Death And Role Reversal (with Steve Carberry)

[00:00:00] At 2.49 p.m., I thought I had it figured out. At 2.50 p.m., I had no clue. Death and Role Reversal

[00:00:24] Hello everyone and welcome to the Death And Podcast. I am your host, Victor M. Sweeney, licensed mortician, self-styled undertaker. I mean, it's not that it's untrue. It's just what I'd rather call myself, undertaker. Today's guest, Mr. Steve Carberry, is likewise an undertaker, and he had a bit of a role reversal.

[00:00:49] Often in my own work, I talk about what I do and I say it's from this side of the table, right? I'm on this side of the arrangement table. I know everything that happens from here on out once your dead loved one is in my care.

[00:01:08] But Mr. Carberry, despite having done this for 30 years, when his wife died, he was on the other side of the table. Not on my side, but maybe on yours, dear listener. Dealing with death, not as a funeral director, but as someone who is acutely grieving.

[00:01:35] Somehow knowing what's next, but not knowing what's next. There's a certain beauty in that because I can put myself in his shoes very easily. And I think it's good. I think that's part of what we strive to do as funeral directors. It's part of what we strive to do, I think, as humans that are self-actualizing, is becoming more compassionate. Right? To walk in another's shoes.

[00:02:04] And to have someone who's now in a position that I could very easily find myself in. It's something of a gift. And so I'm glad you are here with me today, dear listener, to explore that. As always, every episode, part of the gift that we give each other as the host and the listener is that you will send in questions and I will answer them. And just mind you, I answer these on the fly.

[00:02:32] My friend Adam, behind the scenes, he compiles them for me and sends them to me and I read them off of my phone here live. And so I don't get a lot of time to prepare, but that is, that's the beauty of it. You get to pick my brain while it's raw. And let me answer your questions as I would a friend's. Here we go. Here's one from Lindsay L.

[00:03:02] Well, there is a crematorium in our town that we periodically notice a lot of. Black smoke coming from the chimney. Sometimes it's pretty dramatic. Is this what I think it is? Or do crematories have safeguards in place to prevent the smoke from actual cremations emanating outside? I get that smoke has to go somewhere, but I don't know how the actual crematorium works and if it's even possible for excessive smoke to be produced through one. Okay, so I'm going to tell you right off the bat, okay?

[00:03:30] I am not a crematory operator. I could probably go get my license pretty easy, but I don't find the actual, you know, nuts and bolts of cremation all that exciting. I think there are metaphysically and philosophically some things that are interesting, but the nuts and bolts don't interest me too much. I will say they are pretty regulated in the United States. There are all sorts of filters that are included.

[00:03:59] From what I understand, I think it's generally the burning of fat and a great deal of adipose tissue that creates the black smoke, but don't quote me on that. At the end of the day, if you are going to have a crematory, as you say, you are going to have smoke and where there is smoke, there is fire, okay? And, you know, we don't go by a cemetery and think, boy, there's a hell of a lot of dirt and dead bodies in there.

[00:04:28] Or maybe you do. But that is just part of the reality of a crematory. In, I guess, what I could call my hometown, there is a crematory. And it is right across the street from a barbecue joint. And I don't think most people know it's there, and that's good. Because I have a strong suspicion that sometimes the smell of the barbecue joint and the smell of the crematory get mingled.

[00:04:53] And it's just one of the hard realities of life. That cooked meat is cooked meat. Thank you for the question. Ooh, I like this one. This is from Cece. How often do you find yourself grieving, even crying, over the souls of the lives that once were? Do you ever take that sadness home with you? Mmm.

[00:05:23] Beautiful question. Juicy question. Yeah, I do feel sad. But the funny thing is, I don't often feel that sadness when I'm, say, working on a body, when I'm embalming or something, or driving someone to the crematory. I do feel that sadness when I'm at the deathbed. And I feel it, I think, even more when I'm around the arrangement conference table with the family. Because there you see the effects.

[00:05:52] You see the effects of the death, right? Not just the physical effect of staring eyes and a mouth hanging open. But you see the effect on the family. The spiritual effect. And to put yourself in those shoes sometimes can be hard. I, um, I was just at a graveside service a week or two ago.

[00:06:16] And it was for a gentleman who, beautiful soul, a little simple, died in his sleep, which is about the best gift you could possibly ask for. And we drove a long way to the cemetery. Ours, actually, outside of where I live. And his nephew and his brother and a couple of other family members were there. But the nephew and the brother are both ministers. And the nephew ran the graveside.

[00:06:45] And I've worked with Pastor Dan a lot, okay, over the years. And he started off by saying, well, this is, this is where we know our bodies are just temporary things. And his voice kind of catches. And I got a little verklempt. I got a little choked up. Um, and the sun was going down.

[00:07:15] And we were in the shade of a big tree. And after the graveside service was over, the deceased gentleman's brother, Jim, Pastor Jim, stands up. And he says, now we're going to sing Jesus Loves Me. All three verses. And this is not a song I grew up with. Catholics don't sing Jesus Loves Me. Um, but I've learned it over the years from singing it around the graveside with Jim.

[00:07:44] And so Jim starts us off. Jesus loves me, this I know. And everybody around the graveside at one point or another starts to choke up. Present company included. And Jim is the only one who carried on the whole time without a break. And so, yeah, I do get sad. I do take it home with me. I got home even after two hours in the car back home and was like,

[00:08:13] I, I just, I just need to go to bed. I'm just kind of sad about our friend here that died. And I think that's okay. That's what keeps us human. So, thanks for the question. And thanks for prompting something else, honestly, that made me a little sad just thinking about it. Thank you, Cece. Well, that's all for the questions.

[00:08:39] Thank you, everyone who sends them in on such a regular basis. I don't know if I'm ever going to plumb the depths of my question inbox. I keep getting them and I keep trying to crack away at them, but keep sending them. I do appreciate it. I will do my very best. Thank you for the support of the show. It couldn't exist without you, dear listener. If you want to support me personally, because I am a poor undertaker, get on Cameo. If you have a Cameo account, you can send me six bucks.

[00:09:09] You can buy me the equivalent of a cup of coffee. I drink like four cups of coffee a day. I definitely do not get six bucks four times a day. But if you want to support me, you can ask me a question there. I will answer it in a prompt fashion in a personal manner. But thank you. Thank you, everyone, for the questions. It's the beating heart of the show. Our guest coming in here, Steve Carberry, I find we're kindred spirits. We're both, you know, hobbyist writers.

[00:09:38] We're both full-time undertakers. We both dealt with death in a very poignant and close way. Steve's closer than my deep brush with death. But I give him an introduction when we start the episode.

[00:09:56] So let's just go and see what Steve has to share about his role reversal, about looking at life from the other side of the arrangement table. Our guest today is Mr. Steve Carberry.

[00:10:25] He's a funeral director and embalmer of 30-plus years in Texas and Oklahoma. After the death of his wife, Danella, in 2025, Steve found himself experiencing death from the other side of the arrangement table. He began writing about their life together, her death, the messy first year of widowhood. He continues to work in funeral service and lives in Texas with his cat, Hazel, who frequently believes she should be included on video calls.

[00:10:53] So will she be here today, Steve, or are you at home or work? Currently, I'm at home. Currently, she is managing the birds. That does not mean that she's not going to be here because all of a sudden her human is interacting with the shiny rectangle. And she'll probably have to come over and see what it is. But we're going to let her do what she does. Well, so Steve, full disclosure, Steve reached out to me. I mean, I have a lot of people reach out to me.

[00:11:21] Every week I get, I don't know, a dozen people reaching out to me with various stories about their lives. And Steve reached out to me. And I was very compelled. One, because I like talking to other undertakers. I really do. There's a certain kinship there that is, it doesn't matter where in the country you live. It's just nice. But your elevator pitch, you said, I know everything that happens on this side of the table, the side of the table that I usually inhabit.

[00:11:50] You said, until I'm on the front porch watching my wife leave. Tell us about your lovely wife. Danella, she was something truly special. She had a lot of faults. But her and I truly clicked. That first date, we were studying at a little Thai restaurant in Arlington, Texas.

[00:12:16] And meeting at 730 and at 1030, the owner comes and says, you think you could settle your bill? Because we'd like to go home. And it just kind of started. Her and I, we had our moments. We got on each other's nerves. We had our arguments. But we truly enjoyed being with each other. It was a lot of fun being with each other and doing the things that we did. She was unbelievably good at finding things.

[00:12:45] There is a town in Texas Hill Country called Lano. And just outside of Lano, we are cruising down this farm-to-market road at about 70, 75. And she says, Steve, you have got to stop and turn around. I'm like, what? She goes, no, really. You have got to stop and turn around. So I turn around and we go back.

[00:13:09] And two minutes later, we pull up in front of this little country cemetery named Baby Head Cemetery. It goes back to a group of people traveling west. They stopped at this little hill and they camped for the night. And they were attacked by savage Native Americans and were massacred.

[00:13:36] All the bodies were placed in a big pile and lit on fire. And there was a baby's head on a stake. So that became Baby Head Mountain. And Texas settlers, being Texas settlers, hey, that's Baby Head Mountain. Let's just start a town there. The only thing left is... Just realists. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have to name it. And the only thing left now is the cemetery.

[00:14:04] And she was always noticing stuff like that for what she called me her funeral boy. Well, so were you a funeral director, undertaker for your whole relationship? Yeah, yeah. So she only knew me as a funeral director. On our third date, she came to see me. I was on call. We had just ordered food. I got the telephone call. I had asked her. I said, well, we got to get it to go because I got... Tale as old as time.

[00:14:33] And she's like, all right. And so walking out, I'm like, you want to ride? And she's like, yeah, I'll ride with you. So we go to the nursing facility. She stands in the corner, watches me do my thing. We get back in the van and she says, now what? I said, well, I've got to go back to the funeral home because this lady needs to be involved. She goes, can I hang out? Yeah. So she sat there in the corner of the prep room and we talked while I did my work. And... That is a hell of a third date. Well, yeah.

[00:15:04] And then later, after we got married, we lived upstairs and I would go out in the middle of the night and she'd come back down and we were reading a series of books that were very funny. And she'd come sit at the door and read to me as I worked in the middle of the night. Oh. That was neat. So that just kind of goes to prove, you know, not only was she the undertaker's wife, but not only does she live it because she knows when the phone rings and knows when I leave and knows about Christmas morning and all that kind of stuff.

[00:15:32] But she just, she understood it, but she would come down and hang out with me. And that just kind of goes, we like to hang out with each other. That's nice. I should, you know, I should almost, maybe I could see Minnesota laws are strict, but maybe I could put up like a, like a confessional panel, you know, where, where you can talk, but you can't see. Maybe, maybe that would be fine. Well, that would be kind of cool. When we lived at the funeral home, she would not come inside. She would open the door and sit at the door.

[00:15:59] Or she just, I mean, she, that one time she, cause she sat in the corner, but most generally she just, she didn't really have much of an interest in being in there. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, sometimes at four in the morning, I don't have much interest in being there either, but that's, that's okay. It has, it has to be done. I, um, no, I remember once when, so when I was dating my wife, I was working in Moorhead, Minnesota. It's across the river from Fargo, the famous or Fargo.

[00:16:26] So, and, uh, we had a medical examiner call, which at the time was done in a town about an hour and a half north or so. And, uh, she, whatever, didn't have college or something that day. So it was like, ah, come on. So we, we went, brought a guy to the medical examiner and had lunch while the autopsy was happening. It was awesome. Um, but now, now she doesn't have much inclination to go on death calls or she'll, well, we will, we've taken people to the crematory.

[00:16:52] If it's on the way, like if maybe we'll go out to eat and we'll stop at the crematory because it happens to be nearby. But, um, nothing, nothing, any, uh, any more, uh, uh, macabre than that, which I mean to you and me is not much. Well, right. I mean, and she understands and, you know, um, where we were just talking about learned a long time ago that you just walk in the door and you strip your clothes off. And you put those in the cleaner washer right then because it will permeate.

[00:17:22] And, uh, yeah. And the smell, the smells stick around, don't they? And the worst thing is when your wife says, you stink. So, yeah, I was talking to my dad the other day and he was like, I have a question for you, son. I'm like, what's up, dad? And he goes, when you get back from an embalming, do you, do you like shower? And I was like, kind of depends, kind of depends on the embalming and what time it is. Cause if it's four in the morning, like that's not happening.

[00:17:47] I'm just, I'm just laying down wherever I, wherever I managed to, to land. Um, but you know, it all depends. It depends on what, uh, what fate has in store. Um, but I wanted to ask you this. So, so I opened it, you know, with, with honestly, you're very compelling quote about, you know, what happens on this side of the table. And it's, it's funny you say it that way because I describe it that way to people all the time where I say like, well, I'm on this side of the table. Like you don't have to worry about this side of the table stuff.

[00:18:17] I've got that. You, you've, you've got to worry about grieving. You've got to worry about doing the other side of the table. And, um, so what is that? What is that like then making that transition after doing it for your whole career, making that transition to all of a sudden you are the one being served. Well, my wife, you know, she'd been sick for six years. She was diagnosed in 2020.

[00:18:42] So through six years, we went through the whole up and down the, uh, you know, all the different treatments. Oh, you're doing good. Oh, you're in remission. Oh, now you're doing bad again. That whole thing. Yeah. And so for six years being a funeral director, I thought a lot about what my life would look like if something were to happen, especially in the last year. What's my life going to look like when it happens? Did you feel prepared?

[00:19:08] I thought, so June 6th, 2025 at 2 49 PM, I thought I had it figured out at 2 50 PM. I had no clue. Um, you know, uh, never, I'll never forget sitting there and having the hospice look, look nurse, look over at me and say, Steve, the time of death is two 50.

[00:19:36] We have spent all of our lives. That's one of the things we have to have as a funeral director is the time of death. That time of death was so much more different than hearing it every other time. And then I had initially thought that I was going to take care of everything. She was going to come to my funeral home. I was going to take her there. I was going to run the funeral.

[00:20:05] And a couple of days before I'd called a colleague working for the same group. And I just said, when she dies, I'm going to call you. And I was standing there on the front porch with my son and we're watching the van go down the road, turn right, go out of sight. And I know you've looked in your rear view mirror and seeing the people standing in the driveway, standing on the porch, standing on the porch. Every time. Every time.

[00:20:32] I've always thought, okay, I feel sorry for him. Go to the funeral home. Do your thing. Five o'clock. You go home. You're with your family. You have dinner. You mow the yard. You watch TV. You read a book. You play a game. Whatever the case is. And at that point, I'd never thought about those people that were getting ready to turn back and walk around to the house, say goodbye to the hospice nurse, the hospital beds, the concentra, all that stuff goes away.

[00:21:01] And I remember walking back in the door and my son and his wife had gone. They went back to another part of the house. And I'm standing in the living room where the hospital bed is, where all that stuff is. And I'm looking. And I just was like, everything that I've learned, I know all the details, the checklist, the permits, the paperwork, the organization. But now I don't have any clue how to be a widower.

[00:21:31] I don't have any clue how to deal with this one spot. And yet you've met with a thousand widowers. Oh, last night I was writing some more stuff. And I had come up, since she died, I have waited and sat with ten widowers. And it's changed the way that I deal with them. Really? Tell me. Tell me about that.

[00:21:57] So with widowers, we sat down and most recent, it was a, the lady had made a choice to exit. But she had also been diagnosed with terminal cancer, uncurable at this point. Yeah. Those are complicated situations every time. And he was just so upset about the final ending.

[00:22:25] And I just had to sit back and say, yeah, that's tragic. Here's a little bit about me. But tell me about her. And then we stopped. Put the pencil down and everything. Tell me, start telling me things about her. Tell me who she was as a person. Not that I never did that. But I think I kind of understood because I've sat where he, he was now.

[00:22:50] And I think I understand that sometimes, especially the way a widower. So it's like one in seven widowed people are male. I mean, you know, even my wife said it's not supposed to happen this way. But I mean, it's that kind of stuff that has, has made me, you know, how I deal with it, how I talk with it. And I always tell him, it's like, you need to eat and you need to drink water.

[00:23:17] He said, if you want to eat something and all you feel like eating is a ribeye steak, forget the veggies, eat ribeye steak. You want to have a couple beers, have a couple beers. You know, you want, all you want to eat is chocolate cake, eat chocolate cake because you can go to the gym next month. It doesn't matter. But right now you've really got to have some energy because there's so much you've got to do in the next week. That's good advice.

[00:23:38] Overall, I have, when I go into meet with a family and I initially at the, at that bedside, we do things. I've slowed down a little bit. I become gentler. And instead of asking, are you ready for, are you ready for me now? Okay. I'm going to go get my equipment, especially if it's a man with his wife.

[00:24:03] I just say, I need to ask, can I have permission to take your wife into my care? That's a nice way to put that. Was this your experience too? Cause you said you called another funeral home. So, you know, you probably knew the undertaker that came to the house. Um, but even if you know them, there is, there's got to be a peculiar strangeness that comes when somebody brings your wife into their care.

[00:24:30] When you're used to having her in yours. May I read something for you that I wrote the night my wife got it? I would adore that, Steve. Okay. This was written around 1130, 12 o'clock on January 6th, 2025. The name of this introspectic writing is a man in a van. And I'm going to see if I can make the, I can't ever read this out loud without getting a little teary eyed.

[00:24:57] A man in a van showed up at my house to take my bride away today. And that's okay. I called him and let him in. I did not want him, but he came. He placed her in a van and was gone, leaving her impression both physically and spiritually. I've thought about that since he left. He came at my call without hesitation. He was kind and he was gentle. And he did not want to be there.

[00:25:25] Not because he was irritated about being called out. Because he could feel the pain I had. I have spent years being the man in the van. It is my job's what I do. I come when I'm called on the worst day of a person's life. The ones who opened the door wishes I wasn't there. And to be honest, I wish I wasn't there either. Now I have a deeper understanding. The man in the van came to help ease the burden of death to undertake the task.

[00:25:55] He came and when he left, there was relief because I didn't have to take care of her shell. She's gone and it sucks. But now I can start working through my feelings. I have a deeper understanding of my job, my task. Being the man in the van is very important. Being the man at the funeral home is very important. And I understand the need for us even more now that I have been on the other side.

[00:26:23] Standing on this side of the death equation, being intimately involved as next to Ken, the one who calls, the one who makes the choice, I can see the value of the man in the van. We deal with death every day. But when it's personal, it brightens the importance of our job. And that's totally the introspection of standing on the other side. This is the thing. I think about this a lot.

[00:26:50] I don't know if your wife ever did this, but my wife is like, Victor, we obviously, you know, I've been working in a funeral home since I was 18. I've been dating my wife since I was 15. So like this has been just a part of the picture the whole time. And, you know, when you get married, and I tell this to young couples too, and it freaks the frick out of them. But I tell this young couples, I'm like, just so you know, like you're also signing up for one of you to be a widow.

[00:27:20] Like that's what you're signing up for. Like it might be a long time from now, but the fact is one of you will go first. And my wife, obviously knowing this, she's like, hey, Victor, I call dibs. Like I definitely want to be the one to go first. And so I think about that a lot. And Paige is not like the world's healthiest person. You know, she has some autoimmune diseases. But so I think about that a lot where I'm like, there's a reasonable enough chance

[00:27:49] that I'll be that one in seven or that one in 10 and be a widower. And I like to think I'm prepared, right? I do this all the time. Like I have a sheet of paper and with my funeral notes, if Paige dies, I'm going to do X, Y and Z. Like that's what I'm going to do. But probably the stark reality is what you're telling me is that I'm actually utterly unprepared.

[00:28:17] And I guess I have to wrestle with that because I, you know, my folks, my folks moved back to North Dakota and they're fairly close to where I live now. And there's pretty much 100% chance I'm going to do my parents' funerals because that's important to me. And I'm, you know, whatever. I want it done to my own specifications. And so like there's a very good chance I'm going to embalm my parents.

[00:28:44] But I won't lie to you when I think about having to embalm my wife. That's a different, that's a different question. It was very easy for me to be more in charge of my father's funeral. For Don Ellis' funeral, I had to just step back. The funeral director that came to pick her up, him and an older funeral director that lived in the town we were living in that I had become friend.

[00:29:11] And they directed my wife's funeral because I don't think I could have. In fact, both of them independently told me it's a two o'clock funeral. You have zero reason to be there before 1.30. That's what they both told me. I love that. And at 1.35, me and the kids showed up. I looked. I saw things that I would do different. But I kept myself out of the way, stood in the back, greeted people that came in.

[00:29:39] You were a widower instead of an undertaker. I decided that I was going to be a husband. I was not going to worry about why this song was playing, where's the minister, where's the military, you know, all that kind of stuff. I decided I wasn't going to do it. I like the way that you tell younger couples. I thought about this a minute ago. You told younger couples about one of you will be a widower.

[00:30:06] And one of the groups that I'm with, there's a group of close to Dallas. There's a lot of widowers. So there's a group of widowers that meet once a month. And one of those guys said 50% of marriages end in divorce. The other 50% end in death. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a lot more blunt way to put it, but. Yeah. I, I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

[00:30:28] No, it's, it is, it is interesting because I, so I, um, I opened up my book actually writing about this very thing, but my, my boss's dad, who's 90 this year, uh, lost his wife in 23. And, um, so I ended up my, my, my boss, who's their son was like, he and dad brought her to the funeral home, you know? And, uh, I was there and he's like, I think I'm gonna, I was like, Hey, let me take care of your mom.

[00:30:57] And so I, I took, I took care of a lot of that funeral. Um, but afterward Mike's wife was like, you know, I think he did too much. I want him to do less. You know, I want him to be with me. And so when her, when my boss's wife, when her mother died in town, I just, again, kind of took the reins. And so I, I do think it's hard for us to learn this, that like, there are times where you have to step back.

[00:31:24] Um, and actually through this process, my, my wife is like, Hey Victor, when my parents die, you're not doing a thing. You're staying with me. And, and yeah, like we're going to go to, I know the funeral home we're going to use. They don't wear matching suits. Okay. They, um, they have like too many people working there that don't know what's going on. Uh, they go too fast down the aisle with the casket. Like these are all things that like I can pick apart.

[00:31:50] Um, but yes, at a certain point I have to just let that go. Um, because there are more important things being with my wife or in your case, I, do you have children? Mm-hmm. We have a blended family, blended family, three children. Yeah. So like being there for your kids and your, your family turns out is more important than nitpicking the details. Well, I mean, and like I say, I just did not know. I mean, believe me, I thought I was going to do it all.

[00:32:19] I mean, I, when, when, when we went on to hospice, I got with my staff and I said, when she dies, I'm calling you, you bring the van. We'll later, we'll go together up to the funeral home and we'll take, we'll play. Because initially she, we were oddly enough as a funeral director, we both wanted cremation as alternate disposition. But we both wanted a full funeral prior to. There we go. I like that.

[00:32:45] And she liked, and she had gotten, um, frail enough where she had decided she did not want to have a funeral or a viewing at all. So we had a heck of a memorial service instead. Yeah. You know, you know, the, the full meal deal, six staff, everybody's in, we don't wear matching suits, but everybody was looking good. Every, you know, all that kind of stuff.

[00:33:10] We had it, but I didn't manage any of it because a, those two guys that ran it, I knew they could. And my staff was sharp and they knew what they were doing. And there were other funeral directors that had come to, to, to, to, to pay respects to me. And I'm sure they would have done it all differently. Yep. That's right.

[00:33:34] But there's, but there, there is something it being the guy, you know, being your funeral director of friends, um, in that position with my boss's mother and my mentor's wife. Um, we feel the pressure, don't we, we're, we're definitely doing our best, uh, because that is, that is a lot of pressure. Cause I mean, when you, you know, I know that Mike is looking over his mom with more scrutiny than we've ever looked at a body. And that's, and that's not to say we don't use a lot of scrutiny, but I mean, it's, it's obviously heightened.

[00:34:04] Right. And same with his dad. So you, you had, you have this funeral, you've been able to kind of step back. Um, but then you're, I assume you're entering a territory then that you don't normally deal with because now you're, you're outside of the funeral world entirely and you are, uh, in an empty house. Right. And I'm going to go back to the night she died.

[00:34:33] Um, before I wrote a man in a van, after my son and his wife had left, after the telephone calls had kind of slowed down and stopped. I'm sitting there watching something on the television. I picked up my phone and I hit send and the phone rang on the other side of the, uh, of the room. And I realized that she wasn't going to answer that phone.

[00:34:59] But my point was, this is the relationship we had. The last. Cause she would have been the one, she'd have been the one you'd talked about this. The last person. This is crazy. I lost my wife. You need to hear about this. The last person, the only person I wanted to talk to Don Ella or talk about Don Ella's death with was Don Ella. I feel that. And that was a big realization. Yeah.

[00:35:27] I, um, when my best friend took his life some years ago, I had actually the exact same thought. Steve, uh, you know, got through his funeral and it was just this big tumultuous thing. And, um, one of those thoughts as I was driving home after leaving my brother's house, cause we carpooled there together. I was like, ah, damn, I need to call Alex and tell him about this.

[00:35:51] And I just realized how, um, how paradoxical, paradoxical, I guess that thought is. Um, but yeah, it's strange. You know, with Don Ella, I mean, you told her the good things, the funny things when the building, a building got knocked down or somebody got fired at work or somebody we knew went to jail or the scuttlebutt at church.

[00:36:13] You know, when somebody at work was irritating me or we were having management changes or I was so tired of looking at spreadsheet, you know, just all that stuff. And she knew it all. I mean, she knew, I say she knew 99% of my life, but she probably knew that other 1% and just didn't tell me she knew it. You know? I love it. So what, what happens, what happens next?

[00:36:40] I mean, so we, we do all the things we know about what, I mean, I'm right now. I'm actually just waiting to behold my future here, but tell me what is next, Steve? So, so next, the first month after death is business and getting rid of credit cards, changing things, working with the bank, the insurance, all that stuff. It's business.

[00:37:04] And then after business, you're going to work and you come home, you order DoorDash, you turn on the television. The television just isn't working after a while because you're not interacting with the television. You're just, you're not, the television isn't interacting with you. You're interacting with the television. And there's so much loneliness in this, in this world.

[00:37:30] And I mean, and you, you see it professionally all the time that like there, there's a, there's an individual, um, her father died. And, um, you know, as, as an elderly person and she lived with them and like, she just can't seem to move on, you know? And so every once in a while I'll, I'll get a text cause you know, I guess we know each other through work.

[00:37:55] Um, and, um, I got a text the other day at midnight and was like, Hey, uh, can you talk? And then I ended up talking to one of her relatives and they're like, just so you know, such and such bought a firearm. And I'm like, Oh, I'm, I'm kind of putting the pieces of the puzzle together. And, uh, so I was like, Hey, I like at five in the morning when I was up, my kids was like, Hey, got your message from last night. Um, I need you to reach out to me and didn't hear anything. Didn't hear anything.

[00:38:25] And I was just kind of getting like the spidey sense, you know? And, uh, so I ended up calling a well check and the, uh, the sheriffs came over and, uh, she relinquished her firearm. Um, but it's like, there, there's so much loneliness and it doesn't have to come from losing your spouse and it doesn't have to come from, you know, something that at least to you and me even doesn't look traumatic. You know, so you say, you said earlier too, you know, you're, you're, you're working on a book.

[00:38:53] Um, do you, do you still write a lot? Does that kind of help bridge some of that gap? You know, and, and I started writing these pieces the day after with a man in a van and there's other pieces that have made it in there. Um, I found out that writing the main reason that I sat down and really started, I, I, this is an interesting thing. So Saturday morning after my wife died, I went in and arranged her funeral. I did all the paperwork. I filled out the death certificate.

[00:39:23] I started arranging songs, the video, the whole nine yards. Yeah. And they keep on sending me letters saying, Hey, you know, here it is. Congratulations. You have no, you have no balance. And I kept on saying, I need to call and cancel that. So I called them and they said, okay, send us a death certificate. I said, okay.

[00:39:50] So I couldn't find the one that I had the digital copy. So I had to pull the original out and rescan it. And I looked down and grief is weird. It comes at you in weird ways at weird times. I look at that death certificate on line. I, I can't even remember the line number, but on the left side, it said next to Ken, Stephen Carberry spouse. One line down, two lines over.

[00:40:20] It said licensed funeral director, Stephen Carberry. I signed her death certificate twice and it was just like that hit me. A grief ambush hit me right then and there. When I saw that, I knew it happened. It wasn't new information. And that night I sat down and I started writing. It wasn't meant to ever be a book, but the thoughts became stories. The stories became a book.

[00:40:48] So yes, I've sat down and I have right. And I will come in. I'll watch soccer. I'll watch football. I'll watch baseball. I'll watch the Waltons. But if sometimes I sit down and work because that kind of creative creativity keeps me occupied, keeps my mind going. And then widow and widower groups in DFW, there's a lot of them every night. You can go have tacos. It doesn't matter.

[00:41:18] Well, that's kind of nice. So yeah, you have some built-in support. Because I think when I started writing my book, basically I wrote it because I wanted to craft some of the narrative. If I was having these viral moments, I wanted to figure out a way to mold it and make sure it stayed on the track. And I found that especially when I was writing about Alex. You know, I can write about, I don't know how many other deaths I wrote about in that book.

[00:41:48] You know, dozens. But there is one chapter I devoted to my friend's suicide. And, you know, as I was writing it, I found it healing. But as I had to edit it again and again and again, as where the book is actually coming together, I found that every time I edited it, I was reliving it. Yep. And that was less good.

[00:42:13] So I do think there is something to kind of pouring your thoughts out and organizing them and shaping them. Like, that's where the writing helps. But having to read and reread. I was even thinking when I read the audiobook, because I got to read my own audiobook. And even just reading Alex's chapter was awful. I remember being absolutely exhausted when I was done and I still had, you know, more chapters to go.

[00:42:40] So there is, but just the action of writing, I think, is really, really important. And it's important even if nobody ever sees it. That's how I did. And I've decided at this point that I am moving forward with the publication. And if I sell one book, I'm a published author. That's right. But, and it's not because my, this is not, I did these steps. This is not, this is the way to get out of grief.

[00:43:08] This here is a story of this is what I did. And it was good, bad, good, bad, and ugly. Well, and there's, and there's no way, you know, I, I'm not really a big believer in self-help. necessarily. So I don't really think there is a way to pull yourself out of grief, except to work on it and just wrestle with it and give it time. And even then you probably won't, you, you won't really shake it. I don't believe.

[00:43:35] So what I've heard people, other people that have been widowed for some of them years have said, grief never gets easier. We just carry it differently. Oh, I like that. And I think that's true because, oh, he writes it down. I love it. I am. I'm writing it down. Um, because we, because I'm never going to not miss Danella. I mean, that was 17 years of my life and it was good 17 years.

[00:44:04] We had a good marriage and I'm never going to forget her. I'm never going to get over her. But compared to June 6th at 251 and today I carry it a lot differently. There's more happier days than there are sad days. You mentioned talking with other widowers differently. You know, has, has having, has having death kind of knock on your own door, you know, not, not just at work, but at your house.

[00:44:33] Has that changed the way that you look at your work as well? Well, yeah. I think I told you some of the things that I've made, um, like asking for permission. Yeah. Slowing down. Yeah. I think I slow down a lot more. Um, I think that I work, I've always been one that says the arrangement of conferences, building relationships. And that of course is a funeral marketing side of thing. You're wanting to build a relationship. But now I also look at it.

[00:45:01] I'm trying to build a relationship with not only the deceased individual, but with the next of kin through stories. So it drives my boss mad, but my direct cremation arrangement takes two to two and a half hours because I'm building the relationship.

[00:45:22] I'm finding out who the individual was because so many times it's like, Oh, direct cremation, write the order in and out, man, I did that in 20 minutes. Yeah. Give me a couple grand. Yeah. I know. I love, I love that. Um, because that's something I find as well that, um, you know, if you're doing a funeral arrangement, right. I'm going to talk about myself too. Like we're actually going to share. It's not just tell me everything about your dead dad.

[00:45:53] It's let me tell you about my life a little bit. You tell me about yours. We'll, we'll share some stories. We will probably joke a little bit, you know, but by the end we'll have at least one inside joke that we can enjoy. Um, and this is the day after your worst day, but having, having that sort of, uh, connection is, is really important. You can't, you can't beat it. Losing a spouse to losing a spouse.

[00:46:18] Um, that there is a specific, um, bond that you have, um, losing a parent. That's a specific bond you have. Um, you know, and then there's places, there's bonds I don't have. I cannot bond on that level with someone who has lost a child or someone who has lost a brother or sister. Cause I haven't experienced that. Um, although I do know what loss is and I do, and I have now experienced loss, even though it's different.

[00:46:45] So it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting, um, way to do things. Um, I, I, I, I, my, I, my thought where I was going was, um, you know, people will come down, come in and sit down with you and say, listen, we just placed mom on hospice. What do we, we need to get it. We need to start figuring this stuff out. And I all, I got the privilege to do this with my wife.

[00:47:12] I was able to sit down with her one night, the Thursday before she died. And I asked her, I said, what songs do you want played? What verse did you want the preacher to talk about? What is one thing that you want everybody who reads your, your, your obituary? You want everybody to read? What do you want them to know? The one thing. Those are things that we ask all the time of the next of kin.

[00:47:41] I got to ask Danella and, uh, interesting things. And this went in her memorial folder on the back. Of course, she said, ladies, get your breast exams. Anything's weird. Go get a second opinion. Um, you know, she said, read your Bible, pray big. There's no sin that Jesus won't forgive. And then she said, Steve, you're going to be okay. You will flounder. You will spend too much money.

[00:48:11] You will eat out too much. You will lose weight. You will bounce checks and you will have reconnect fees. I am going to be okay. I'm, I'm at peace, but you, you need to find somebody else because you can't take care of yourself. Then she said the best line. And if you want something that would embody my wife and her personality, this last line,

[00:48:37] she says, but Steve, I just want to know who the bitch is. Steve, I, you couldn't ask for anything more than that. I know. I, I really, I really appreciate you coming on here. I appreciate you reaching out and then sharing your story. Um, because many of us will find ourselves in your position, right? If, if you have a spouse or a deeply significant other, there's that chance that you're going

[00:49:07] to be the one left behind. So no, I, I want to thank you. Thank you for coming on and thank you for, um, like you say, sharing from, well, maybe both sides of the table. So thank you, Steve. We got to talk funeral director and we got to talk the other. So, and I appreciate you taking a chance on me for my very first ever podcast. So, you know, I, I'd say it turned out pretty well. What'd you guys think of that? I, you know, I, I have an affinity for, for morticians.

[00:49:36] I, I, I, I'm kind of a softie. If one reaches out to him, like, I want to talk to you. Um, and maybe, maybe I'm just doing this for myself. Maybe I am only looking at this role reversal in anticipation of the time where I might get my roles reversed. And surely this will happen when my parents pass away, where I, where I might be both undertaker and bereaved.

[00:50:02] And maybe it causes me to look at my own life and think that maybe I will get a chance to just be the bereaved and do it for my own benefit. Sure. But do it also for my family's benefit, for my kids. Maybe after listening to this, maybe my kids deserve a dad who's just a husband grieving the same sort of loss that they are.

[00:50:31] Maybe they don't need a dad who's an undertaker that day. Whenever that day comes, if that day comes, because the, at the end of it, if I go first, I'm going to have another role reversal. Am I not? I'm going to go from, from undertaker to undertook. And that's not the worst thought. I've talked before on here how I am not afraid of my eventual death.

[00:50:58] Maybe that role reversal, the last role reversal I will experience from living undertaker to dead undertook. I think that'll be okay. I think it'll be all right. And I hope I leave behind a family that loves me. I hope I leave behind friends that will miss me when I'm gone. Hell, maybe I won't make it home today from the studio.

[00:51:23] I'll leave behind audience members who will think this is terribly morbid that he's talking about his own death being that he has died an untimely one just recently. I don't know. But in any case, I too am at peace with it. Like Steve, I am at peace with it. And that is what I desire for all you, dear listeners. To be at peace.

[00:51:51] May peace be upon you. This day and every other day to come. Thank you for joining us on Death And, my friends. I am your grateful, grateful host, Victor M. Sweeney. See you next time.