Let's Talk About Death

Welcome to the beginning of the Walker Funeral & Cremation Service online blog. My name is Jamie. I am one of the funeral directors, embalmers, and owners of our funeral home. Although I am new to the Shawnee area, I am not as new to funeral service. I grew up in Joplin, Missouri, and attended Missouri Southern State University, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. I planned to become a doctor. More specifically, a medical examiner. I wanted to care for the dead by performing autopsies. However, plans don’t always work out. Life doesn’t always go how you think it will, and adjustments must be made.

The year was 2010, my dog died, and I was not successful in my first semester of medical school. One could say I put all of my eggs in one basket and dropped it. I did not have a plan B. My college advisor and I met to brainstorm options for “What now?” We threw around many different ideas and paths of study, none of which seemed exciting. Then, with no warning, he leans back in his chair and says, “Why don’t you be an embalmer?” I was excited by this idea. This was the only idea we had come up with that interested me. I did my research and decided to attend mortuary school in Kansas City. Still, in the back of my mind, I considered this as something to do while I studied for the MCAT (medical school admissions exam) and took another stab at medical school.

I served my apprenticeship in Kansas City at a mortuary service. There, we worked on behalf of other funeral homes picking up decedents, embalming, and transporting them to the appropriate funeral homes. Learning to navigate Kansas City traffic and the many different hospitals was intense! But it was a significant first step. I enjoyed the embalming side of funeral service and took an interest in cosmetics and trauma repair. I considered care of the dead human body to be my forte and did not expect I could do much else.

That changed in 2015 when Mark Riley, our other funeral home owner, hired me for a funeral director position at a funeral home he was managing. I was frank about my lack of funeral director experience and relayed my hope for embalming and caring for decedents. But, Mark needed a director to meet with families and considered my inexperience a plus because I did not have any bad habits. I was a blank canvas.

Funeral service is one of those professions where the only way to learn is to jump right in, and the water is deep and hot! There is nothing comfortable about learning how to care for grieving people. It is scary, intimidating, and sometimes traumatic. After only six months of meeting with families, I wasn’t ready to plan a funeral for a thirteen-year-old girl. I wasn’t prepared for the trauma that death brings. I wasn’t ready to bear witness to that much sadness. It is one thing to care for people who have died in various ways, naturally or tragically. It is something entirely different to care for surviving family members.

While learning to care for families, I let go of my dream of becoming a doctor. Looking back, I didn’t have a strong enough “why” for this dream. The road to becoming a physician is long, challenging, and expensive. I thought that was the only path that would bring me a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Oh, how wrong I can be! I worked five and a half years with Mark up in northern Oklahoma. Not only did I learn all aspects of working at a funeral home, but I began to look deeper into funeral service and our role as funeral directors.

At the top of 2015—right before I began working—I enrolled in a Master of Science program in Thanatology. Thanatology is the study of death, dying, grief, and bereavement. Over eight years (I had to take some semesters off when work became too hectic), I studied all things death and dying. This blog was part of my capstone project to finish my degree. One of my goals as a thanatologist is to contribute to death education, especially for my community. I asked a simple question: Who are the death experts in Shawnee, Oklahoma? In fact, who are the death experts in any given community? Who is keeping up on current death-related research and providing information to our community? The answer last month was no one. The answer now is me. I am a forever student and have always loved going to school. Now the time has come to put my education to use in serving others.

This blog will be a source of death education for the community we serve and anyone else interested in learning about death. Death isn’t taboo; it’s uncomfortable. Do you know how things become more comfortable? By talking about them. Death is uncomfortable because we do not discuss it, think about it, or understand how it fits into our lives and what purpose it serves. The more we talk about death, the less scary it becomes. Trust me; if talking about death led to actual death, I would have died years ago!



If you’re reading this, you made it to the end. Well done! Let’s make a pact: I will continue researching all things death-related and provide easy-to-read death and funeral content on this blog, and you, as a reader, will stay open to death. Whether we like it or not, we will all be affected by the death of a loved one, and we will all one day die. There is so much to discuss, so let’s do it! I am interested in any questions or topics you may want to discuss. Please feel free to email me at jreed@walkerfuneral.com.