Ask a Mortician

It's not everyday conversation nor is it the topic of too many family dinner discussions, however after being on youtube for just three days, "Ask a Mortician" has recorded 40K+ hits.

This just confirms to me that the questions involving Death, Dying, Mourning, Funeral Rites, Rituals, and Customs are out there and people are dying to ask.

I came across this video by and through Guy Kawasaki's twitter feed (His headlines have always intrigued me) so I clicked and this is what I found:

Ask a Mortician on youtube

After watching her video I immediately subscribed to her channel and am waiting with baited breath for "Ask a Mortician" - Episode Two.

Benefits of Funeral Pre-Planning

Today more and more of the families I work with see the financial and emotional advantages of planning their funerals in advance, which offers these benefits:

• Gives you complete control
• Protects against future price increases
• Ensures wishes are fulfilled
• Removes the emotional and financial burden from those you love
• Gives you peace-of-mind
• Well thought out decisions are made now without emotional stress

I believe that the most important step in pre-planning is recording your wishes in writing so they are available to your loved ones at the time of your death. However, many families also choose to prepay for their services, allowing them to receive the goods and services selected at a future time without additional expense. Convenient payment plans are available to fit any budget.
By planning ahead now, you can make decisions together. You will give your family a most thoughtful and valuable gift. Contact me today for a private consultation in your home.


-Mark Heiner
435-680-5073

Like Rome, Is U.S. Doomed to Decline?

Such a great article, and interesting perspective, I just had to share it here:

Classicist Victor Davis Hanson explains causes of Rome’s fall and how the U.S. might follow Byzantium’s more hopeful path

By Gil Weinreich, AdvisorOne

In what surely ranks among the most atypical of presentations on the financial lecture circuit, classicist, military historian and farmer Victor Davis Hanson told financial advisors and industry executives gathered for the Retirement Income Industry Association annual meeting in Boston that the long-term future of the U.S. is as hopeful as its present is dismal.

The upbeat conclusion of Hanson’s address Monday night, titled “Are We Rome or Byzantium?”, followed the Hoover Institution scholar’s overarching anatomy of decline.

Citing the Roman city of Pompeii that was buried in volcanic ash after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the classical historian said that external stimuli like volcanoes or barbarians beyond the frontier are rarely the reason a civilization comes to an end. It is internal rot that brings its demise.

Both Haiti and Chile suffered devastating earthquakes last year, but the former plunged into chaos whereas the internal fortitude of the latter enabled a robust recovery from a much larger seismic event. Hanson hit unnervingly close to home in a second comparison–between Hiroshima to Detroit. The U.S. unleashed the strength of its Midwestern industrial center to fight and win World War II and devastated the Japanese city with its nuclear might. Today parts of Detroit that are not wasteland are reverting to farmland while the city of Hiroshima is booming.

With the historian’s long view, Hanson compared the experience of Rome, which succumbed to unsophisticated barbarians from Germany and Poland in the 470s. Yet nearly 700 years earlier, in 216 B.C., Rome, faced with the far greater threat of Hannibal’s army, powerfully triumphed despite having lost a third of its then small population. Why the difference? The latter day Romans, despite their much greater wealth, population and military and territorial strength, did not know the greatness of Rome. They had lost their civilizational elan, moral fabric and connection to their past.

In contrast to Rome, Byzantium seemed weaker in the 5^th century B.C. but recovered, experienced a renaissance and endured another millennium. The difference is that Byzantium embraced Christianity, believed it had a civilizational mission while Rome became utterly demoralized.

Seen through this historical prism, Hanson analyzed symptoms of decline in the U.S. and cited several indicators of trouble over the past 30 years.

The first negative indicator is a societal shift toward redistribution of capital from creation of capital. Just such a shift undermined the Aztecs, the Roman Empire and the Greeks before them. In the 5^th century B.C., just 7,000 Greeks beat back the formidable Persian invading force of 300,000 at Thermopylae. Yet a mere 30,000 Macedonians steamrolled the Greeks two centuries later.

Histories of the later time reveal the Greeks had grown litigious and lazy, suing each other over pensions and disdaining work. The Roman poet Juvenal decried a latter-day Rome of “bread and circuses” where the government paid for its citizens to go to the theater, when an earlier generation sought military command over vacuous entertainment.

Hanson sees a parallel shift in focus in the U.S. Citing the U.S. government budget in 1953, which allocated 70% of funds to defense and 30% to nondefense expenditures, Hanson notes that the debate at the time was whether we were devoting sufficient resources to defense. Today, he says, we have the exact opposite allocation and the current debate is whether we are devoting sufficient resources to social needs.

The second symptom of decline concerns demographics, and in that regard the U.S. is doing well. Americans still produce children at replacement level and welcome immigrants. The ancient Greeks had a maxim about not planting an olive orchard unless there would be future generations to harvest it, and the modern Greeks, with a 1.2% fertility rate–well below replacement–seem to be living it.

Hanson says Greek society and indeed Europe as a whole (with a 1.4% fertility rate) is not much worried about kids or the future, but is rather preoccupied with an easy life supported by the state’s cradle-to-grave guarantees.

A third symptom of decline is the outsourcing of morality from the individual to the state. The state, Hanson argues, has increasingly become the arbiter of good vs. bad. While it’s good to reserve preferred parking spots for the

disabled, we no longer feel as compelled as earlier generations to escort an elderly person across the street. As the government’s moral sphere increases, ours seems to correspondingly decrease.

In a world exhibiting advanced stages of these symptoms of decline, Hanson said the U.S. was in a relatively stronger position to enjoy a Byzantium-style renaissance. He noted that China, which so many fear, faces huge demographic and modernization problems, including a dangerous gender imbalance as a result of its population policies and unionization problems with its industrializing workforce.

Europe faces demographic suicide because of its low birthrate, unassimilated immigrants and an anti-democratic constitution lacking popular legitimacy. The Middle East, he says, is a complete disaster except for democratic Israel.

The United States on the other hand, with its centuries-old Constitution and Bill of Rights, enjoys a structure of law that enables Americans to meet crises (such as the Civil War) in ways that other societies cannot.

The U.S., he says, also enjoys demographic strength and abundant natural resources (our vast oil and gas reserves doubled in just the last five years).

Our problem today, Hanson said, is that capital remains on the sidelines–not because of any one policy like Obama's new health care law or political rhetoric aimed at “millionaires and billionaires” but by an overarching policy and rhetorical climate that in the aggregate signals to productive people to hold off on wealth creation.

Hanson concluded that a shift back toward a culture of respect for creation of capital and a systematic effort to capture wealth would unleash the torrent of jobs so far missing in our economic recovery and would avoid the disease of affluence that was a key cause of the erosion

Back in Black - I'm a Funeral Director, again.

In July 2007, The Escrow, Title Insurance and Settlement Services business I was employed with began to feel the effects of these economic times.  The staff was reduced from over 25 to 7, until May of 2010, when that number became six.

Unemployed for the first time of my adult life, then employment drama ensued. I got a job, couldn’t start the job, then I would interview four times with one employer, only to be notified they did away with the position.  It became easier for my wife to find new employment and as such, our roles reversed and I became a self-proclaimed “Man among Moms” during the summer of 2010.

And it’s been wonderful.  June 2010 to July 2011 has been the worst time for me professionally and the best time for me personally.  Over the past year I was able to love my family deeper than ever before.  I was Mr. Mom, and damn proud of that title.  I grew more in that year than the 39 previous ones.  I got back on the path towards healing and recovery. I actually got to see change and growth up close–and it changed me.

Recently, I accepted a new job that reverts back to my formal education and training.  Many of you don’t know that I’m a licensed Mortician/Funeral Director.  My new job is leading a funeral pre-need sales team for the third largest funeral provider in the state of Utah, Serenicare Funeral Home.  I won’t be doing the Mortician duties that I once did, however with my funeral education and insurance knowledge I will be advising and educating individuals and families on the benefits of prearranging funerals and pre-funding them with an insurance vehicle, thus avoiding any/all increase in funeral expenses when the need comes.  I’ll have to travel “in the field” a whole lot more, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.

In short, it’s going to be amazing.  I do miss Jen and our kids; however this really is what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t just know it’s right, I feel it’s right.

Advanced Funeral Planning - Stepping Stones - September

You know what itʹs like to lose someone you love. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the death, you may have experienced intense grief, remorse, guilt, and regrets over things left unsaid and undone. If the service was not planned ahead, you may have had all of these emotions compounded by anxiety, worry, and doubt as to what your loved one would have wanted and how your family was going to pay for the funeral. Donʹt leave your closest loved ones in doubt.  I am here to help you plan ahead for your own or a loved oneʹs services. Itʹs time to seize the day so that those you love the most donʹt have to waste a minute in worry and doubt. Simply contact me and make an appointment for a free funeral planning consultation.

My monthly newsletter entitled "Stepping Stones" is a collection of short stories and poetry benefiting individuals and families currently going through the grieving process.

The September issue is available here.

-Mark Heiner
435-680-5073
SereniCare Funeral Home

driving in STG

quick lesson on how to get a sunburned knee while driving in STG

The Significance of the Funeral Ritual

If you are like most people, you don't think much about funerals until you have to go to one.  Funerals then become very significant occasions to honor a lost loved one.  Especially if we've lost someone very close, funerals help us to transition from our lives before the death to our lives following the death.

This also is a time when a support system may be established so our friends and extended family can show their love and concern in tangible ways.

The Viewing

A viewing or visitation is a gathering of friends and family before the funeral service, often in the presence of the deceased's body.  Some family members may be tempted to discard the idea of a viewing saying, "We want to remember her as she was."  However, spending time with the body doesn't have the power to alter or take away our memories.  In fact, grief experts explain that a viewing, if it is possible to have one, can help us acknowledge the reality of the death, and this is a very important step on the road to healing.  While it is ultimately a personal choice, a viewing or visitation could become one of the most significant events in a mourner's grief recovery process.

The Funeral Service

A good funeral is one that truly reflects the unique personality of the person who has died.  Friends and family have the opportunity to remember and honor the life of their loved one in special ways.  They might share a eulogy, a song, a memory, or a letter written by the deceased.  Funerals give us a time to face our grief and emotion so that we can begin to heal.

The Procession

The procession takes place after the funeral service as mourners make their way to the burial site for the committal service.  It is a symbol of our mutual support of one another and a public honoring of the deceased.  This is a ritual that can be a touching moment as those who love and care for you travel alongside you.  Sometimes rituals speak louder than words.

The Committal Service

The committal or graveside service is a final opportunity to say our goodbyes.  Usually a speaker shares a few parting thoughts.

The Gathering

After the committal service, there is usually an informal gathering where friends and family can continue to share memories and express their condolences after the loss.  A meal usually accompanies this time that can become a time of gratitude and thankfulness for a life that was well-lived.  Slide shows, personal anecdotes, and memorabilia are often shared, and usually the family emerges from the funeral ritual with a sense of hopefulness and a knowledge that life continues to unfold, even in the face of death.

SereniCare Funeral Home
Mark Heiner
435-680-5073