After the Worst Has Happened: Tales From a Funeral Director, Richard Gosling

In this episode, we dive into the journey of Richard Gosling—a man who left the safe world of civil service to become a funeral director, driven by a desire to connect with others on the deepest level. Join us as Richard shares stories of courage, unexpected life changes, and how facing death can bring new appreciation to life.

Richard Gosling didn’t follow a conventional path to become a funeral director. His journey took root after experiencing his own family’s health crises and realising the vital role that those who manage death play in the lives of the grieving. With humour and insight, Richard recounts his career shift and why he felt the need to serve people in their most vulnerable moments.

Through Richard's stories, we uncover what goes on behind the scenes in a funeral home. From coaxing out meaningful details to creating unique rituals, Richard reminds us that every goodbye is an opportunity to celebrate a life. He also shares his thoughts on why we need to stop shying away from conversations about death and instead embrace them as part of our human experience.

Highlights:

• Richard’s path from civil service to funeral director, sparked by personal family experiences
• The surprising and rewarding challenges in helping families honour their loved ones
• How funeral directors balance empathy with emotional boundaries for self-care
• Insights into voluntary assisted dying and supporting families through that experience
• The power of rituals—religious or otherwise—in easing the grieving process
• Richard's advice on how to take the time to properly honour and remember those we’ve lost
• Encouragement to openly discuss death and capture loved ones’ stories while they're still with us

Chapters: 

0:00 - Introduction  

1:20 - Sound Quality Alert  

1:35 - Meeting Richard Gosling  

2:34 - A Life-Changing Moment  

4:04 - Leaving a Safe Job for a Calling  

7:24 - The Emotional Impact of the Role  

8:37 - Honouring Families’ Wishes  

11:54 - Involving Families in the Process  

13:05 - Navigating the Pressure of Time  

15:26 - Self-Care for a Funeral Director  

16:54 - Facing Mortality  

19:20 - Encouraging Conversations on Death  

21:30 - The Power of Rituals  

24:41

Are your affairs in order? Critical Info helps you organise essential documents in just 10 minutes a day. Sign up now for early access! → criticalinfo.com.au/critical-info-platform

Lost a loved one? Our guide walks you through the next steps, from the first hours to the months ahead. Download it here → criticalinfo.com.au/product/my-

Contact Catherine

Business Website: https://dontbecaughtdead.com.au
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094865491683
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/critical_info_org/
LinkedIn Business Page: : https://www.linkedin.com/company/critical-info
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-ashton-73254528/

Podcast Editor: https://www.livvimusic.com/

Music composer: Ania Reynolds - https://www.aniareynolds.com/

Transcript

highlight & episode: 0:01

Lessons it's taught me very much is try not to sweat the small stuff. My daughter's HSC is coming irrespective of how she does. She's got a whole life ahead of her. My son's HSC was a couple of years ago. It wasn't wildly successful, but he's at TAFE now studying nursing. The more you get tied up about things that may or may not happen, the more you miss things that are happening right now. So I do try to be as positive as I can, to get as much humour into the world as I can. Just, yeah, if you can't avoid the small stuff, it's best avoided.

intro: 0:39

Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life. Because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared. Don't Be Caught Dead acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognises their connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.

sound quality alert: 1:20

Hey listeners, just a quick heads up that the audio in this episode isn't quite up to our usual standards due to a few tech hiccups, but the conversation is way too good to miss. We're sure you'll get so much out of this, so thank you for sticking with us.

highlight & episode: 1:35

Today we are speaking with richard bosby the author of after the worst has happened, tales from a funeral director on the wider side of there i'm really looking forward to this conversation richard i have read the book and i can't wait to have more in-depth chat with you, welcome to the podcast thank you it's very lovely to be here, now tell me you transitioned from a different career to a funeral director not a career move most people do can you tell me what motivated that, there'd always been a background fascination with with those people i had an early kind of interface with working funerals when i was around 20 21 but it was a disastrous brief flirtation with that side of work and it didn't pan out and it shouldn't have panned out at that age because I had the emotional depth of a teacup you know just was never going to be good. Later in life while I was working as a civil servant my daughter had a few health crises. She we found out she had a heart condition and then the day after we found out she had a massive third degree burn injury on both arms and that took us to some very dark corners some stressful places places where you're in the best hands in the world pediatric nurses burns nurses and surgeons heart surgeons all amazing but for us as parents so overwhelming you know we were facing an avalanche while drowning while fleeing and having this tenacious little 18 month old child going through this stuff and a lot of it left emotional scars my daughter has the physical ago as I'm riddled with the emotional ones but during the course of that a couple of well-meaning and ill-equipped people said to me what are you going to do if she dies and obviously chased that conversation away and threw them out and just wasn't even facing it but the thought didn't go away that for you know for these nurses for these doctors treating my daughter was their day job it It was their usual, and I was so glad they were there. But for someone else, their usual job was dealing with the death of a child or a husband or a sibling or a parent, and I couldn't shake off the idea of those people. So when the opportunity came for voluntary redundancy and a job that paid me well and was full of lovely people but bored the life out of me, I jumped at it, And my wife said, look, go for the job that you want rather than, you know, something that's going to buy us three houses and a yacht. And honestly, just completely started over. Found a funeral home, basically begged them for a job. Said, you know, please, start me down there. I'll polish the floor. I'll do whatever. And honestly, from day one, it just felt like where I should be. And at what age were you and also what stage were you in your life to make such a change where you no longer had that security and you were just going ahead and jumping in? I took the voluntary redundancy at 39. It was not a wildly successful civil service career, But if you're in the civil service, you're in the belly of a big beast that's going to keep you there for as long as you want to stay. And you'll gradually ascend purely by chronology. You'll kind of bubble up. Annual pay raise, very secure, very good environment to be in. Just not fulfilling whatever need it was I had in the back of my head. So 39, I left that line of work. And with the redundancy, I thought I'll have a backup plan. Maybe I'll go back into IT training because I used to do that. So I got myself a Cert IV in that. But the whole time I was just thinking I really want to try funerals. So I did some temping work, just carrying coffins for funeral homes. I bizarrely almost was stalking my way around cemeteries trying to find work. And, yeah, I was pretty determined with the idea that I knew nothing but had this utter desire to know more, to see where I could fit in that world. And so, going through that process, you were sort of carrying the odd coffin. I never realised you could tempt doing no sorts of roles. Tell me about how I sort of moved on from the occasional experience to something more of a career for you? Well, I obviously eventually landed a job with one funeral home. It didn't play out. It was three months of working for them. And for this reason or that reason, mostly geography, I was living about an hour and a half away from that place. They said, look, we don't feel this is going to work, but there's a place near you. They're not advertising at the moment, but we know they need someone. And we'll have a chat with them, but we're going to end ties with you. And I thought, oh, you know, this is what I want. And I was deluding myself, driving an hour and a half to work every day or commuting like that. It wasn't sustainable, but I wanted to be in there. So fortunately it played out that this local funeral home made space for me. They didn't directly have space, but they took me on as an extra hand downstairs, starting from scratch, you know. This is how you put gloves on. This is how you make sure you're sanitized after a transfer. It was an uphill climb from day one, but a rewarding one, yeah. Every day still is, even after 10 years, something new, something I've not seen, heard or done before, a church I've never been to before. It's fascinating. And tell me, what do you think is it that drove you to actually really want this? Like 10 years on, what is it that you get out of the role that you go, yeah, that's what I can put my finger on, that's what I was after to fulfil? When I was in the civil service, I obviously had my in-tray. It would be there on a Monday and I'd have to work through it. And it was done and there was a sense of completion, but also a sense of, oh, well. In the whole time I've been at funerals, even working in funerals, every Friday I get to the end of a week and I'm emotionally affected. I'm creatively affected because some of the workarounds, the think-arounds, the embellishment on a funeral we'll do in certain instances for families. It takes a lot of imagination at times. The simple act of crisis management on a funeral, if a mourner's becoming a little bit angry or combative with someone else and you're trying to settle the waters but keep everything calm, for the whole week you're on almost this kind of edge of caffeinated adrenaline anxiety, but at the same time trying to keep things still, calm, respectful, And as you would want your own family's funeral to be, there's always that thought in the back of your head, I'm doing this because the person who's passed away for them is their most important person. And, you know, I've got my most important people and I want their families to feel as cared for as I'd want my family to feel. I'm interested, when you're talking, it sounds like it's the role of serving others. Would that be the right thing you're saying? And it's, in some senses, yes, it's also the families, you get a minute or so to gain their trust when you first meet them as an arranger, as a conductor of funerals. But once you do, they open up in ways that are quite magical, the stories you hear about their father, mother, brother, and so on. And these are stories that most people don't get to hear. It's like almost working in a museum and every day I see a new exhibit that is so fascinating and so rich and you think there's a book in that person, there's a book in that person, there's all these. I took time to write my book. Most people don't. And I've heard stories about some grandparents through World War II and Jewish families and their escapes from the Holocaust, how wives met their husbands and so on. They're the most magical things in the world to hear. It's so rare that someone will sit down with anger or frustration with the deceased person. It's mostly love, fascination, and a will to just tell someone these stories. And, you know, I'm not going to share them. I'm not going to blast them all over the planet. But just to be the person who sits there and hears these things and sees the delight and love people have in talking about their dead father, dead grandfather, and so on, And it's a rare privilege to sit in the spaces we go to. And tell me about their creative side. When you're honouring someone and you're working with the family, tell me how many ways or some examples in which you've used that creative side of your brain. Well, we always say to families, families say, you know, I don't know what can be done at a time like this. And we say, well, pretty much anything except bringing the person back. You know, that's the one thing regrettably we can't do. If it's a younger person, the grief is going to be far, far different. If it's a suicide case, again, very, very different. So with those, we really encourage that people kind of get up and physically be part of that grief, be it signing a coffin or signing paper boards so the families have got messages to keep. Encouraging, you know, if there is someone in the family who has a musical skill or a poetic skill who feels they can at that time be a part of this. The funeral's one moment, one hour, and we say to family, is this going to pass like that? It'll just be gone. So the more personality, the more we can tease out that makes that person as unique as they are because so often we hear on the radio, you know, a funeral is an opening song, a eulogy, a slideshow, a committal, and then you're out and you're at the canteen. And we try not – sometimes it is that, but we try if there is something we can tease out, if there's a love of nature or, you know, a green burial. We had a service with a Catholic priest, a stand-up comedian, and a Buddhist monk once. And the family said, look, I don't think we can do this. I said, well, we can try. And so I found a priest who was willing and celebrant who I knew had a history in stand-up comedy and a Buddhist monk who had no qualms. You know, they were willing to gel that together. Yeah. And it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And what do you think that people find as some of the most challenging things when organising someone's funeral for a loved one? People feel an immense weight of pressure of time. From the minute someone dies, there's that dreadful moment the first minute after their death, the first 10 minutes, the first hour where this distance is growing. But from the moment they call a funeral home, they're often compelled to rush. And you can hear it in their voices often that they're just picturing, and I don't mean to be graphic, but grandmother decaying somewhere or, you know, husband decaying. And we've really got to, or I say to them very early on, there isn't a hurry. We can slow right down. Now, if you're members of the Jewish faith, we'll go as quickly as we can because they've got that wonderful tradition that has told them we do this fast, We do this anonymously, but with community. But in other instances, we slow down. Often a family will call us on Monday and a funeral is on Friday, which means within three days they're writing eulogies, gathering photos, doing so many things. We spend nine months preparing for birth, but we'll race to get to a funeral. And I understand it hurts. Every part of that week hurts. But i encourage them to slow down i encourage them you don't need to rush one family went to hawaii to grieve came back five weeks later and then we had the funeral now that's a gift of wealth if you can afford to do that your grieving is going to be a lot more comfortable but i say to families you know we've had some families pause five weeks ten weeks, whatever is going to work you know if you need time you've got to look after yourself too so take the time. And when you're talking about looking after yourself, you mentioned earlier that at the end of the week you can be emotionally affected. I assume that can be both positive and negative. Yeah. How do you carve out time for yourself and put some personal boundaries in when you're dealing with grief? Well, again, it's a benefit of ageing. My kids are about to turn 19 and 17, so they're quite autonomous. Or the VHSC's looming from my daughter. But my wife and I got a dog, a couple of years. It's a family's dog, but mostly my wife's. Got a dog. We try and go out 5 a.m. every day and walk the dog. Try. Winter's just ending now, so we're just getting back into that. And that gives us both, we don't necessarily talk, but just three kilometres, four kilometres of fresh air and a happy dog, and that starts your day okay. When it comes to the weekend now i'm not doing book week costumes and geography assignments and all the things that i swear we didn't do when i was in school now it's my wife's marking because she's a english teacher my daughter's studying for the hfc my son lives in the garage so i don't see much of him so i'll do the food shop plan the following week and then just there's an armchair by the windows in my lounge i'll always have a book somewhere nearby and i say right i'm going to put on this album, I'm going to sit in that chair, I'm going to read one page and fall asleep or I'm going to read two pages or gallop through the book, but I just carve out time just to be still, just to kind of sit on the raft in my own lake and just whatever I need to feel, feel, whatever I need to process, process, but just to be still. It's a nice thing to do. I really like that imagery that I have in my head now if you'd be on a legal act in your own little lake. I like that. Yeah. And how do you see the role of funeral directors in helping people confront, you know, their fear of death or their own mortality? It's an interesting one and it's changing at the minute now we have voluntary assisted death. I think since November last year, all states in Australia have legalised that. So we're starting to speak to families now who know exactly when mum is going to die. We get these first calls. My mother will die Wednesday of next week at 9.30 in the morning. Totally different kind of what we call a first call where a family first reach out. But as soon as we started getting those calls, I spoke to our grief support network and said, you know, this is new for us. Normally we get mum died last night. Now it's mum's going to die next week. How do we support them? Because we used to, with mum having died in the past, we know the family will be in shock or denial or all of those normal things that we're used to confronting. But with voluntary death, the family's almost got a week's additional grief because they know minute by minute they're getting closer. But it's also what their mother wants to do. So they're achieving that, achieving the goal that they've been fighting for. And the psychologists that we work with told me the strange thing is within a day or two of the voluntary death the families become quite angry they become viscerally furious so I've been telling each family I've worked with that may not happen to you but in our experience a day or so after the death of mom or dad you're going to become irrationally angry and they've all said oh that's not going to happen. I know, but just warn your husband, your brother, your children, that if you just bite their heads off because a cloud goes over the sun, it's not them. It's just grief because you've been fighting for so long to help mum. And now all of that emotion, all of that effort has finished, but you're still here. So just warn them about that rage. And most of the families have come back and said, oh, I really did get that fury. I did get that rage. So in in supporting families in helping them confront what we all try and avoid we all know it's coming from that rare moment in childhood where we suddenly understand a grandparent or a pet dies and we think oh that'll be me one day but we try and try not to look at it because every other horizon's nicer but i do try and talk to families about you know just explore how you're feeling about this. I'm not a grief counsellor. I'm not a psychiatrist or anything like that. But every emotion you're feeling is correct. If you're feeling joyful that they had a long and happy life, then explore that. It's very much like probing where a sore tooth was. And, you know, it... Look at it from all sides. Don't challenge or don't blame yourself for anything. You had something beautiful. It's now past, but just feel the shape of it all. It's a very different world to explore when someone becomes past tense to us. Yes, and some of the grief that you were referring to is that anticipatory grief of knowing that that's going to happen, which people sometimes experience with that life-limiting in the case of voluntary assisted dying. And I know that in Victoria, Dying with Victoria have actually worked with Griefline to develop support groups for families specifically around voluntary assisted dying because of that grief is quite different to any other sort of experience. So it's interesting that you've also noticed that as well. And tell me, throughout the ages, we've always had ritual associated with death. When you see ritual involved, how do you think that plays in the grieving process, how people deal with the deaths. What's been your experience? Tradition and ritual does make things a lot easier. For a good Catholic family, they've already been to a wealth of Catholic funerals. They know the structure, the shape of what to expect for mum. And for a Jewish family, there's millennia of tradition and they know they're going to fall into the routine being of that tradition, the comfort, the structure of that tradition. So the point where we don't know what to do, those religious. Services, those structured approaches are a real benefit because we know you're going to have opening prayers. We know we're going to be at the synagogue going quite quickly. And the families know that the person, the rabbi they're dealing with, the priests they're dealing with, is part of a massive history that's all been prepared to help with weddings, with births, and with deaths. And I think as atheists, I mean, I'm an atheist who goes to church every day, so it's a truly wonderful situation to be in. But as atheists, we often don't know how to celebrate, how to memorialize, how to commemorate someone because, you know, I'm going to have a funeral. I'm not going to have an opening prayer. What am I going to do? How am I going to fill this void where Catholicism, Anglicanism, Hinduism and Judaism all have a ready-built structure. So for those that are fortunate enough to be faithful, and I envy them, I would love to be, they have this embrace waiting for when a death happens. They have experience, history, and ritual waiting to guide them through and it's all pressure relief valves. So part of the funeral mass is that pressure release. Here's everyone who loves you, all saying the same hymns, and you can let it out. And the Jewish service hears everyone who loves you with these thousands of year old hymns or services, let it all out. And there's all these alms around you. So yeah, the structure and history of these things is, and you see it work its magic at the funeral, where people know, okay, I've been here before, but now I'm here for my parent. It's very powerful. And with the role of ritual outside a religious context, how have you seen that develop or have you seen that develop with any trends over the 10 years you've been involved? Oh, that's a tricky question. So now I've seen many celebrants, civil celebrants, doing the non-religious services, and they all kind of hinge on a familiar structure, the same opening but without prayer, a committal of some kind but without a nod to a deity. A lot of them get quite spiritual. But what I have seen, certainly in the last five or six years, because every one of us has got a mobile phone and grandchildren are rife with mobile phones. Is there's often so much footage of, audio of the deceased that we're seeing a lot more of the deceased themselves at a funeral service. I had a lovely service the other day where the grandson had filmed his mum making banana bread. And so part of the funeral was for 10 minutes we watched this beautifully edited video of her talking through banana bread and him asking her questions about her life while she made the dough and put it in the oven, and it was like he'd tricked her into giving her her own eulogy. I don't think there was anything as malevolent of that, but all of this footage, all of these photos, all of this audio exists, and so we do see a great deal more. More than just the 35 images of Frank Sinatra's slideshows now. We see a lot more video footage, a lot more audio, and it does, like my own grandfather recorded his own eulogy, So his funeral was just us pressing play on a cassette deck and then he spoke through the whole thing. So it's nice to see... The deceased more present at their own services now in terms of ones that are away from the church. It's good to see that AV flash, that kind of, there is grandma, she's talking directly to us. So many of these now end with grandma singing or dancing at a New Year's Eve party. Yeah, the rise of mobile phones has been quite a thing, quite an effect. And just on that, you mentioned committal. Like, for someone who's unfamiliar, what does the committal involve? The committal is that terrible moment where it is time to say goodbye. It's the end of the service. And whenever a family says to us, oh, we don't need to celebrate, we don't need a priest, we're going to do it ourselves. And I say, well, that's truly great, and I promise you'll be great at the beginning. You'll be fabulous at the eulogies and any poems or readings. But at the end, you've got to close this thing off. you've got to say, this is time to say goodbye. This is the last time we're going to be in a room with grandma, with mum. We're all leaving the chapel now. So we encourage them to think, you know, if you're going to do things yourself, maybe think about invite everyone up to take a flower from the coffin or everyone come up and just touch the coffin. Just put that full stop on the sentence of the relationship with that person. But the committal is the funeral service is over now. The rest of us are stepping on. This life is over now. So, yeah, it's, again, can be beautiful, but for the religious people, it's already structured. It comes with the smoke and the holy water and the blessing and so on. For the atheists out there trying to do their best, it's kind of, oh, I need to say something here. And just on that, because with the increase of cremation as an option for people saying abide at their loved ones. Tell me a little bit about, I believe you've had the circumstances to where people have felt like a service isn't enough, they need to go a step further. What has your role been in those scenarios? A step further? We have some people want to see the coffin all the way through to the point of going in. Yeah. I try and discourage that because it's a very mechanical, very swift, very abrupt moment. But if a family are determined, a young lady lost her husband, he had back pain, went in for a checkup with his doctor, and by the end of the following day, an MRI had shown tumours all up his spine. Four weeks later, he was gone. So it was so quick in every respect. And when we had the funeral for him, his parents, still back in France, wanted closure themselves, so I ended up walking her through to the back of the crematorium to see the coffin go in while she was holding up an iPad so the parents could see the coffin go in. And it's very industrial. It's very stainless steel. It's intimidating. The crematoriums try and soften it, but I know for some Chinese families it's an essential. I try and counsel families against it, but if they're adamant, we warn this is going to be swift. You know, the glass is going to clear or the curtains will come back and then it will be a shutter will come up and then a clunk and a thrust as the coffin goes through. But for some, they have to see things right to that final punctuation mark. But certainly some people speak of it, you know, romantically I want to see mum through. I try and dispel that idea without being too graphic or blunt to them. It's not going to be what you think. It's going to be quite industrial. Now, over time, hopefully it'll soften up more, but maybe in the 40 or 50 I've seen over the last 10 years, I've only really seen two families come away from that going, oh, I'm glad we did this. It's good that you explain the process because people can make that informed decision about whether that's something that they feel that they really need to go through or just you explaining it. Oh, to go in with naivety, I think is unwise. Whatever we can explain to a family, we will. From the moment we pick their mum or dad or whomever up, they don't know what's going on. so I try and make sure they do know what's going on. Mum's safely with us. Yes, she is in refrigerated storage. No, we don't need to embalm unless we're going to a vault. People have all these words that they don't really know how they fit together. So without sitting them down and giving them a kind of 101 on funerals, we just try and explain each step. For people who are unfamiliar, what do you find are some of the greatest misconceptions? About funeral, burial, really a whole process. What are people confused about? The very first thing is, as I mentioned earlier, is speed. They all feel they've got a sprint. And so we slow them down there. They'll often then say to us, we'll ask them on the first call now, is mum for burial or cremation? Oh, we haven't decided yet. And so we'll say, look, if you don't already own a grave, you're probably looking 15 to 20 000 for a grave in the sydney area cheaper the further out you go but remember if you're getting a grave you're going to want to visit mum and as soon as you say 15 to 20 000 you'll hear that flick switch flick to cremation because graves are very very expensive mausoleums even more so and then the process of embalming comes in we recently family wanted mum to go into a mausoleum and said we said okay well then we have to embalm and they said well what's that so gently we explain it's the preservation of the body the removal of the blood then they said don't tell us any more about that do what you need to do but we don't want to know and i think well you know we're placing mum in an above ground area we've you know we have to have your agreements or agreement that we are going to perform this in Baham. So we find most people, they don't know any of the steps. So we're just educating them as they go. They don't really have an idea on what things are going to cost. So we're very clear as we go. You know, if you are looking at a grave, you're going to have to go buy that, $20,000 over there. Our side of things, probably 10,000 to 12,000, maybe less if it's in our chapel. But all the way through, we're as clear as we can be. There is a misconception that we're evil, money-grubbing buggers. You can hear that on the phone, especially if the phone call starts with, I'm just ringing around, and you think, that's okay. You know, do your due diligence, phone around by all means. But you can, in some conversations, start where they're already deeply suspicious of you. Why would you choose to work in this world? It must be because you're fleecing families, you know, stealing jewellery, doing whatever. So, again, we're slowing down and just explaining why our costs are where they are. I do work in the middle of Sydney. Things are more expensive in a city than out of a city and so on. So, fortunately, people don't know much about funerals because you don't want them spending their life as I do, kind of surrounded by death every day. But at the same time, we gently try and educate. A lot of Catholics maybe haven't been to church for a long time, so we'll talk them through the service before they meet the priest. A lot of Jewish families will say our mum went to synagogue. We haven't really been for many years. I said, all right, well, Rabbi, we'll look to cut your clothing when the service starts and we'll be Kaddish. So we're kind of almost educating on the religious side as well in a lot of cases, which is a strange thing because there's no one course you can sit down to do to learn all this when you start as a funeral director. But then suddenly 10 years in, you find, well, where did all that, how do I have all that in my head? But it is all there. And very much on any first call, any phone call, would just say to a family, look, ask anything. There's really nothing you can ask that we won't answer. And we do get a lot of phone calls. Look, I've got a strange question. So there are none. Ask us anything. And if we can help, we'll tell you the answer. And tell me, you've been quite the advocate for about open conversations about this and dying. Why do you think it is important to be having those conversations, Richard? When we sit with the family and we say, okay, so if we're having a civil service, a kind of atheist service, let's find three pieces of music that mum liked. And you just see these faces go, oh, come on, what did mum maybe hum or sing when she was, you know, puttering around the house or what did she sing to you as a baby? And people just go a bit blank. And I think there's this almost distance that comes up where we stop knowing our parents or our grandparents, the older they get. And so I'm very encouraging for families, if we're speaking to them before a funeral, if mum's going to pass but probably not for a year or so, we'll talk to her in this time. We don't want to be playing Frank Sinatra and you find out three months after the funeral, that, God, she hated that man. You know, talk, find out all those little quirks. You know, what was mum's favourite book? What was her favourite song? What was all the stuff that you're going to find when you're planning the funeral where you won't be able to remember? Just get as much of a picture of mum, aside from the fact that she fills your heart, but the details may be blurry. Get those details while we can. There's a company I heard of the other day, I don't remember their name, but they're beginning to offer to record the person doing their own eulogy. So they'll go in with almost kind of like today's interview, like with a 21-question set, and they'll go in and sit with the person and record all those answers and edit it together so you've got a living record of that person. And I think in not talking about it, we just sit and we deny it's ever going to happen, even though we know that Band-Aid's going to come off and we will be raw. In talking about it, we have a bit more time to say, I didn't know that. That's really good. Tell me more about this. And just see the person as more than just the funeral at the end. Just get to know them that bit better. So when the funeral director says, you know, what song should we play at the end? Oh, there's four we really like. Well, all right, tell me about those four. Let's see which one's the best fit for that moment. But, yeah, just it's a nasty thing at the end of a life, but the end of a life is coming. So it's worth talking about. It's so true what you're saying, though, is that there's many a funeral I've sat in and you're hearing the eulogy being read and you're like, I didn't know that about then. And what's really sad is the fact that I would have loved to have asked more about it. You know, if they were still alive, about that part of their life. Because you're right, we only sort of know what they're sharing at that stage. You know them in your life. So, yeah, I think it's fascinating that we actually, you know, get to know the actual person, not just, I suppose, the parody of who we think they are. Oh, I mean, there's different versions of all of us, you know. My kids see me entirely as dad. And then every now and then they'll see a picture of when my wife and I were together before they were born, when we were much more gig-going, pub-attending, theatre-attending, you know, aspirational, who knows what life will be. And then they'll see a photo of me before I was with mum and just go, oh, I don't even know who that is. There's all these phases and our friends see us differently to the way our family sees us and our colleagues see us differently again. And we're very multifaceted. And I think in as much as you can get to know someone, you can get to know them again. There's still time again to ask more, to tease out more details. Certainly, we're fascinating. My wife's fascinating. My kids are fascinating. I like to think maybe I'm vaguely interesting. So it's just good to go down those rabbit holes. If you want to drive with someone and you drive, oh, I went to school over there, well, just tell me more about that, you know. Tell me the worst teacher, the best class, the things you remember. And tell me, Richard, what inspired you to tell your story? Well, that was mostly my wife telling me to shut up, to be honest. It was end of a day. She's a teacher. I'm a funeral director. We look after different ends of life. But I came home one day and I said, oh, God, look, you won't believe what happened today. She said, look, honestly, I don't have time. Write it down. I promise you I'll get to it later. And I thought, well, no, you bloody won't. But I thought, well... I will write this down because today's been quite a day. And in doing that, well, there have been other days that have been quite a day. Obviously, there's a wealth of stories you could never tell because you'd be impinging on other people's grief or reality. But at the same time, these are all things that are happening to us as well. And so once I started writing, you know, I wrote about my friend Chris who had terminal cancer and eventually asked me to collect his body, which is a deeply different thing to do in life, to pick up your own best friend. And I thought, well, I have so many feelings about that, that to sit and write them down, you can almost crystallise them and you can see them clearer. And then with the documentary we were in, that was so chaotic and such a busy time. I'm working with Odette, who for six months was planning her funeral with us while she was passing away. Again, I thought that had a tremendous impact on me. It left a real thumbprint on my heart, and I'd like to be able to put that down. So when I was starting just writing a little thing for my wife to eventually get to never, it ended up kind of blossoming out and becoming more, and, yeah, until there was kind of 274 pages in paperback, and it was on a bookshelf, which is still a very big surprise. I have to say the way in which you tell both Odette and Chris's stories is very beautiful and very touching how you talk through your own emotion in both of those situations. And it was very, very beautiful. And I thank you for sharing those. Oh, thank you. They were lovely people. They really were. I think I've known still very good friends with Chris's partner, Charlie. and I've now been friends with Charlie for longer than I knew Chris, but it's such a wonderful friendship. And occasionally we sit and go, oh, Chris would have loved this or, you know. But just the way one friendship leads to another friendship and to be able to reassure Chris and pick him up, as much as that bruised my soul and will always leave a mark there, it made him feel just a tiny bit more comfortable or accepting of what was coming. And emotions are wild. And I think they're very healthy things to talk about. And both Odette and Chris knew that they were dying. What do you, or what advice, or how do you talk people through that sort of pre-planning of a, when they either do know their life-limiting illness or if they're just pre-planning just because they're that type of person. Well, those are two very different sides of a coin. If they're pre-planning just because they're thinking about it, those meetings are quite buoyant. I had a meeting once with a 32-year-old woman who wanted to pre-plan her funeral. And so I was expecting that she must be terminal or something, but no, she just wanted to see what it was all about, talk it through, had no idea what went on, have a chat. And I said, but you don't want to pay for your funeral at 32. Oh, I think I might. But by 82, your plans will have changed completely. I can always update it. And that was a real, there was no emotional weight. It was all curiosity and fascination and, you know, how heavy will my ashes be? How long will it take them to come back? So those meetings where we're talking to people who are pre-planning but it's still over the hill, it's still a ways off, they can be very funny. You know, a husband saying, well, I want flowers on my coffin. And the wife saying, why? You hate flowers. Well, I don't know. You just have them, don't you? So the 104-year-old whose wife walked in while he was pre-planning his funeral, she was 80, and he said to us, my trophy wife. And I thought that was – I said, why are you doing this? He goes, I don't want you to worry. And she goes, you don't want a funeral. You want a jazz band and strippers. And I said, I can arrange that. We can pivot and I'll, yeah, they're upbeat meetings. And did he go with the jazz band and strippers? No, no, he didn't, no. I was wanting to know the answer to that. I mean, I haven't had a, I know of one drag queen celebrant, but I haven't had an opportunity. I haven't found the family work and said, well, I do know a drag queen celebrant. I would love to have that one. We'll see if I ever get the opportunity for, I've had a jazz band before, but not strippers. I'm not going to force it on a family. Did dad like strippers? I can bring some in. But no, if the opportunity is there, then we'll see. But on the other side of the coin, if someone is facing that terminal diagnosis, knowing that the end is coming sooner. There's often a will to take away complication for their family. I've already arranged this. You don't need to worry about that. And there's a sense for themselves of knowing things are going to be tidy, that there won't be chaos after they've passed because I've already engaged this company. They'll just a phone call and all of my wishes will be there. So those ones are a lot more emotional. Obviously, we don't sit there and sob, but you're very aware that this is a big acceptance moment for them. You know, they talk about the stages of grief, denial, anger and so on and there's the acceptance and acceptance almost makes things easier. But to be sitting there saying, you know, I know I've probably got three or four months left and I just want all of this planned, lovely meeting I had with a lady who had me sneak in while her daughters were out. And I wrote down everything and then she said, right, go, they'll be home in a minute. And the following day, she sent me a letter. She had me read at her funeral. And for her, once that ugly side, that what happens to my body after I'm gone side was done, I think she could not relax into it. But not fight it, if you see what I mean. Some diagnoses are so definitively terminal that if you can take away the worry about some other parts for people. That transition that they've got to face just becomes a little bit smoother, a little bit simpler. And again, it's such an honour to be asked to do it, to go and sit with those people that if in any way you can just dial the stress down for them a few degrees, then you've done a good day's work. You really have. And so that's part of having those open conversations with families and not ones, isn't it? So you're taking a lot of the guesswork out of it. Yes, yeah. The more we know, the more we talk, the clearer it is. You know, my family know if I was to drop dead here and now, I really don't want a funeral, maybe bring a coffin to the back garden, but I love the idea of everyone having a hot chocolate, playing music and then having a bonfire in the evening and that magic moment where people, you know, Whenever you sit around a fire with your friends, you tell stories. And if you all sat around a fire with friends telling stories about someone who's just passed, it's tearful, it's humorous, it's magic, it's fire, whiskey, and friendship. It's a good blend. So my family know that's what I'd like. My wife's changes varies, but I've got a fair idea. But, you know, it's not unhealthy to be death aware, I think. Yeah. Well, I've certainly seen when people don't know the wishes and that can be pretty difficult and very challenging. Yes. And tell me, have you ever faced ethical challenges as a funeral director? Ethical in the sense that I can see the funeral costs spiralling upwards as they're almost trying to... Honour someone to a degree that I think is unhealthy and is going to put them. I'm a terrible coffin salesman. I start with the cheapest and I say to families, there are far better things to spend money on. If you're feeling compelled to buy a $40,000 casket, we'll go down that route. But I don't want you in a financial hole. Now, some families are comfortable enough that they're not going to be in a hole, but others, you know are. And everyone wants to do the best for their mother, father, and so on. But the best doesn't have to be a massive debt afterwards that's going to just, and you can see when you're going through things, you can see that wince in the eye when they see the cost and think, but we don't have to do this. And I don't want you to do this if this is going to, mum doesn't want you to do this if this is going to leave you struggling. So let's pare back. Let's have a different, I've talked people out of many big funerals because I can just see it's inappropriate. So in terms of ethics there, I really don't want people to stumble into a world of repayment that's going to cause them even more grief. In other senses, people do speak very honestly to us. You know, I couldn't stand my mother, but at the funeral, everyone's going to think I loved her. I'd say, well, that's okay. If you've got anything you need to purge, go for it. I'm not a therapist, but we'll give your mum the send-off that you feel she should have. But I'd rather you didn't get up there any new eulogy and say, God, I couldn't stand that witch. So there is a fine line there. People who want to go to church but without awareness of church, they just want to go there because it's a pretty building. And some people have said, you know, I want to go to that church over there, but, you know, I don't want any of that God business. And so even being an atheist, they're going to say, look, if you're going in that church, that's the priest's building, and that building is all about God business. Now, it's for comfort, care, and community, but we can't go in just because you want the building but not the religion. If we're going in God's house, God is going to be there. And I just think, but I'm an atheist. What on earth am I saying? But it's still like I would never disrespect any of these institutions we go to. You know, when I had the stand-up comedian, the Buddhist monk and the Catholic priest, it was a conversation of can we gel this together or is this going to be? Fortunately, they're all very enthusiastic. But so ethically, it can sometimes be strange for me when families are worried about hell, which I just utterly don't believe in, when they're concerned about heaven and the afterlife. And I'm thinking it's more the life we have now than any worry about after. Afterlife is our memories of the people. But I can't turn around to people and say, I don't believe what you're talking about, but I'll sell you that funeral if you want. And it is strange kind of how much I now know about the faith that I still don't quite believe in, but I do get told more and more, I think you're spiritual, Richard. I still don't think I am, unless we're talking whiskey, but I'm still not quite sure I am. But, yeah, fortunately no muddy ethics, but just moments where I think am I the right person to be having this conversation. And tell me, what have you found to be the most rewarding aspect as your role? The strange moment where you're on an escalator at the shopping mall and someone reaches out, you're going up, they're going down, they reach out and grab your arm and they say, you looked after mum. I did. Or in Vinnie's when I'm looking for a secondhand book and suddenly someone's giving me a hug. And the same thing again, you looked after my brother. and there's so many faces and over 10 years I've done so many funerals and I try but can't remember every single face. But often I do bump into people and I have looked after someone and once they start talking, it'll all come back. My memory's pretty sharp there. But just knowing that I always say we should be anonymous, we should be in the background. It's not about us as funeral directors at all. And if people forget me, I'm fine with that. If they phone up, say, I've worked with you before but I don't remember the gentleman's name, I'm fine with that. But if during the course of those meetings somehow they do remember, they do remember just a little hook of who you are and years later, you know, you just get that arm grab on an escalator, and they're not looking at you aghast, they're looking at you with kind of, I know you, you did something good for us. And you think, that's nice. And there's a good few families now that keep in touch, that came along to my book launch, things like that, where we've moved beyond the fact that someone passed away. And we are friends. We are. You meet some lovely people. So that, in as much as I'm standoffish and abrupt, it's lovely to realize how many friends I've made doing this job. And tell me, Richard, what lessons has the job taught you? Lessons? You can't see my full body. It should teach me to lose weight, but I haven't managed to do that. It should teach me to pay attention to the diabetes diagnosis, but I haven't really got my head around that yet. Lessons it's taught me very much is try not to sweat the small stuff. You know, my daughter's HSC is coming irrespective of how she does. She's got a whole life ahead of her. My son's HFC was a couple of years ago. It wasn't wildly successful, but he's at TAFE now studying nursing. The more you get tied up about things that may or may not happen, the more you miss things that are happening right now. So I do try to be as positive as I can, to get as much humour into the world as I can, as much enjoyment, try and walk the dog and lose weight. That's not so enjoyable, but it's just fine time for reflection, fine time to do, you know, it was Father's Day yesterday. That was nice. You know, I got the typical book and a box of chocolates, but it was nice. It was to enjoy as much as you can, really. And I've been married 21 years now, and it's very hard to remember to have a date night, but try and find a movie that you agree on to go and see and get out and good food. Just, yeah, if you can avoid the small stuff, it's best avoided. I think that's great advice. Thank you so much for being with us today, Richard. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's been lovely. Thank you.

outro: 58:25

We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Don't Be Caught Dead, brought to you by Critical Info. If you liked the episode, learnt something new or were touched by a story you heard we'd love for you to let us know Send us an email, even tell your friends Subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes If you can spare a few moments, please rate and review us as it helps other people to find the show Are you dying to know more? Stay up to date with Don't Be Caught Dead by signing up to our newsletter and follow us on social media Head to DontBeCaughtDead.com for more information and loads of resources.