With luck, everyone grows up eventually. For some, it’s mostly an easy set of more or less natural transitions, and for others it’s something else altogether. No matter how it might be in any individual case, surrendering to the forces that mature us is ultimately redemptive. Perhaps the expression ‘grow up’ is more accurately termed ‘wake up.’

Caleb Wilde’s book Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life connects us to a man on the path of redemption by way of a career with which most of us are likely quite unfamiliar. To call his path of growth ‘something else altogether’ is to understate its unconventional nature.

Born into a family of funeral directors, and of a solitary disposition, Wilde does everything in his power to avoid following the footsteps of his predecessors as a ‘death professional.’ Steeped in the ‘death negative’ paradigm that he claims our society embraces, nothing could have been less attractive to him as a youth and he fought it with a vengeance. As I read though, I was put in mind of the old bromide ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.’

As the book unfolds, Wilde comes to realize that death is part of life and that the meaning of life can somehow to be found in grappling with death. He writes of one funeral: “Because life is this beautiful, complex, and messy web of giving ourselves away to others, and allowing others to give themselves to us, shouldn’t our dying process be supported by those who created our web of life?” [p. 65]. This observation lies at the core of the ‘waking up’ that ‘growing up’ is.

Although he states that by handing over death to the ‘experts’ people have lost an essential connection to life, Wilde implicitly reveals to us an essential pattern of his own growth, as he realizes slowly that his role is not to be an ‘expert,’ but fully human. What people were actually handing over to him at death turned out to be their hurt and vulnerable hearts: the connection to life whose loss he bemoans was in some measure his responsibility to begin to provide.

Having been a hospital chaplain for a number of years now, I recognized that Wilde’s growth parallels that of chaplains in many significant ways. Funeral directors as well as chaplains serve as guides to the suffering, providing some comfort as well as permission to grieve to those less familiar with the terrain than we happen to be. One of the principal lessons we all learn is what Rev. John Savage has taught, that we can only enter into another’s pain as deeply as we can enter into our own. Much of Wilde’s book documents his journey within this space.

A key capability that chaplains and funeral directors must learn is the ability to be silent. Silence, in this context, isn’t simply the ability to keep quiet. Silence, as Thomas Merton would describe it, is the absence of ego. Nowhere is the inability to be silent more apparent than in the afflictions visited upon the bereaved by ‘religious’ folks who feel the need to assert their denomination’s party line on death. There’s a time for empathetic words, and a time for simple quiet, calm presence, but there is never an appropriate time for moralizing bombast in the face of death. As Wilde states “I had begun to see that if I rejected the death negative, I also needed to reject morality shaming and the ‘you will never be enough’ story…. Because being inherently mortal doesn’t mean we’re inherently sinful. Letting go of this shame has allowed for vulnerability in my life.” [p. 91]

Vulnerability is an essential stance for those in the caring professions, it seems to me. Wilde accurately observes “In rare moments, I saw how death and dying creates community by allowing us to touch each other’s humanity. To be human is not to be closed off, detached, emotionless and on a strict schedule. Being human means the opposite: connecting, being fluid, feeling, and – at times - weeping. Ironically, sometimes heaven happens when we’re closest to hell. Because heaven is wherever love reigns, even in those circumstances that are painful and full of tears.” [p. 112] I frequently tell bereaved families that the strongest person in the room is the one who is unafraid to show his or her emotions, not the one who is suppressing them. To give one another permission to express grief is one of the deepest expressions of love one human can offer another. Top of Form

Unable to bear children of their own, Wilde and his wife adopted a little boy, Jeremiah. He sums up what he has learned so far about how death informs life admirably, describing how his experiences have helped him become a better parent: “I’m by no means the ideal parent, but death and my awareness of it have helped me be better. I don’t think I’d be nearly as grateful, nearly as patient, nearly as present, and nearly as in love with Jeremiah if it wasn’t for my full knowledge of the struggle and brevity of life.” [p. 170] Perhaps Wilde’s knowledge is ‘full’ and perhaps it’s not, but whatever it is, it’s honestly expressed, and for that the reader can be grateful.

Some may be put off by Wilde’s references to obscure characters and contexts (e.g., Game of Thrones characters), occasional gross imagery, and homeboy style, but I would urge such simply to take a deep breath and move on. There is much wisdom to be mined in this book, and I enthusiastically recommend it to all, especially to those unfamiliar with the landscape of bereavement.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.