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President's Letter:
The Voice of Experience in Funeral Planning? Make Sure It's Yours
Carol Caunter
Carol Caunter, ICFA president for 2003-2004, who has 12 years of experience in the cemetery and funeral profession following 12 years of experience in the financial services industry, works for Tobias Funeral Home in Dayton, Ohio. She can be reached at carolcaunter@hotmail.com.
I was lounging in a chair last week, reading a good book, sipping a cafe´ au lait. No, I wasn't in some ritzy club, just my neighborhood bookstore. Who could have imagined that bookstores would encourage you to sit for hours reading books you hadn't paid for? As I glanced across the huge first floor, my eyes focused on a remarkable sight: A prominent section dedicated to that most blissful of life's events-weddings.
I strolled over to the section and counted the titles. There were 79 different books on weddings. Spend just a few minutes here, and you'll discover more about weddings than you ever cared to know. You'll find everything from the highbrow-"The Elegant Wedding"-to the lowly "Weddings For Dummies," for clueless brides-to-be. Want to get married on the beach? Try "The Complete Outdoors Wedding Planner." Martha Stewart is the queen of this domain, a regular category killer. And for the man in your life-a mere afterthought in this literary category-there's "The Clueless Groom's Guide to Weddings," an indispensable book that actually has a chapter titled, "How To Get Him Involved."
Concerned you may not be up on the latest trends? Check out the magazine section, where Modern Bride now competes with 17 different periodicals, including Martha Stewart Weddings. One thing is clear: A nice service and reception no longer are enough. After all, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. (All right, maybe more than once, but that's a whole different section of the bookstore.)
And that's when I started thinking about funerals and cremations. More families today want an experience that truly reflects and celebrates the life lived. There's probably a little section somewhere in this bookstore that can give people creative suggestions for arranging a funeral or cremation, I thought. So I strolled over to the information desk, where a studious looking young man appeared eager to help.
"Excuse me, but where can I find books on arranging a funeral or a cremation?" I asked.
"Uh, what do you mean?" he said, looking up.
"Funerals," I said. "What books do you have on arranging funerals?"
"Let me look in the computer," he said cautiously.
But the computer's database was as confused as he was. Here's a partial list of what it offered: "Death in Venice," "Death of a Salesman," "Tibetan Book of the Dead," "Deadbeat Dads" and a DVD gift set of "Six Feet Under."
In a world where book titles scream about subjects once only whispered about, funerals and
cremations either are taboo (still) or nobody cares that much, or a strange combination of the two. Yet every year, more than 2 million people in North America arrange a funeral or a cremation. Feeling unprepared, inadequate, even embarrassed by what they perceive as their own ignorance, families usually don't understand their options.
And that's where we come in. Just as bookstores now offer not only books, but also an "experience," we no longer can simply sell a nice casket with a floral spray and expect that we've delivered what the family wants. But if the ceremony honors the life lived, celebrates that person's uniqueness and provides some sense of emotional satisfaction to the family, we've created an experience the family will value.
The ICFA is dedicated to helping its members improve their ability to listen to their families.
Your association has never celebrated the status quo. It's working hard to understand what consumers want. Perhaps someday, bookstores will provide families with the information they need to arrange a better funeral or cremation experience. Until then, that's our job.
Copyright ICFA 2003
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