I think the role of a funeral director in walking people through this process is – first of all – to be present, um, to be a sense of stability, a sense of “it’s gonna be OK,” a sense of listening, paying attention, understanding and taking our expertise and our knowledge and our experience into their world and helping them create something that’s going to be meaningful for the future.

The funeral director is often the first person that a, a grieving family meets. They haven’t seen their pastor or their counsellor, or even their friend. They may, may come straight from the hospital or from hospice, and they walk in our door. And so, in a sense, we’re, we are everything to that family.

Our job is just to explain what has to happen and why. We then go through every option available, so that the service will be a reflection of your family’s needs, the desires, financial constraints. We look after all of those aspects.

We need to tenderly hold their hand and walk them through a very difficult, um, difficult period in their life.

The key skill that any good funeral director that offers – and the key skill that we at Springfield Funeral Home here hire for – is caring presence.

We, we go ourselves to the home if a person dies in a home. Two directors go to the house. And the care with which we, um, take the person out of that home is critical. And we, we take ownership of that. That’s a very, very, uh, very special time for me personally as a, as a funeral director.

Uh, we’re gonna take the time to do whatever’s needed before, during, and then after that time of need to walk you through uh, though the process. It was actually my dad who had the, uh, the sense of that whole continuity of before, during, and after. Um, to just have a full scale version of that for people. And uh, it’s led to ah top notch prearrangement program, um, excellent funeral directors, facilities, equipment and expertise in doin-delivering funeral services. And um, and a core of some specialized people that actually help after the fact, with, uh, grief counselling, um, special things that might be unique to an individual’s grief needs afterwards, uh, and then we have as well a person that helps with all that documentation and paperwork. It’s a privilege to be that full service place for people.