Lazy, incompetent Howard fucked up my mother's funeral. Really bad…read more
There was to be a local visitation Tuesday at their funeral parlor and her casket was to be shipped via airplane the next day, Wednesday, to a small town 60 miles north of St. Louis for another visitation Thursday evening and her funeral and burial on Friday. It is less than a one-hour flight from Chicago to St. Louis.
On Thursday morning, the local Missouri funeral director drove to St. Louis airport to pick up her casket. When he arrived he was informed that my mother was not there. She was in Atlanta!!! It seems that Howard had decided to save himself some time and mileage and send her out of Midway Airport on Delta instead of O'Hare. Or bother to check an airline schedule. Delta did not have any direct flights to St. Louis, only flights that connected through Atlanta, their hub. Other airlines, like American, had numerous daily direct flights out of O'Hare, like the one I took the next day.
Delta came up with some excuse at the airport and the director drove the 60-mile trip back home. He stopped by my cousin's house where I was staying and told us the bad news. He did not call, he told us in person.
As a result of the intervention of the funeral director in Missouri, the airline was finally able to get her on a morning flight from Atlanta to St. Louis. My mother finally arrived very late Thursday afternoon, and the director drove back to St. Louis. A 120-mile round trip. She arrived in town ONE hour before the scheduled visitation. That, obviously, did not allow adequate time for preparation. When her casket was opened, he found that Howard had stuffed the large (and expensive) floral arrangement into the casket and it had leaked all its water all over her dress. She was soaking wet! The flowers were crushed and dried out and had to be repaired by the local florist.
Even before these events transpired, I found Howard to be cold, distant and impersonal. He took off halfway during my mother's visitation and left some elderly couple there. At the time of her local viewing, I was also dismayed and distressed by what she looked like. Extremely poor cosmetic preparation, I had provided numerous photos but the face looked nothing like her. Just terrible. I also paid extra for a hairdresser and it looked like they did nothing more than comb her hair back, The style looked nothing like the photo.
Their casket selection was lousy, ugly and overpriced. Fortunately, a couple months earlier I had found a casket on the internet that I think my mother would have been pleased with. Federal law requires funeral homes to accept caskets from outside sources, whether a different established supplier, one you make yourself or one hand-crafted by monks. This is why it is important to make at least some plans in advance, especially since the casket is one costliest items involved in a traditional funeral service and where the funeral home makes most of its money from outrageous mark-ups. The vault is another.
When I returned to pick up some paperwork, I confronted Howard who was totally oblivious to the situation. He had not even bothered to follow-up to see if she had arrived. Had it not been for the diligence, persistence and caring of the destination funeral home, the situation would have been a complete disaster.
Mother would have been appalled. If I had to do it all over again, I should have found a lawyer and sued the bastards. What should have been a positive memory of a dignified final service for my mother still lingers as a miserable memory.
