[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

Ok, I'll tell it, though it will be like a hijack.....

When I was 13, my favorite uncle died. I was pretty upset about it, but when we went to the mortuary I was fascinated that to me, he didn't look dead. I asked the funeral director who was there why my uncle looked like he did and he told me about the entire process that takes place to prepare the deceased for a viewing/funeral. He took me on a little tour of the mortuary and showed me the equipment that is used. He helped me feel a lot better about my uncle's passing.

That's what sparked the interest in that field.

When I was a senior at Marist, I finally accepted that I wasn't going to play baseball for a living, so I decided to go to my other choice - a mortician. I spent my last year living off campus with a family in the ward that included the campus. They owned a mortuary in Poughkeepsie. It was beneficial because I was able to see a lot of the work that took place in that field.

So I graduated from Marist, went to So. Cal (Orange County) to go to mortuary school and returned home to Utah to work.

I did that for 12 years or so, and I loved the technical side of it - the embalming, etc. - but it got really tough for me to deal with the families. It wasn't so much that it was depressing, but more irritating. A death brings out the best or worst in people and there is always one family member that has to be a pain in the butt.

Then, we had a year in which we did funerals for 23 kids under the age of 8 (out of 400+) which was the most children's funerals that we'd ever done in a year. I decided that it was time to go when I had to pick up a little girl who died of spinal meningitis and she looked too much like my daughter and was the exact same age - she was born on the same day my daughter was.

I still keep my embalmer's license current in case of emergencies or to earn some extra money, but I'm glad I got out of it full time.

Interesting. In any case, I am glad someone is willing to do it.

I have read that there is a huge mortician shortage looming with all of the baby boomers nearing old age.