yet here you are, making the good decisions, putting in the time, and trying to be prepared.

      It’s no small feat to conclude that you need more information about the services needed at the time of death, because such a conclusion usually means that you’re either planning for your death or the death of someone you love. That’s a weighty realization, my friend, and you surely deserve some praise for facing this difficult reality and picking up this book to get expert answers to tough questions.

      I grew up around my family’s funeral home and joined my dad in the funeral profession nearly four decades ago. My dad, Al Mueller, was a widely respected and beloved guy in our community and he really set the standard for what I wanted to be as an intern, then a director, and ultimately an owner. And I can tell you, Dad’s standard was set mighty high.

      It’s because of my father, and my desire to continue his legacy, that Mueller Memorial has become locally trusted and nationally recognized. Our reputation and a commitment to service has afforded me the opportunity to become highly involved in research, serving national funeral service organizations, and giving presentations on professional development. However, all of those things are secondary to the privilege of being someone who my neighbors and friends can lean on. It is my honor to be given the opportunity to help them through some of the most difficult and confusing times of their lives.

      I wrote this book is to help you understand your options and make informed decisions about how to honor wishes, celebrate the life lived, and frame the way friends and family begin the grief process. These decisions carry a lot of responsibility — and a lot of questions. In my years as a funeral director, I have found that I tend to be asked a certain set of common questions. This book answers those questions in the most honest and practical way possible. In order to do that, I will be dispensing with some of the words commonly used at the time of a death: passed away, loved one, and departed. Those words are generally used to avoid the use of the D words: death, dead, died, and dies. In many circumstances, D words can come off as sounding incredibly harsh and it’s not my intention to sound insensitive. It is my intention to answer the questions in a way that is honest, concise, and informative. This places our conversation somewhere between the way in which I speak to the people we serve and the way I speak to my colleagues.

      It is my sincere hope that you’ll be able to use this book, and my lifetime of experience being involved in and around funerals, to help you create a valuable, memorable, meaningful, and maybe even a fun memorial for yourself or someone you love; and that you can accomplish this while feeling informed, in charge, empowered, and respected. Death is a time of emotional vulnerability, but that doesn’t have to mean that you will be taken advantage of. It just means that you need to work with people you like and trust: people who truly have your best interests at heart and can guide you toward realizing your vision of what you want the memorial to be, while sharing valuable insights that will help to make the events go smoothly and in the most meaningful way possible.

      Trust is often hard to come by if you’re not acquainted with your funeral director, but there is no reason why this needs to be true. If you take steps to find a funeral service provider that you connect with or one who simply makes you feel comfortable, you’ll find that person can carry a lot of your burden with precious phrases such as: It’s taken care of, No problem, or We’ve got this covered. If you can put aside the stereotypical images and ideas of what funeral directors are, then you can be open to looking at them as personal concierges for your wonderful memorial and see them as your guide for what is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

      Section One

      Why You Don’t Trust Me

      Question One

      How Do I Keep From Being Ripped Off?

      Many people have a distrusting attitude towards funeral directors and funeral homes because of the stereotype that’s been imparted over the years. This stereotype has been created and reinforced by film and television media, by people who have written books that are critical of the profession, and by news reports of the very few funeral homes that participate in criminal activity.

      The film and television version of a funeral director probably rings true with what you might feel already. The funeral director stereotype is a person who is over six feet tall. He’s thin, he’s lanky, he has a pale complexion, and he’s wearing a black suit with a stovepipe hat and a tape measure trailing out of his pocket. He has long, skinny fingers that he rubs together

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