On October 10 of 2024 my parents were traveling from Arizona back to their home in Colorado. My father passed away very unexpectedly at only 66 years old in a gas station bathroom in New Mexico. His body was taken to Mt. Taylor. I always thought funeral homes were supposed to make this process easier, but I have nothing good to say about their services. They made so many mistakes and made the whole process so much harder than it needed to be.
First of all, when my father passed at the gas station it was very chaotic. When his body was taken out of there and into the hurst my mother was never given the chance to say her goodbyes. We called Mt. Taylor the next morning and asked if my mother could please come by to say goodbye before heading back to Colorado. They said no, that they would have to schedule a time and day in a few days and prepare the body for a viewing. Staying in New Mexico for another couple days in a strange town and hotel was not an option. Who would want to do that after their husband of 47 years died? Neither was paying an abundance of money to prepare his body for a viewing only to later have his remains cremated. All she wanted was 5 minutes with him before leaving town to say her goodbyes and they would not allow this to happen. The medical examiner that worked the case even asked them to allow this for my mother and was denied.
Next, we chose to have the remains cremated at Mt. Taylor instead of paying a substantial cost to have him moved back to Colorado. It took 21 days to get his cremated remains and a tremendous amount of hassle. I kept getting the excuse that my fathers primary care office had not signed the death certificate application paperwork, which I have complete confidence that they took care of immediately upon being asked and faxed to Mt. Taylor. Once I got involved and made a phone call to the doctor's office, I had the needed paperwork sent again to Mt. Taylor in 5 minutes.
I also provided my father's DD214 on 10/14 and was asked for it again10/22 as they stated that they were waiting on me to get it to them to proceed with scheduling his service.
On 10/24, I called for an update since on the status of the cremation. Kody told me that all he knows was that the cremation happened yesterday because he was the one who did it. I asked him if he processed the remains into 4 parts as initially requested and he said that he knew nothing about that. That is certainly concerning! He also knew nothing about the order that my sister placed for 2 necklaces with ashes and fingerprints. If the person who cremated did not know these details how is this done correctly? Who knows if we even got the right remains or if the right remains were saved for the necklace order.
As mentioned, my sister worked with an employee of Mt. Taylor to order some keepsakes. She ordered two necklaces with ashes and fingerprints. She paid $1250 for these items to be made. When following up on her order, she received notification from Mt. Taylor that they did not get my father's fingerprints before cremating him. How do you mess something like this up? There is no going back! She then had to fight for weeks to get a refund of $600 for their mistake. The owner claimed that he had no way to refund on the credit card and after weeks of waiting she finally got a check. Additionally, she ordered a tear drop shape necklace and received oval.
So many things about our experience with Mt. Taylor were an absolute disorganized mess that caused processing my father's death so much harder and more complicated than it needed to be. read more
