Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? (19 page)

Large conglomerates such as Houston's Service Corporation International, Canada's Alderwoods, and Louisiana's Stewart Enterprises, to name only three, have encountered some difficulties when buying up funeral home properties in smaller markets across the country. When they overpay it means that their customers experience price increases to make up for it. I have gained quite a bit of new business from disgruntled families who used carpetbagger homes for previous deaths, only to be shocked at the staggering price increases they faced when they returned there for another family member. Some Alderwoods-owned funeral homes actually lowered their prices at some locations after several consumer complaints and business slowdowns. Alderwoods used to be known as the Loewen Group and is now supposedly emerging from bankruptcy proceedings. Service Corporation International has also been involved in bad publicity, accused of unlicensed embalming in Texas and of recycling graves (reselling those already occupied) in Florida.

Conglomerates are also known for hiring newly licensed embalmers and funeral directors for the obvious reason of being able to pay them less. The funeral industry, like teaching, police work, and medicine, is a place where there is simply no substitute for experience and knowing the answers to questions before they are asked.

Part of the slowdown in recent high-dollar acquisitions is attributed to the fact that many former funeral home owners are tiring of hearing from past customers about their distaste for the new corporate ownership. Smaller town directors are usually happy when a competitor sells out to a big conglomerate. Since everybody likes to tell a story better than the last person who told it, word travels fast when a home is sold. You can bet that the family personnel will tell anyone who will listen that a carpetbagger is now in operation.

Two decades ago, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation that eventually led to the 1984 Funeral Rule, which forced funeral homes to disclose their prices and to charge consumers for individual services rather than a blanket service charge. That service charge had included removal of the deceased from the place of death, embalming (if requested), cosmetics and dressing, arranging and coordination of services, use of facilities for visitation and ceremony, use of related equipment, transportation to the cemetery, secretarial work and bookkeeping, insurance overhead, and licensing fees. It was imposed on every client, regardless of need, and presented to each family as a lump sum, ranging (in today's dollars) from $2,800 to $4,500, depending on the region. Funeral homes on the East and West coasts generally charged at the higher end. The FTC now requires that funeral homes explain to families how they arrive at their amounts, complete with detailed invoices.

Several incidents in Florida sparked the FTC's action. Florida's funeral homes perform many cremations and more ship-outs than probably any other state. Since retirees from all over America populate the Sunshine State, upon their demise, great numbers are shipped back to their respective hometowns for burial. Tales of families being taken advantage of ran rampant, with reports of full service charges for inexpensive ship-outs to blatantly lying that a casket must be purchased to send a body back home.

Emma Sparkman, an eighty-nine-year-old World War II defense plant worker—a beloved Rosie the Riveter—accompanied a friend to a funeral home in 1983 to assist in arranging the viewing and ship-out of her friend's recently deceased spouse. The two ladies listened to the funeral director's opening speech and decided to select certain necessary services and a nice solid oak casket. They were not informed that they could simply have had the deceased dressed and placed on a table for a final viewing before the ship-out took place. Instead, they were told that for a viewing of any kind, they needed to purchase a casket.

On the day of the viewing, Mrs. Sparkman noticed that the casket was obviously not the previously selected pricey solid oak but some veneered knockoff. On her friend's behalf, she expressed her suspicions to the funeral director, who merely pooh-poohed her concern, assigning it to both ladies being elderly, in grief, and perhaps experiencing fading eyesight. Mrs. Sparkman did not buy this explanation. However, her friend saw no need to pursue things further, chalking it up to one of life's unpleasant experiences. Three years later, Mrs. Sparkman's beloved husband of more than seventy years passed away. She shied away from the previous funeral home and called another in the same city. Her husband was to be shipped home to Delaware for burial, but a small gathering of her peers nudged her into holding a brief visitation. After selecting an expensive navy-blue, stainless-steel casket, she asked the funeral director to please leave the showroom so that she might be alone for a few moments. She took a lipstick from her purse, knelt down, and wrote her name on the bottom of the casket. At the viewing the next day, although heartbroken and grief stricken, she thoroughly inspected the casket again.

Sure enough, the same bait-and-switch had occurred. The blue model containing her husband Vernon was in no way of the same quality as the one shown to her just the day before. The finish was duller, the handles were different, and the interior was not velvet but a lesser-quality crepe—with no sign of the clandestinely applied lipstick signature underneath. Mrs. Sparkman asked the funeral director to roll the original into the chapel so that the two sat side by side. Even with poor eyesight, all assembled could recognize what had taken place, and Mrs. Sparkman was informed there would be no charge for either the casket or the services.

TO OUR CUSTOMERS

“The goods and services shown in this general price list are those we can provide to our customers. You may choose only the items you desire. However, any funeral arrangements you select include a charge for our basic services and overhead. If legal or other requirements mean that you must purchase an item you did not specifically ask for, we will explain the reason in writing on the statement we provide describing the funeral goods and services you selected.” These words (or similar words to that effect) are the approved FTC explanation that must appear on any funeral home's general price list. It also includes what is known as the non-declinable charge, an arbitrary amount that homes generally ratchet up by several hundred dollars more than necessary to cover overhead expenses such as rent, insurance, building maintenance, etc. All others are piecemeal—so much for embalming, so much for a hearse, and so on. The FTC Funeral Rule, designed to shield consumers from being overcharged, did just the opposite; it allowed funeral homes to attach the non-declinable fee to each arrangement.

Since the FTC mandates that all funeral homes must not only disclose prices but also offer a general price list to anyone who asks for it, since 1984 there has been a huge surge in price shopping. That spike has increased dramatically in just the past ten years, as a result of customer dissatisfaction, corporate buyouts, and simply because consumers are smarter but less loyal and merely want to save money.

Former employers of twenty years ago swore that Armageddon had arrived in the guise of the FTC when they realized that price disclosures must be given even over the phone. Some funeral directors assumed that any price shopper was a clandestine “plant” sent by a competitor. One former boss would inform callers that they should come by the funeral home in person so that he could show them the list and explain things more thoroughly. If a potential client did arrive, a tug-of-war of sorts would ensue. My boss would point out certain aspects of the list, all the while keeping his hand on it, hoping the customer would not try to take it with him or her.

If families who have experienced recent deaths would allow trusted friends to shop on their behalf, they would probably realize significant savings. A non-grieving friend is better able to compare apples to apples. A former employer used to instruct us to offer a $500 discount to anyone who called or stopped by carrying a previous offer. “Even if we don't make any money on this deal,” he used to say, “that's fine, as long as so-and-so down the street doesn't get it.” I have found that price shoppers will become former price shoppers once they feel that they have been treated fairly and have received a great perceived value. A happy customer will nearly always call you back.

I also firmly agree with the philosophy behind price disclosures. Overall, the FTC has helped consumers avoid being gouged. Offenders have been forced to adjust their prices to compete, which makes for a better funeral-shopping experience. If your charges are easily justifiable, then you should be happy to share them. I currently advertise prices so consumers immediately know where I stand. I also happily hand out my price list to all who request it, even my colleagues, and I personally go and collect the same lists from them. But I often have to chuckle at the dirty looks I receive.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Arranging for funeral services and merchandise before the need arises is a great concept for all concerned, but I advise a little homework. Inform your immediate family as to your death-care wishes as early as possible, even if they meet your introduction of the topic with disgust. At the very least, decide whether you want ground burial or cremation and communicate that preference clearly. I often meet with bereaved families who have no idea as to the deceased's choice of disposition: “Dad never mentioned it,” or “I don't think Mom would want to be cremated, but she never said one way or another.”

I encourage everyone to make a decision and then act on it. If ground burial is desired, select cemetery property and purchase it—and be sure to inform your family members. My first experiences with pre-need in the 1970s entailed payable-on-death accounts set up at a local bank. In one case, a retired schoolteacher was widowed and had no children. Upon her death there would be no one to carry out her wishes. So she arranged for her funeral service, selected the appropriate merchandise, and paid for everything in advance. She placed the money in a bank account in both her name and the funeral home's name, not to be touched until appropriate proof of death was provided. Yearly interest more than compensated for inflation.

But in the 1970s, banks were paying up to 9 percent interest, so pre-need accounts only two or three years old accrued far more interest than necessary. That windfall was supposed to be returned to the surviving family or to the deceased's estate, and in most cases, that was done. But one former boss used to instruct me to attempt to “upgrade” whenever a large amount of interest had accumulated in a pre-need account.

The 1970s and 1980s were dark periods for abuse in the burgeoning pre-need arena. Detailed reports of funeral directors pocketing pre-need money filled funeral industry publications. They deposited funds into the funeral home's checking account instead of a separate account and then used them for day-to-day expenses. Upon the purchaser's death, the funeral home would perform the service and provide the merchandise, with no one the wiser.

Problems occurred when a purchaser decided to cancel the prearrangement or wished to transfer the account to another funeral home. The original director struggled to come up with the money, an investigation ensued, and the scam was exposed. Funeral homes received quite a black eye. Insurance-based funding and removal of the funeral director from the mix eventually repaired a lot of the damage. Nowadays, if a consumer has a savings account of $10,000 or a like-value life insurance policy, funding a pre-need through a funeral home is totally unnecessary. Going to a home and prearranging wishes and merchandise and then putting such wishes in writing is an excellent idea to save surviving family members from answering tough questions at a time of grief and stress.

Yet many prearrangement clients prefer to pay up front just so they know that their wishes will be met in the future, and also so that the surviving children cannot deviate from the parent's wishes.

My parting thought on the subject of prearrangements is simple. If you pay in advance, make sure the funds are deposited into an insurance product. Don't let a funeral director or pre-need salesperson talk you into placing funds in the funeral home's savings account. With the onslaught of corporate buyouts, many homes will no longer be privately owned in years to come. Funeral home consolidators are buying out one another's assets constantly—and that includes all current pre-need accounts.

Claire's mode of transportation was only one aspect of HBO's award-winning series that everyone grilled me about. Would I let my daughter drive a lime-green hearse? Would I let my daughter drive a hearse to school? Probably not—but it certainly made a terrific visual. And as a funeral director, I must congratulate the writers and the technical adviser for having presented a largely accurate picture of a family-owned funeral operation, complete with dizzying dynamics and relationship subplots never before explored on television—along with a small but realistic peek inside a mysterious and fascinating vocation.

As I watched many episodes in the company of fellow funeral directors, we often exchanged knowing glances. Whether a scene concerned feuding families, people on modest budgets insisting on the most expensive caskets, or heartfelt sympathy expressed to the bereaved by Nate and David Fisher, we all agreed: “Been there, done that.”

Some of the grittiest details were things that only we would notice. One episode from the fifth season, for example, featured an irate Vanessa storming into the prep room to confront Federico. He was in the process of raising a decedent's leg high in the air with his left hand and holding in his right a set of forceps grasping a white plastic AV plug. Its purpose? To be twisted into the anus and/or vagina of the deceased to seal the orifice, thus avoiding any embarrassing leaks or discharges while reposing. Too graphic, you say, even for HBO? Not at all. First, most viewers had no idea what was going on. Second, for those of us in the trade, it provided a riveting touch of authenticity.

Before
Six Feet Under
, most movies and television episodes depicting funeral services seemed eager to portray their directors as pale, somber, black-garbed super-salesmen far more intent on separating consumers from their wallets than on consoling them. Perhaps that's one reason our image still suffers at times; why people are shocked to learn that we actually have a sense of humor; and why we still deal constantly with absurd questions about whether dead bodies truly sit up, make noises, or continue to grow hair and fingernails.
Six Feet Under
made tremendous strides in not only humanizing us but also conveying to the public our proper place in society as providing a much-needed service.

Nate's poignant conversation with the elderly gentleman who did not want to leave the funeral home after his wife's visitation had concluded was very typical, and a classic scene from the show. Older couples may have lived together for decades. When one of them is gone, the other faces a dreadful emptiness. Nate showed compassion toward someone unwilling to return to a silent house; he simply sat down next to the grieving man and let him talk. Any funeral director worth his salt is, above all, a good listener.

There are comical aspects to our business as well that the show has shown. In one episode, a stripper who was electrocuted when her cat pushed electric rollers into her bathtub tested Federico's breast-positioning skills. Her friends were duly impressed with the lifelike uplift of her assets as she lay in the casket. When questioned, Federico admitted he'd placed a cat food can under each breast. While the idea was intriguing, I'll probably stick to my own tried-and-true method, filling brassieres with cotton. On occasion I've overdone it, but each time, the surviving husband has expressed approval with a hearty thumbs-up or even a wink through tear-soaked eyes.

The series included only a couple of misleading embellishments. First, the Fisher and Sons Funeral Home, like many older establishments, was situated in what was once a grand old residence, complete with its outdated basement prep room where embalming and dressing took place. But the home always seemed to acquire its bodies with amazing speed. In reality, the Los Angeles County coroner performs such a staggering number of autopsies and examinations that releasing even a single body could take several days to a week. Nate, David, or Federico would not likely drop by on the very day of someone's death and return home that evening with the decedent already in tow.

Also, David's fear that Mitzi, representing the scary, deep-pocketed corporation, might buy out the competitor down the street and eventually put the Fishers out of business was probably regional. Perhaps in Southern California there is less personalization and therefore less loyalty. In the East and Midwest, however, funeral directors are often trusted friends who secure much of their continued business through word of mouth. If a family-owned home sells to a faceless, out-of-state consolidator, then area consumers hear about it and become understandably skittish about handing over their beloved family members to total strangers.

I would have enjoyed seeing at least one episode that dealt with the inevitable hustle and bustle of a funeral home's busy streak. Several days filled with nonstop and breakneck arrangements, embalming, dressing bodies and placing them in caskets, and then hoping everything had been attended to properly and would run smoothly. Oddly, no one ever seemed to be fully present at what eventually became the Fisher and Diaz Home. I can't help wondering who answered the telephone, who greeted walk-ins, and who sat down with those wishing to learn more about pre-need contracts.

Years ago, some of my friends expressed horror at the prospect of a television series dealing with the death-care industry. Four seasons later, those same people couldn't get enough of it. Creatively, you could hardly do better than to begin each episode with a death—followed by a conference with the decedent's family and some sort of off-the-wall request or unique confrontation. Thanks to
Six Feet Under
, no individual's preference will ever again seem too bizarre. No flare-up among relatives will ever take anyone by surprise. And best of all, every viewing room will forever be known as Casketeria.

The final episode was surprisingly disturbing to some of my friends and family members, but I found the scenes depicting how each main character died both touching and reassuring. After all, we can't deny the fact that each of us will someday expire, and we can't possibly know when. Most reassuring of all was that several earlier episodes made clear the possibility that the main characters might not survive Nate's death. For weeks it seemed apparent that Ruth, David, Claire, George, and Brenda were all losing their grips on reality.

But just as in the many thousands of cases that I have observed, they peered over that cliff into an emotional abyss and decided not to jump. Instead, they backed away and reclaimed their inherent strength, along with their own lives. Finally, they united to toast Nate rather than continue to mourn him.

Life went on. Just as it does, however miraculously, for most of us grieving for those we love and have lost.