Confessions of a Funeral Director

Confessions of a Funeral Director PDF Author: Caleb Wilde
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062465260
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying

Confessions of a Funeral Director

Confessions of a Funeral Director PDF Author: Caleb Wilde
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062465260
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book

Book Description
The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying

Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked?

Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? PDF Author: Robert Webster
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402250843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Why would someone want to hang out with dead bodies? With curious anecdotes and unbelievable truth, funeral director Robert Webster reveals that answer and more, offering readers entertaining and quirky stories gleaned from a life lived around death. Webster tackles those embarrassing questions we all have about what really goes on bhind the scenes when you've left this world: Strange things people put in caskets The biggest rip-offs in the business The crazy things that happen to a body after death Lime, waz, and other ways to hide the truth The most important thing an undertaker does How to avoid the high-pressure funeral parlor What that's not a coffin the body is resting in

Mortuary Confidential

Mortuary Confidential PDF Author: Todd Harra
Publisher: Citadel
ISBN: 0806541393
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.

Curtains

Curtains PDF Author: Tom Jokinen
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458759008
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
At forty-four, Tom Jokinen decided to quit his job in order to become an apprentice undertaker, setting out to ask the questions: What is the right thing to do when someone dies? With the marketplace offering new options (go green, go anti-corporate, go Disney, be packed into an artificial reef and dropped in the Atlantic...), is there still room for tradition? In a year of adventures both hair-raising and hilarious, Jokinen finds a world that is radically changed since Jessica Mitford revisedThe American Way of Death, more surprising thanSix Feet Under, and even funnier and more illuminating thanStiff.If Bill Bryson were to apprentice at a funeral home, searching for the meaning of life and death, you’d haveCurtains.

DAD, CAN I BORROW THE HEARSE?

DAD, CAN I BORROW THE HEARSE? PDF Author: Thomas J. Van Kula
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
ISBN: 1662913818
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Located within the boundaries of one of the East Side of Detroit's "bluest" of blue collar neighborhoods, 9074 St. Cyril Avenue served a dual purpose - funeral home and family residence. Occupying the first floor of the impressive yellow bricked structure from 1942 until 1978 was the Van Kula Funeral Home - the second floor I called home. For over four decades I was associated with death and dying on an almost daily occurrence. Residing over a funeral home with five siblings added to the plenitude of memories - poignant, humorous and enduring. As an observer and eventual practitioner of one of the world's oldest professions, I have borne witness to human nature under the most demanding of emotional circumstances. In "DAD, CAN I BORROW THE HEARSE?" I have attempted to present a summary of events as they related to me - "The Funeral Director's Kid".

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory PDF Author: Caitlin Doughty
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245950
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Dying to Meet You: Confessions of a Funeral Director

Dying to Meet You: Confessions of a Funeral Director PDF Author: Angjolie Mei
Publisher: Epigram Books
ISBN: 9814757497
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Why would someone leave a shining career in management to work among the dead? Angjolie Mei, funeral director and "life celebrant", recounts how the death of her father—a veteran known as ‘The Coffin King’ in the funeral industry—prompted this dramatic choice. What exactly happens during embalming? What kind of post-death restoration is needed for second-degree burn victims? What are the little-known facts surrounding suicide in Singapore? Angjolie offers the insider’s view on these and other aspects of an industry usually shrouded in mystery, and reflects on how her perceptions of death, and life, have changed since she chose this extraordinary profession.

The Day the Angels Fell

The Day the Angels Fell PDF Author: Shawn Smucker
Publisher: Revell
ISBN: 1493411071
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
It was the summer of storms and strays and strangers. The summer that lightning struck the big oak tree in the front yard. The summer his mother died in a tragic accident. As he recalls the tumultuous events that launched a surprising journey, Samuel can still hardly believe it all happened. After his mother's death, twelve-year-old Samuel Chambers would do anything to bring her back. Prompted by three strange carnival fortune-tellers and the surfacing of his mysterious and reclusive neighbor, Sam begins his search for the Tree of Life--the only thing that could possibly bring his mother back. His quest to defeat death entangles him and his best friend Abra in an ancient conflict and forces Sam to grapple with an unwelcome question: could it be possible that death is a gift? Haunting and hypnotic, The Day the Angels Fell explores the difficult questions of life in a voice that is fresh, friendly, and unafraid. With this powerful story, Shawn Smucker has carved out a spot for himself in the tradition of authors Madeleine L'Engle and Lois Lowry.

Purified by Fire

Purified by Fire PDF Author: Stephen Prothero
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520236882
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Publisher Fact Sheet A history of cremation in America.

Down Among the Dead Men

Down Among the Dead Men PDF Author: Michelle Williams
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1849014639
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Michelle Williams is young and attractive, she has close family ties as well as a busy social life - but she is far from usual. She is a mortuary technician and her job involves dealing with those things in life that many people do not wish to experience directly. Yet life in the mortuary is neither gruesome nor sad. Told with good humour and common sense, we are introduced to a host of characters - the pathologists, many of them eccentric, some downright mad; the undertakers, the hospital porters and the man from the coroner's office who sings to Michelle every morning. The incidents too ensure that no two days are ever the same. From the tragic to the hilarious they include: The fitness fanatic who was run over as he did pressups in the road on a dark night The decapitated motorcyclist The guide dog who led his owner on to the railway tracks - and left him there The forty stone man for whom an entire refrigerated lorry had to be hired because he wouldn't fit in the mortuary cooler Over the course of her first year Michelle has to deal with situations and emotions that few of us will ever experience, and does so while retaining a sense of humour and a sense of perspective.