Thank You for Caring for Her One Last Time

​You were the very last person to touch my daughter on this earth.
You took her small, silent body, stilled by death, and you washed her.
You dressed her in the clothes I had so carefully chosen and packed into a brown paper bag, her favorite jeans, a bright blue t-shirt, a soft little tank top.

Years later, I panicked. I suddenly remembered, (or thought I did) that I might have forgotten to include underwear.
In my distress, I called the funeral home.
And you know what?
They answered with the kind of gentleness no textbook could ever teach:
"Don’t worry. When a family forgets something, we take care of it. Quietly. Carefully."

You also helped me understand that it was perfectly okay for her to wear her fluffy socks.
They were her favorite.
You slipped them gently over her feet, just as I would have done myself.
And then there was that down blanket.
The one she always wrapped herself in like a burrito to watch TV.
Through choked tears, I asked you to wrap her in it one last time.
And you did. Just the way she loved.
You tucked her in gently, tenderly, for the last time.

The Job No One Talks About in High School
​
Honestly… I have no idea what leads someone to become an embalmer or a funeral professional. It’s not a job anyone mentions at career day.
And yet, you chose it.
You chose to care for shattered hearts.
To welcome the broken living and the silent dead.
You chose a path where people arrive devastated, some frozen, others furious.
You witness raw emotion, explosive silences, family conflicts laid bare… and you stay steady.
You see pain in its purest form, children gone too soon, the forgotten ones no one comes to grieve, fractured lives, crushing silence.
And still, you haven’t hardened.
You are not detached, not cold.
You are the exact opposite:
Your heart seems to grow with every encounter.
You seem to understand something society has forgotten:
That humanity lives in the simplest of gestures.
That caring for the dead is sometimes the last act of love we can offer the living.

You Spared Me a Memory I Could Not Have Borne
You looked me in the eye and asked:
“What is your last memory of Avery?”
I told you about that morning.
About the golden light that wrapped around her in the bathroom.
About how her voice took my breath away when she sang in the car.
I told you how, just before stepping out of the car, she paused and said:
“You know, Mom… I’m really a daughter of God.”
Then she smiled and skipped away.
You helped me hold on to that memory.
And let go of the one I never wanted to have.
You carried that invisible burden for me.
How many times have you done that?
How many traumas have you absorbed, eased, so that strangers could be spared?

The Cost of Your Calling​

We don’t talk enough about what your work demands.
How many of your child’s soccer games have you missed?
How many dinners canceled? How many sleepless nights spent comforting someone else’s grief?
How often have you been left alone with your thoughts while others celebrated life?
How many times have you been ignored in public, because your work reminds people of what they most fear?
I know it can be lonely.
But I want to say this to you:
Thank you.
Thank you for caring for Avery one last time.
Thank you for choosing this hard, sacred work.
Thank you for your compassion, your patience, your steady presence.
Thank you for every family you’ve comforted in silence.
Thank you for being there when no one else knew what to do.
What you do is sacred.
Your role is essential.
Your impact is eternal.

To Those Who Work in Grief’s Shadow​

To those who care for the living by tending to the dead:
We see you.
We thank you.
And we will never forget you.

​Online Funeral Services
https://www.onlinefuneralservices.ca