Confessions of a Funeral Director Quotes

“Today, though, doctors and nurses have replaced family and friends, an unintended consequence of the advancement of medical science. We fear death because we don’t know it, we don’t see it, and we don’t touch it. And what we don’t know, we’ve painted in broad strokes of darkness and negativity. The death negative narrative wouldn’t be so strong if we only had the ability to see, touch, and hold our dying and our dead.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Along the way, I learned the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, which means 'the healing of the world' and is accomplished through presence in the midst of pain. It can be summarized in the phrase "I'm here with you and I love you" and is accomplished through simple acts of presence. It became a rallying cry for me in my work as a funeral director. Rachel Naomi Remen, in an interview with Krista Tippett, describes it as 'a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world...It's not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It's about the world that touches you.' Presence and proximity before performance. As I took that to heart, I started to see small, everyday examples of tikkun olam everywhere. When a mother comforts a child, she's healing the world. Every time someone listens to another - deeply listens - she's healing the world. A nurse who bathes the weakened body of an elderly patient is healing the world. The teacher who invests herself in her students is healing the world. The plumber who makes the inner workings of a house run smoothly is healing the world. A funeral director who finds that he can heal the world even at his family's business. When we practice presence and proximity, we may not change anyone, we may not shift culture or move mountains, but it's a healing act, if for none other than ourselves. When we do our work with kindness - no matter what kind of work - if we're doing it with presence, we're practicing tikkun olam.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“We’re only satisfied when it feels like we have sufficient explanations and certainties.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“To become comfortable in silence may be the first step in becoming comfortable with death because, on the most basic biological level, death and silence are the same. Conversely, being comfortable in the silence may be the first step in pursuing life. As I would come to learn, death may not be so horrible after all. In fact, death may be the most beautiful thing about this human experiment. But I believe we can only see the positive in death when we learn to accept the silence. When we're able to tap that reservoir of bravery and lay aside all our words against death, and sit, not as the teacher of death, but as the student, listening to what death has to say in the silence, this is the first step.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Death is dark, but it's also light, and between that contrast I saw a death positive narrative begin to appear. The dark and light can produce a rainbow of color that exists in a spectrum of hues, shades, tints, and values. Its beauty is firmly planted in the storm, but we've become color-blind. And I tremble to say there's good in death, that there's a death positive narrative, because I've looked in the eyes of a grieving mother and I've seen the heartbreak of the stricken widow, but I've also seen something more in death, something good. Death's hands aren't all bony and cold.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“three types of touching: touching with desire, touching with demand, and—the most rare option—touching with devotion.1 Touching with devotion is an ardent recognition of the value of people . . . it’s not forceful or uncomfortable; rather, it’s respectful and produces ease.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Ironically, sometimes heaven happens when we’re closest to hell. Because heaven is wherever love reigns, even in those circumstances that are painful and full of tears. Sometimes heaven even happens on earth.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“With this mortality positivity and lack of shame, I have become more willing to acknowledge that I need other people to help me. I am able to acknowledge that I am growing and that I can learn from others. For me, vulnerability isn’t giving into shame and acting like I have it all together because I don’t. Vulnerability isn’t acting like I can do it all by myself because I can’t. Vulnerability is being honest with where I’m at and grabbing the hands of those who can guide me, and being shameless enough to admit my problems to them.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Because sometimes when it seems like everything is falling apart, we’re actually coming together.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Instead of giving a timetable to grief and how we relate to the death, an icon or a shrine accepts that grief and death are still here with us even now because we simply have ongoing bonds with the deceased. They will forever be a part of us and instead of trying to "heal" and find decathexis, we must learn to adjust because love has this amazing way of living on past death, in both grief and joy.
You aren't sick with grief; you're healthy with grief.
And you don't need closure; grief will always be the in-between, and that's okay.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Dead people never look right.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“seems like a one-way street. Just like we have an innate connection with and compassion for babies, we also have an innate connection with and compassion for the aging and the disabled.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Nearly every hospital has a morgue to house the deceased so that they’re out of sight. In a sense, a death to the hospital is like an atheist to the church. It’s that gnawing reminder that this facility, this institution doesn’t have all the answers to all the world’s health problems. So they ostracize the deceased to a cold little room in the back and hope that no one notices. Perhaps there’s no place where the death negative narrative has a greater hold than within the walls of a hospital.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“With doctors having authority over dying, and funeral directors gaining authority over death, it created a culture of death virgins . . . people who have little experience and know-how when it comes to the end stage of life.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“It brings a family together for just a moment. It relieves pain for just a moment. It cultivates love for just a moment. And for just that moment, we see a glimpse of the glory of the earth.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“But God, with all God-power and all God-presence and all God-love, did nothing. I pondered whether perhaps”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“pondered whether perhaps God didn’t exist, an unsettling thought I entertained on numerous occasions. But that wasn’t nearly as unsettling as believing that God did exist and either didn’t care or was downright evil.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“The first step toward breaking free of our problems is acknowledging that we all need help, we all need love, we all need each other, we all need healing, and we must find healthier ways to meet our needs. After all, whatever reason prompts drug use—whether it be to mask pain, to escape a difficult life, to feel included, to feel pleasure, or to feed an addiction—all these things strike at the very heart of what it means to be human.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“To become comfortable in silence may be the first step in becoming comfortable with death because, on the most basic biological level, death and silence are the same. Conversely, being comfortable in the silence may be the first step in pursuing life. As I would come to learn, death may not be so horrible after all. In fact, death may be the most beautiful thing about this human experiment. But I believe we can only see the positive in death when we learn to accept the silence. When we’re able to tap that reservoir of bravery and lay aside all our words against death, and sit, not as the teacher of death, but as the student, listening to what death has to say in the silence, this is the first step.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“This is why we so crave truth tellers, religious leaders, economic forecasters, and political pundits who give us a sense of certainty. We’re only satisfied when it feels like we have sufficient explanations and certainties. But in silence, we have to consciously deny our survival instinct and biological wiring and acknowledge that our answers, our explanations, our certainties, our immortality projects may not fulfill our questions, doubts, and uncertainty. In fact, the lack of certainty lays a foundation for fear. Perhaps our fear of death is because there’s such a lack of certainty in the wake of its silence. Perhaps we fear the silence just as much as we fear death. Perhaps we fear silence more than death.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“David Rock, cofounder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, wrote: The brain likes to know the pattern occurring moment to moment; it craves certainty, so that prediction is possible. Without prediction, the brain must use dramatically more resources, involving the more energy-intensive prefrontal cortex, to process moment-to-moment experience. Even a small amount of uncertainty generates an “error” response in the orbital frontal cortex. This takes attention away from one’s goals, forcing attention to the error. . . . Larger uncertainties, like not knowing your boss’s expectations or if your job is secure, can be highly debilitating.1 This is why the instability that comes with the loss of a loved one can wreck our lives. It sucks away all our brain’s energy and directs it to reestablishing a sense of stability. This is why traumatic events can ruin a child’s school performance. This is why a divorce can hurt a person’s ability to accomplish tasks at work. This is why one tragic death can destroy a whole family.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“it’s not the ending that defines us”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Death is everywhere, present in every aspect of life. Everything we eat, from greens to meat, in all its wonderful pleasure and presentation, is a sacrifice of nature for our survival. And our bodies, which feed on those greens and meats, if buried, will one day become the food for other creatures, small as they may be. Nearly everything we eat is made up of the dead of something else. In every death is life, a birth of something new. It’s usually small life, but it’s there, somewhere.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“If there’s one reason why believers use comfort clichés—like “You’ll see him again someday,” “She’s in a better place,” “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” “Heaven will wipe away all your tears”—it’s because they’ve only read the resurrection chapter of the story, and they’ve used that chapter as a shield against the darkness of death and anxiety. This is the problem as I had begun to see it: we’ve become so focused on the resurrection that we’ve never taken death to heart. Certainly, the afterlife is powerful; and like most powerful things, it’s easily abused. The easiest abuse that arises is that we can pay more attention to the life after than the life here and now. And maybe, if we’re always looking up for heaven, we miss the heaven that’s right in front of us. And that’s the danger in it all, that we start to value the heaven after life more than we value the heaven here in life. After all, despite what I thought as a young man, the good news isn’t about bringing somebody to heaven. It’s about heaven coming down to meet us.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Imagine being at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Peer up to the top of the hole and you might see some of your friends and family waiting for you, offering words of support and encouragement. This is sympathy; they want to help you out of the pit you have found yourself in. This can assist, but not as much as the person who is standing beside you; the person who is in that hole with you and can see the world from your perspective; this is empathy.”1”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“If the problem of mortality shaming flows from a view of God as “perfect,” wouldn’t it be interesting if the narrative was turned on its head and instead of a “perfect” God, we talked about a God who was vulnerable? Wouldn’t it be interesting if vulnerability lies at the very core of God? If we shared this view of God around death and funerals, Chad’s friends might not have held their heads in shame, but maybe they could have found community. If the pastor could have talked about a God who stands, maybe even kneels, with us in weakness and vulnerability, maybe they would have found God. If God is really love, if God sees us and feels with us, it means that at God’s core is this vulnerability, an interdependence that allows God to feel our pains, to know our sorrows and our joys. Maybe it’s okay to have sorrow. Maybe it’s okay to weep. It’s okay to be vulnerable, for when we do so, we aren’t becoming unlike God, we are, in fact, worshipping.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“I took note of Chad’s mother’s smile as I was setting up the flowers around the casket, and I asked her how she was doing. This all-too-common and easy question is fully loaded at a funeral. If I’m honest, it’s a question I should strike altogether from my funeral vernacular. It’s no surprise when someone responds, “I’m at a funeral, how do you think I’m doing?” But her response has stuck with me. She said, “I’ve never slept so good in ten years. There is something worse than death; there’s staying up night after night worrying about the whereabouts and well-being of a son who is controlled by addiction. He’s resting in peace and so am I.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Sacred is a word that we need to reclaim. It has lost its meaning because we associate the word with religious connotations—something is only sacred if it has been sanctified by religion. It’s a definition that works in some cases, but beyond the religious connection, sacredness is defined by love. When something or someone is loved, that love sanctifies it. Our children are sacred. Our loved ones are sacred. Our hobbies are sacred. And our aging and disabled loved ones are sacred because they are loved. Even our dead are sacred because though the body no longer works, it is still sanctified by the love of family and friends.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Evil and misery were never intended. The world isn’t the way God intended it to be. Even the popular Lord’s Prayer asks for God’s kingdom to come here on earth, as it is in heaven, meaning that it’s not all God’s will. That accidents actually happen, sometimes with deadly results. That the little infant who lay on our morgue table was there by legitimate accident and not by some divine plan, or because “God wanted an angel.” By this thinking, if God is limited, then it is up to us, God’s people, to help the world become a better place by helping people embrace life and turn to this loving God. The problem of evil could be solved by my good actions and I could let the love of God solve evil through all my acts of love. I am the creator of the good. I can speak it into existence. And maybe, just maybe, my love and good actions could bring other people to God and I could help make the world a more loving place.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Grief is as unique as one’s relationship with the deceased. No grief is the same. Some forms of grief are healthier than others, but one form of grief isn’t right, and neither is someone else’s wrong. Nevertheless, death asks us to pause. It doesn’t tell us what we need to do when we pause (there may be nothing to do at all), but it asks us to be in its presence. To sit with it. Listen to it. To lay aside chronos and embrace kairos. That’s what finally caught up with me when I sat weeping in my car, remembering my grandfather, and thinking about how much I would miss him. It’s not a moment of weakness but of strength, and we need to be reminded to allow for these natural pauses in life. We will find that death sits at the heart of what it means to be human, and we may just find ourselves when we practice the death Sabbath.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life