Mike Hall grew up in a farmhouse on Friendship Street. Among the chores he and his older siblings shared of growing the gardens and caring for the animals, the most important was answering the telephone, whatever the day, whatever the hour. In those days, the funeral business had no breaks. And this was why Mike was ready to leave Waldoboro upon graduating from Medomak Valley High School. He took off for college in Massachusetts, and then found work in Washington, D.C. working for IBM in sales. But on a weekend trip home about ten years later, something shifted. Mike was struck by the beauty of Waldoboro. At the same time, he was feeling the need to find more meaningful work. For the first time, he realized he could combine the two by joining his father’s business. His father and stepmother were happily surprised at his proposal. After getting his degree in mortuary science, Mike returned. A couple of years later, his father put him in charge of opening a branch in Boothbay. It was there that Mike learned the business from the bottom up. As Funeral Director, Mike is immersed in other people’s grief. To replenish his spirit, he walks his dog each morning as the sun rises and thinks on the blessings of his family, home, and work. And as he goes, Mike reminds himself: “Be present.”
My brother died in a car accident when I was seven. My mom died of a sudden heart attack when I was ten. Then three years later my uncle died in a plane crash. Everybody handles grief in their own way, but I probably did the worst thing I could have done. I stuffed all my feelings inside. Some of my teachers were kind and looked out for me, especially Miss Boggard who taught home economics. Maybe that’s why I took several of her classes like sewing and cooking. But also, after my mom’s death I realized that my father didn’t know much about cooking. Cooking class gave me the confidence to go into the kitchen at home and start making things. A lot of what I made didn’t taste all that great, but I kept at it. I got better. Now I love to cook, and it’s been a great source of comfort over time.
I think Europeans and Asians handle death better than we do. For them, death and loss are kind of an open book. But we Americans tend to push grief aside. I see it all the time, how we tell ourselves that a funeral is just an event, a day to pass through, a day that will be over so that the next day we can move on. But it doesn’t work that way. I know because that’s what I did. And it didn’t work. It took until I was a sophomore in college when I was at a Halloween party and like a hammer, I found myself thinking about Mom, over and over again. I had to leave. I made it back to my room and bawled my eyes out. I must have cried for four hours straight.
Do I miss my mother? Absolutely. Would I love to have her here? Absolutely. Physically, I can’t. Spiritually, I do have her. I have her through cooking. I have her through her friends. And we talk about her and keep her alive that way. That, and trying to be the best person I can be and knowing she’d be proud of me. That’s how I keep my mother with me.
Our job is hard but I think it’s gotten harder. It used to be that when families came in, they had common needs. Today, families are divided with divorces, stepchildren, stepparents, boyfriends, girlfriends. Our role is still the same, but now we’re managing all the different wishes and needs of these groups of family who either like each other or not. They’re not always willing to work together. And that is challenging.
But the hardest days for me are around the loss of a young person. When I see parents sobbing, it brings me back to when my brother died. The parents are so lost. Our job is to help them make positive decisions and move forward. Easier said than done.
Because usually when it’s someone young, there’s a lot of anger, a lot of guilt, a lot of ‘what if’s’. I saw some of that in my dad. With my brother Ricky, there had been a divide between them, and then Ricky went to college. And when he came back, there was a rekindling. Then Ricky died. I could see how my dad always felt guilty about it. I finally told him, “Dad, you didn’t get into the car. You didn’t speed on Thomas’s Hill. Ricky didn’t intend to do that, but it happened. It was an accident. You have to let that go, Dad. Those were decisions Ricky made.” And over time, I saw my dad start to let go.
To forgive is difficult, even in loving families. Most of the time, when someone in a family passes, there are all sorts of feelings like anger, love, loss, grief, resentment, fury, sadness. People get stuck on things that happened 30 years ago. But you can’t change what happened. It was a mistake. It was a different age and time. Doesn’t mean it’s right. But where is the willingness to come back? I wish people could make up. It makes me want to say to them, “Your parents loved you. Always will love you. They had you for a reason. They wanted to have a family. They did not have you to divide you.”
It’s like that song by the Eagles, “Often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” We’re in charge of our lives, for the most part. We have choices. Not every situation is recoverable. I think a lot of them are, though.
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