A Job Not So Macabre

Pat Devine
Feature Writing
Word Count 783
November, 04
A Job Not So Macabre
Sechrest Funeral Service, located on East Lexington Ave. across the street from the High Point University intramural fields, is run by local manager and 37 year Sechrest employee Neil Whitaker.
After shaking hands with the Mr. Whitaker I sat down to ask him a few questions. But before I could get his name, or turn to a clean page in my notebook, he was questioning me, “Where are you from.”
“Virginia Beach”
“Oh really…I’m from south eastern North Carolina myself… Used to surf in Sandbridge (area in Virginia Beach) a lot when I was a kid.”
We had at least a 10 minute conversation about surf stories, old surfboards he had, surfboards my dad had, trips to Cape Hatteras, being a lifeguard in Wilmington, even a time when he was surfing near a navy base in Virginia, when target practice started for one of the battleships, “I thought we were under attack.”
I wasn’t here, however, to talk surfing or to share similar stories about my upbringing. I was there to do a feature story on a distinct, profound moment in the man’s career which I would try to recreate.
Then I realized this was it. This is what the man did every day of his life. He was treating me like a client.
I probably could have said any town and he would have an assemblage of anecdotes to cast my way. He was getting to know me better to make me feel comfortable; for him it must be like impulse. This is, after all, a huge part of his job.
“I find out where (the deceased) is from, what hobbies they had, what music they liked… I can go from bluegrass to Pavarotti”, he says proudly. If the person liked golf, “I’d love to bring their clubs to the visitation.”
He had to make me comfortable before he could get comfortable. Looking back it was obvious, but at the time, I was enthralled in the conversation.
I can imagine him sitting down with a recent widow as she goes over the financial side of a burial, or advising a family on the legal aspects involved in making a decision between cremation and burial; the smell of coffee and chocolate chip cookies lingering in the air.
“Nothing says relaxation like a cool bottle of water, a warm cup of coffee, or a (fresh made) Otis Spunkmeyer cookie.”
The warm aroma of mahogany, coffee and cookies, wafts through the building.
“Our rules are more stringent than the state’s laws”, he might announce reassuringly to the friend of a deceased man with no relatives around to claim the body or pay for funeral costs. He might say bluntly over a cup of joe, “Cremation gives you more options. We can hold the body for ‘X’ many days until it becomes a ward of the state… But you can always cremate later.”
The stranger feels at home in this place generally thought of with such a dark stigma.
The meeting room is cozy to be sure. The walls are a dark blue lined cream crown molding. A big white floral couch is accented by pictures of pink flowers and a deep aqua carpet.
He tells me, “it’s not about me, it’s about you (the client)… We sit in an open, comfortable and relaxed area to discuss arrangements.”
Mr. Whitaker might take the hand of an old widower whose only son has just died suddenly and who can’t make up his mind about what he should do for the funeral arrangements.
He changes the subject and talks of the man’s wife. He asks him about the circumstances of her death, the toll it took on him and his family, and how they recovered.
Then the conversation comes back to his son, and what made him who he was and what his legacy will be.
The man leans forward in one of the sky blue upholstered arm chairs and takes a sip of coffee.
They’ve been talking for an hour now, and Mr. Whitaker has not broken a sweat. He loves his job.
The elderly man puts the coffee mug back on the mahogany table. I think he ought to have a burial, just like his mother.
The resolution is made.
The man has made the decision, and the hardest part of Neil Whitaker’s job is over.
“Once (a client) makes a choice then that means…that they have made a separation. They don’t want to have to make that decision.”
Mr. Whitaker has been doing the same thing since he finished his second year at Wilmington Community College, and it is evident from speaking with him for what turned into a seemingly quick hour-long interview, that he knows his job well.
Says Whitaker, “This is what happens every day, in here.”