Are You "Fluffy"? If So, I Still Want to Know You...

I belong to a community service club that does all kinds of activities. Recently a club member came up with the idea of having all the members read the same two books and discuss them at our December meeting. Normally I wouldn't see this as a problem, in fact, I would enjoy it, but then I saw the books. I don't usually read "fluffy", or I guess I should say I never read "fluff". Both of the books are about murders and food. That's right, murders and food. I thought this a tad unusual. I have had a heck of a time reading them. I would start a chapter, big print, small pages, hardly any words that contain more than five consonants and two vowels, and yet it would take me forever to finish it. I would find myself wandering while reading. It is hard to get into a book that just doesn't seem as though it has much depth. I would not catch the little details because, frankly, I would not allow myself to become interested. I don't care if the policeman had a crush on the baker and that the baker's cat has a ten page, morning routine (which shows up after every fourth chapter). Now that I am getting toward the end, I am ashamed to say that it has been a much more clever book than I thought it might be. I had to re-read a few chapters to piece it back together, but now that I am almost finished, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Funeral directors sometimes fall into a rut of not wanting to mess with the "fluff". We may meet with a different family every day of the week, and though they all might have a few little quirks, I would venture to say that nine times out of ten the families are your run of the mill, middle/lower class family. What happens is the funeral director, myself included, can become guilty of wanting to skip over the "fluffy" parts, whether it be because we are over worked and tired, have a hundred and one things that need to be done, or heaven forbid, we have become bored with our profession. This is when the family may suffer a little, but the funeral director is the one that is really missing out. Not missing out on sales that might make them commissions, or other business contacts, but rather on the true reward of the work. We miss out on a chance to really get to know people.

Each family's "fluffiness" is indeed different. They have special little antidotes about how grandma once set the kitchen on fire trying to bake three dozen pies for the county fair, or how crazy uncle Bob use to be able to play the accordion, while standing on one foot and smoking a cigar, in the middle of a hail storm. Each family has a pet that has a morning routine that could take ten pages to write about, and every family has a history that is rich and diverse. By not letting ourselves become thoroughly engaged in what the families are telling us, we are missing out on getting to really know people.

The reward of a funeral service related job is hardly ever monetary, rather it is the stories, the people and their quirks, and above all the mental connection we make, that becomes our reward. It is that sense that you have gotten to know someone and have done your best to help them through one of the toughest situations they will ever have to deal with. It is, in the end, a lasting reward.

Bill Clinton has often commented that he just loves getting to know people and to learn their stories. You can tell when he is being interviewed or is in a sense interviewing the public that he employees active listening techniques. His eyes don't wander around the room, he doesn't repeatedly check his watch, and his face doesn't glaze over. He would make a great funeral director. To be able to give each family a chance to tell you their "fluff ",and to be able to listen attentively, is probably the most therapeutic act a funeral director, or any one for that matter, can do when a loved one has died.

So, the next time someone offers me up a book that looks like "fluff", and starts out reading like "fluff", I give it the benefit of the doubt. The next time I meet with a family and they start telling me their "fluff", and it sounds like the average run of the mill "fluff", I will promise to devote myself to listening attentively. Now, if the book turns out to be total crap, I may have to dump it off at the nearest thrift store, but I promise if the family I am meeting with turns out to be the epitome of average "fluff", I will not dump them off at the nearest thrift store.