All I do are funerals.

by littlemissfuneral

Today I updated my resume for the first time in three years. I didn’t do it for any reason other than it had been a while and an old boss once told me that it’s important to have a good resume. It kind of made me laugh, because I listed every single title that I ever had at the last funeral home I worked at.

February 2011 – June 2011: Funeral Assistant

June 2011 – June 2012: Resident Funeral Director

June 2012 – Present: Licensed Funeral Director

I mean, I was very excited every time my title changed, because it meant that I was that much close to my goal, to be fully licensed in New York State. Well, after combining some dates and rearranging things here and there, I now have it! A very pretty and up to date resume that proves to the entire world that I can only do one thing; bury people.

It’s a joke that I took to Twitter, because I believe that I’m sometimes witty and want to share my humor with the internet. I got a few ‘likes’ and retweets, but I got one response that said funeral directors have many high level skills that are valuable to those they serve. And that made me feel really good, because sometimes in the middle of burying and cremating dead bodies, I forget about all the things that I do for others and the things that I’m really good at.

I’m really good at calming people down during an arrangement conference.

I’m really good at doing makeup on the deceased for visitations.

I’m good at organizing a life event in a very short time frame.

I’m good at talking in front of a large crowd and speaking loudly and clearly.

I’m really good at listening. I listen to people’s wishes when it comes to their funerals. I listen to the widow as she tells stories of her husband who just died. I listen to body language and words that sound like one thing, but really mean something completely different.

I’m really good at being honest and upfront with people, because over all else, I treat the families that I have the honor of serving with the respect and dignity that I would want for my own family.

So yeah, when looking at my resume it may seem like I’m only qualified to bury people, but if the pages could talk, I’m sure they’d offer a different side to my story. Hopefully a side that shows that I was able to be a light in someones life when all they had was darkness. Because ‘funeral director’ or ‘mortician’ means so much more than “a person whose business is preparing dead bodies for burial or cremation and making arrangements for funerals”. It means being available 24/7. Going above and beyond what families expect to make a difficult time as easy as possible. It means working long hours and sometimes, for not the best pay. It means sacrificing time with my family for yours. It means being a makeup artist, car washer, public speaker, janitor, party planner, graphic designer and so so much more. It means doing the best I can every single day, so one day when I die, I can stand in the Grace of God and tell Him that I did the best that I could.

I’m really doing the best I can.