County Cemetery
Every Friday at the County Cemetery the students from Commonwealth Institute have the opportunity to volunteer and help ’C’ Funeral home and Social Services hold committal services for the indigent cases. I have been going for over six months now and I look forward to going every Friday. Today was the first Friday of the new Fall Quarter which means a lot of new students volunteering for Friday Funerals. The first few weeks are usually like this, then they always get burned out and you end up with only two people,somebody like me who you can always depend on showing up. It is volunteer but a lot of people do not like to talk to the family or do the dismissal or anything. I want to be the best damn funeral director so even though I was very shy and nervous and pushed past it…or rather I was thrown to the wolves by my oh-so-sensitive teacher. Any who, so there were about seven students there including me, yet I was the only “veteran” of friday funerals, this was the first day at the county cemetery for the other six students. I’m not including the student who provides and drives the hearse, though he is very kind to volunteer his gas money and time to help out these families. The families start to pull in and I can’t distinguish the students from the families so as I direct each car to where they need to park I talk with the families and give them any information about the services that the county provides. There were two students sitting in the cars smoking where the families were supposed to park. I helped them move their cars without running over any families ( the cemetery is very small and all dirt roads, just to paint ya’ll a picture). I was walking around talking to each family while the new students were huddled in a group introducing themselves and such. I don’t blame them and I really don’t mind. I just talk with the families so I can get familiar with them so it doesn’t feel like I’m attending a funeral service for somebody I don’t know. I tell the students exactly what I’m doing so they don’t feel left out, though I know only half of them will show up next week. The first service starts and Doug from ‘C’ Funeral Home tells me that I’m the funeral director in charge, which came as no surprise. He told the students to ask me any questions and to pay attention to me because “I know what I’m doing. All the while I’m trying not to get a big head. I opened and closed the casket for the family with the students close at my heels. I do the dismissal which really is very short and just gives the family directions on what to do next. I direct the pall bearers (the students). Then! Here is the awesome part! I am standing at the foot end of the casket and the students and I are waiting for the hearse to pull around. My teacher, in all his glory, is standing at the head end and asks all the students if they had met me (they had earlier of course) and told them that I was “the best product from the school”. Of course I didn’t know what to say…I should have said something witty like “I am only as good as my teachers”…but instead I just beamed a smile, which for him was token enough. That was really what I was building this whole story up to…If it wasn’t at all what you expected I’m sorry. I just feel all warm and fuzzy because I kissed a lot of ass to get to where I am: The top of my class and respected by all my teachers, even the one everybody hates. I really studied hard to get my 4.0 and I have perfect attendance.
