Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
Kathleen didn't grow up with animals. Just one family dog, she says, and her sister got to have a turtle, a very small turtle, because "we didn't have the space, my mother worked full time, my father worked full time and there was a big stress on education, that was your first priority."
Her husband, Raymond, was the one with the zoo in the backyard. "Pigs, cows, snakes, everything," she laughs. "Believe it or not, when I first met him, they had pheasants flying in their house, they had goats in the backyard. They used to run pony rides in the neighborhood."
"So do you love animals more now, I mean, working in this business?" I ask her.
"I notice them more," she says, sounding careful again.
"Well, has running this business changed you?"
"Not really," she replies. For a minute I think she's just determined to make sure I find nothing strange or unusual about the pet funeral business, but maybe she's just telling me the truth.
"I used to be a regular Joe, working 8 to 4, Monday through Friday, and now I work by appointment when it's convenient for my clients," she explains. "Otherwise I'm really doing basically the same thing I was doing before -- I'm serving the public and I'm providing a service that's necessary. I come from a family of doctors and nurses, so we're all community service."
Finally, I get her to admit to one difference when I ask her if she ever gets her heart broken on this job.
"Yes, that's part of the business," she says. "I mean some people can detach themselves. I found that I was able to do it better -- function in the role of a nurse than I can function in the role of a funeral manager.
"As a nurse, my specialty was geriatrics and I felt that, all right, they had lived a very fulfilling life and they're here now, they're in a long-term care facility and I'm doing whatever I can to make the best of the rest of their life. I made every day fun. I made sure recreation was scheduled; I ran parties, dancing, singing, art. I really investigated their lifestyles," Kathleen continues, "so if they were just some antisocial people, they like to have their cup of tea and their crossword puzzle, like my mother, then I made sure that was maintained. I never forced them to do anything.
"So I felt satisfied, but here you don't have the time. I try to get as much information as possible but I don't have a lot of time. There I had years, you know? Here I don't. I have a very small window to work with."
On my last visit to the funeral home, I have the odd desire to ask Kathleen for a job. She has to take maternity leave, doesn't she? But I never get up the nerve. I feel incredibly peaceful sitting at her desk in the funeral parlor while she tells me the story of a young man named Elvis who had a wake for his cat, though no one in his family could understand.
"I felt so bad for him, he broke down in pieces," she says. "He was a real bruiser, someone you would think wouldn't shed one tear and I had to scrape him off the floor." His mother looked appalled; his girlfriend rolled her eyes. Kathleen sat with him, speaking to him about his cat. She paid no attention to the nonbelievers in the room. "I'm not going to leave the person who's come to me out in the cold," she says.
Elvis still calls her from time to time, though now it's every few months, instead of every week, so Kathleen knows he's worked through his grief; he's feeling better.
And my feelings about Kathleen have changed also. At first, I saw her as a brave defender of a misunderstood, even ridiculed love -- "How can you be so upset for a dog?" But finally, I could see that in defending and protecting these loves, she was protecting love itself, in whatever form it takes -- "Crying for a hamster, for God's sakes!"
Oh, the extravagant heart!
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