Inside the Life of a Funeral Director with Allyse Worland

Funeral director and celebrant Allyse Worland shares how her lifelong passion for funeral service began with a personal tragedy and grew into a calling to help others through death, grief, and healing. With sixteen years of experience, she offers a unique look at what it means to care for both the living and the dead—bringing compassion, artistry, and education to end-of-life care. Her story sheds light on how funeral professionals are embracing change, from eco-friendly green burials to more meaningful, personalized celebrations of life.

Allyse has worked in funeral service since she was fifteen, growing up in a small town in Indiana where community and ritual shaped her values. Today, she is a licensed funeral director, embalmer, restorative artist, and educator who trains others in ethics, compliance, and compassion. She also serves as a funeral celebrant, helping families create personalized ceremonies that honor their loved ones without relying solely on traditional religion.

Her interest in restorative art began when, at nine years old, she saw a family member who had died by suicide and felt deep sadness at how unnatural he looked. That moment inspired her to learn the science and art of restoration, helping families remember their loved ones with dignity.

Allyse also advocates for green burial options and helps families explore “shades of green”—from natural cemeteries and biodegradable caskets to eco-friendly embalming fluids approved by the Green Burial Council. She believes education empowers families to make conscious, sustainable choices about death care.

As a mentor, Allyse encourages new funeral professionals to adapt to changing values around death, dying, and legacy. She teaches that understanding grief, reducing stigma around death by suicide, and celebrating life are essential to modern death care.

After years of nonstop dedication, Allyse now embraces self-care and balance, recognizing that caring for others begins with caring for herself. Her story reflects a powerful truth at the heart of death work: by facing death with love, we learn how to live more consciously.

https://www.rememberingalife.com NFDA's Remembering A Life Website

Have License Will Travel | Continuing Education 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allyse-worland-cfsp-818109326/

Transcript

Allyse: [00:00:00] The older generation of the profession, they do have so much knowledge to give. They are very wise, they are very knowledgeable, but we do have to look in a forward direction if we do wanna remain relevant. Those days of everybody gets a full traditional burial or. Are gone. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death.

Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create ace. Space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true in this episode.

Funeral Director and funeral celebrant, Allyse Worland shares her journey into funeral service. Beginning with a childhood experience that shaped her lifelong calling to care for the dead and support the living. With over 16 years in the field, [00:01:00] Elise brings deep insight into the changing world of death care, from the art of restorative work and creating meaningful personalized ceremonies.

To the growing movement towards green and eco-friendly burials, we talk about what it means to bring compassion and creativity into funeral service, how education empowers families to make sustainable choices, and why self-care is essential for those who hold space for grief. Elisa's story reveals the heart and artistry behind modern death work.

And reminds us that by honoring death with care and intention, we can also learn how to live more fully. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome, Elise, to the podcast. Thank you for coming on. Can you tell me just a little bit about you, who you are, even outside of the work that you do, anything you wanna share?

Allyse: Sure. First of all, I am so excited to be here, so thank you for having me on. This is the highlight of my week, so a little bit about me. I've been in funeral service. Since I was 15 years old, this month is 16 years I've been in funeral service. You can do the math and figure out how old I am. [00:02:00] This has been my passion ever since I was a a teen and every day is something new.

Definitely. So that's a little bit about me. I'm from a very small cornfield county town in Indiana. So I'm a mid-westerner. I love what I do. I basically eat, breathe, sleep, funeral service. That's really my, what I do, I'm, I'm starting to also try to discover more about myself without funeral service. So I definitely things outside of that.

Um, so I do love to play. I play violin. I, I do calligraphy, things like that. So nothing really outside of the ordinary if you're stepping out of my profession. Calligraphy 

Jill: is actually super cool. I've. Tried to do it a little bit, not put a lot of time into it, but I love art. I've been spending time doing more art, keeps me off my phone, gives me something that I can enjoy.

So I've been doing watercolors and calligraphy and other types of [00:03:00] print work with brush pens and collage work. I don't know, just fun stuff. I love it because it does gimme an outlet outside of nothing but death and dying and grief. Exactly. Which is great, but also, you know, we need something else. And so when you say that you work like in the funeral industry, I know there's funeral directors.

I actually just did a training last week to become a funeral celebrant, which I'm super excited about. I know that there's a lot of different parts that go into funerals. So what do you 

Allyse: actually do? I am a funeral director. I'm a licensed funeral director. I'm a licensed embalmer. I'm licensed currently in two states.

I also am a funeral celebrant, so we, we should definitely talk about that. I, I love being a celebrant. I've been a celebrant for six years now. Very, very cool. Love doing celebrants. It's just being, it's used being used more now than ever, which is great. I am embalm. I am also a restorative artist as well, so I do reconstructive work.[00:04:00] 

Oh, yeah, I do funeral arrangements. I do prenatal arrangements. I actually conduct the services. I do everything. As far as I'm, I'm, I would like to say I'm very well-rounded in the profession. I also teach other funeral directors. I educate other funeral directors on compliance. Ethics and regulation. So that's something I'm very proud of.

I'm very passionate about training others and educating others that are in my profession, and if I can say anything that would help them and inspire them to do better practices, that's my goal. What's your favorite part out of all of those things? That's an interesting answer. I'll give you over the, I guess I'll say the eras, I guess that's the trendy word right now.

The eras of my profession. I have loved thing. Things have been my favorite during certain eras in my career. I really love embalming right now. I love educating and training. Those are my two things right now that I, I, that's my favorite part. Give me, gimme a little bit longer in my, my next era in my profession.

And I'll probably say something else. But at the moment, I enjoy the education, [00:05:00] training and embalming aspect of it. 

Jill: Do you do anything around like green funerals? Is that any area that you're interested in? Just 'cause again, I'm like thinking of some of the. When I did my training last week while I was there, we were able to walk around and look at all the different stuff.

There was a variety of businesses. One of them is New Jersey, just legalized human composting. There was a person there that had one of the vessels, some of the soil that was left over that you could touch. And it was pretty neat. But we talked in the funeral celebrant training, 'cause everybody else there were funeral directors except for me, like there was, I think 12 of us.

And I was like, I'm a death doula. Everybody else was like, no, I work at a funeral home. They sent me here for training. We talked a lot about the trends and how in the eighties they were talking about cremation and how it wasn't gonna last and it's a new thing, but it's only a fad. The woman running the training said, you know, and that's kind of green burials nail, you know, a lot of funeral directors are still like, oh, it's just a fad.

But [00:06:00] statistics are showing there is more and more interest in it. I'm just curious your thoughts. That whole movement, 

Allyse: there's definitely more interest and more green friendly alternatives. I like to use the term shades of green. Mm-hmm. So when I get to talking to families, how green do you actually want to go?

And by what I, when I, when I say that, if you want. Somewhat green. If you want like a light shade of green, like maybe we're gonna go to a hybrid cemetery where they have a portion of it that is traditional and the other portion is a a green burial cemetery. They may not require a vault. Do we want a visitation?

Are we going to be using green embalming chemicals, which are approved by the Green Burial Council? They do. I didn't know that. Yes. Yeah. Not to, not to plug that product on this, but they're, they're gray. They're approved by the Green Burial Council. So how green do we wanna go? Are we wanting everything to be approved by the Green Burial Council?

Do we wanna find a cemetery that's Green Burial Council approved? Are we only using Green Burial Council approved products? So there are lots of [00:07:00] things I ask families. Two Prearrangements probably in the past year. That people were, were like, yes, we, we want a green burial. One was strictly dark green, like we're going all green.

And then I had one that was kind of a light green, like we found this hybrid cemetery and I just don't wanna be involved. So you have to explain it so someone knows about green burial. I think the biggest thing with, with funeral directors, with the Rangers specifically. Are you educating your families because you are the most educated person in the room, and so if you explain the family all their options, yeah.

And they'll make an educated decision. Absolutely. I do see a lot of questions when it comes to green burial. I'm certainly seeing more of that as far as the natural organic reduction, alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation, those things are still becoming legalized. And here where I'm at, they're not legal yet, so I'm not able to offer everything I can.

I have ways to point the family in the right direction, but at the moment, I can't offer everything. But I believe in the future that [00:08:00] everything will end up being legalized in all 50 states. That's my prediction. 

Jill: I did not know that there was any embalming. Are they still considered chemicals that are green burial?

So it's food 

Allyse: like food grade. It's like food grade preservatives. It's food grade dye. Like I said, it's basically a temporary embalming, I guess is the best way to put it to you. Mm-hmm. It's a very temporary state where the family could see their loved one. But again, green burial, embalming practices are so strict.

We cannot use certain things. There are certain things we're not gonna be able to utilize during the involving process because we have to make sure that this is all going to be able to be broken down. During the great burial, 

Jill: and when you embalm a body with like normal chemicals, the purpose is to preserve it so that you can do the viewings and all that.

Yes. But how long does it actually preserve a body for? Eventually the body will break down anyway, right? Even if it's been embalmed or does that last for Yeah, everything. You 

Allyse: can't tell a family legally that your embalmings last forever. So yes, at some point the answer is we don't know because every person truly is [00:09:00] different.

We don't actually know precisely, but I will tell you everything is temporary. 

Jill: I can't imagine that it would last forever, but that's definitely part of funerals that I am curious about. I could see myself in a different life going into embalming and funeral directing. It just wasn't my path this time around.

But I have always wondered about that with the chemicals that are used, like how long does it actually last? That's interesting for families when you're working with them. You know, what do you see is the main difference, like for people that want the full traditional funeral versus going towards something a little bit?

Not that I wanna say more modern, but like something a little bit newer. 

Allyse: So I'm seeing, oh, it's a really, it's a shift in generations. I'm seeing a lot of generations say, okay, we did this full traditional for our grandmother or mother. This is what we've always done. So I'm seeing the different [00:10:00] generations.

They will, what they value is different. When you get into the younger generation, they're. Going to have different, possibly different values, or perhaps they didn't have the best experience at a funeral and they don't, they don't want to have that again. Or they value not having a large carbon footprint.

So it's really about the generational value and how they wanna memorialize their loved one. That's what I'm finding most. 

Jill: So I think a lot of what we do as humans is just because that's what we did before, and so we just kind of keep going with it. We did talk at the funeral celebrant training about.

How many people have had really negative experiences with funerals? Thankfully, I never have. That's good. Other than the fact that when I was a child, I wasn't allowed to go to my grandfather's funeral. I definitely have grown up with this. I don't know. It's not necessarily that there's a lack of closure.

But there's definitely been a weird feeling around funerals because of that. And you know, most of the people I live with are very Catholic. Because I'm in South Jersey, there's a lot of Catholics. Yeah. So it's [00:11:00] always been a very Catholic funeral. You go to the church, it's very somber and quiet. It just.

Is a different feeling than some of the people I was talking with at this training. The woman from Oklahoma did the training. She was talking about the way that funerals are traditionally done there, and I was like, oh yeah, that's definitely different than we do them in Jersey. Some people in class were talking about having bad experiences.

That's partially what led them to becoming funeral directors because they had a bad experience happened. Did. That's exactly what happened to me. I'm glad that then there's people like you that are now determined to give other people a better experience, and if you wanna share anything about your.

Experience. You are welcome to. You do not have to. No, I would love 

Allyse: to. People always ask, it's the million dollar question. Why on earth did you do this? Why on earth did you get into this? Well, it was before then. It was even before when I was an adolescent. I was about nine years old and I had a family member that.

Died by suicide, which is very tragic. It would be what we consider to be a death of despair. There [00:12:00] was so much going on at that time in my young life. I remember a lot. I remember so much of my childhood, and that was a pivotal moment in my life. So I was nine. I went up to this casket. I was used to going to funerals.

My family, I, and I'm from the Midwest. And they did value bringing the children into the funeral home. So I have always been around funerals, so that wasn't anything I wasn't really used to. But what I wasn't used to was seeing someone that looked that bad in the casket. Mm-hmm. And so I was, the family of course was, it was awful.

I mean, it's a death of despair. It was. Awful. And then on top of that, it compounded into this person that we love and care about who died in this tragic way, doesn't look his best in his casket. So that's what led me to the profession. Instead of being repulsed by what had happened, I thought there's something I can do to help others.

And that's really at the core of why I wanna do this. It might sound very cliche, but I wanted to help others. I wanted to be the person that I needed. I wish that. [00:13:00] Funeral director, that restorative artist, that embalmer would've taken the time to make him look his best. Maybe that was in their eyes, the best, maybe it was.

Mm-hmm. Because I have learned, you know, you've gotta understand what that professional was working with at the time. And of course, I did not see what they were working with at the time. I didn't see the before. I just saw the after. 

Jill: So 

Allyse: that really inspired me, and I have heard so many of my colleagues that have found their way to funeral service because of that.

Because they do wanna give back. They wanna be the person they needed. That's really what it is. 

Jill: Yeah. That's how I became a death doer because thankfully for me, I didn't have a terrible experience, but I really lacked any support I had nobody telling me what was happening while she was sick and getting ready to die.

And I was like, all right, there's gotta be people out there that can help. Others. And so that's why I became a death doula. Yes, but you mentioned like ReSTOR, how did you say restorative? Restorative art restoration, restorative art. So [00:14:00] that would be, if there was a tragic death, you need to make the person look as good.

That's right. Can you tell me a little bit about that? 'cause that's actually really 

Allyse: interesting. So when you do have project situations and it, and it's, if you have someone that say they've been in an accident, that's probably my, my my best example, a simple example. They might have something going on with their face laceration, or if they've lost all of their hair during chemo, we can actually build on that.

It's really art is what it's, that's why it's called assertive art. We can make it look like it never happened. 

Jill: Hmm. Or 

Allyse: we can make it look very close. As though it did not happen. So we use a really, it's up to the restorative artist, but a lot of us use wax. It's wax, it is a special restorative wax that we use.

We use cosmetic. We're very great at color theory, so we, we love using that. And we are basically, we're magicians, so it's, it takes us a long time to restore someone, especially [00:15:00] depending on what the trauma is. Again, if there's hair that needs to replace, like that's kind of my specialty is I, I'm great at hair replacements, so if I can, I can make it look like they always had their head of hair.

It takes a lot of time, patience, practice and skill. Going back to mortuary school, this was over 10 years ago for me, and we actually would have, we have this, this plastic skull. It's a head. All of it is, it's a think of like a hairdresser, like when you're going to hairdressing school and you've got this head that you carry around.

That's kind of how it is with embalming school, and you are to create the entirety. You just have a skull as a base and you add your wax to this. Plastic skull and create an entire head and a face out of nothing. And that's pretty much what you're doing. So I like mine. Just an example, when I was in Morrey school, I chose Sid Vicious from the, he's the, was the basis for the band, the Sex Pistols.

And that's who I did my head. I used a wig. I didn't do like a full hair replacement on him. 'cause it's, it's very [00:16:00] difficult to do that if you're. If you, if we're that much here, it is difficult. So usually we just use a wig. We're making an entire head and that's exactly what we do. Think of sculpting.

That's probably the best way. We use sculpting tools, wire tools, we use all sorts of things to make it look as though that person didn't have that accident, that didn't go through what they did. 

Jill: Yeah. So, and that is definitely art because as you were explaining it, I'm thinking, gosh, no wonder your family member did not look great because.

That would be very hard to do if you're not artistic at all. My background is I'm a pastry chef and I used to own a bakery. At one point I was hiring young folks out of art school. When you were sculpting with fondant or doing things to make figures or painting, I couldn't do it. Like I just, I physically could not do what they did.

That was such a skill. I was hiring them. They were like, I don't know how to bake. I don't need to spend it. I'm like, it doesn't matter. I could teach you. The baking. I could teach you stacking cakes, [00:17:00] that part, but the art part, I'll give you fondant and you'll figure out how to use it. It's kind of like clay.

It's gonna have a little different, and one of 'em, actually, she still runs her own, my bicker has been closed 13 years. One of 'em, she still runs her own Etsy shop where she sculpts fondant and sells it on Etsy. Cool. So she went down that path. As you were explaining, I'm thinking there's no way I could make.

Something that looked like an actual person, especially if it had to look like a specific person, I couldn't do it. That is 

Allyse: definitely art. Well, there's a science behind it too, because you might be better with measurements. So really that's what it is. I mean, yes, you do have to have an artistic aspect, but you take measurements and recreate it using measurements, and it all has to be as precise as you can get it.

I'm not so good at the measurements part. I can see it and then I recreate it, but my brain works differently. So even people that weren't as artistic, if they could understand the measurements behind it, and usually they could still be a restorative artist, it uses all of your brain. It's amazing. It's [00:18:00] such a unique skill, and not everybody has that.

Part of the reason why people have these awful experiences at funerals, at visitations is. It is hard. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody wants to take the time. It takes time to do a restoration. It takes time to make look like nothing happened. 

Jill: Yeah. How many hours does that take approximately? It depends.

Allyse: I will say it really depends on the severity of the trauma of the person where it is even a light restoration. For me, just an example, I just an example, like maybe, maybe two hours, three hours. I mean even for like a light restoration if you, but it's. Gonna depend on a few things too. Even if I'm doing just an ID for a cremation before someone is cremated, it's gonna take me longer to do because that person may not be involved, and so I really need that firm.

Dry tissue to make the wax even stick. So I've got things that might be working against me in the process. Again, everyone is different. That's why I love this profession so much is because every single day you have no idea what's gonna walk through that [00:19:00] door. You have no idea what's gonna be happening.

You have no idea what call you're going to get, and you have no idea what kind of skills you're going to have to employ in order to make that family happy. 

Jill: Do you ever have to say, I'm sorry, this is too much. We need to do a closed casket. 

Allyse: I've had to do it twice in my career, so 16 years. I have only had to say it twice.

Both times it was burn victims. They had been in a horrific car accident. It was four degree, fifth degree burns. It was nothing I, I could. So those were the only time in my, it was, and that was very hard for me, especially the first time, because I am a person that's, yeah, we're gonna give these families what they want and I'm never gonna have them hate that they saw their loved one, whatever it takes.

That was a very humbling moment for me as a young licensee. I only had my license for a few years at that point, and that was the first time I felt defeat. I felt like I had failed that family, but there was nothing I could do. I did everything else. To give them that confirmation. I don't usually use the word closure because I don't think you actually get over a major loss.

[00:20:00] I was able to give them confirmation in other ways, but seeing them just unfortunately wasn't one of them. Well, 

Jill: I mean, you did serve the family well because you saved them from an experience that you can't unsee. If you see a bad, and 

Allyse: I'll be very honest about that, just to be very candid about the experience I was in my early twenties and usually things don't bother me.

I have a lot of people that will ask me, well, does this bo this job bother you some kind? Sometimes it does, and that was a moment that I certainly had nightmare. About, I had nightmares about that particular family. I also knew the family. I had served them when I was a student. I had served them when I was an apprentice, and then I was serving them again as a full fledged licensed funeral director, embalmer.

I remembered them and it was very difficult for me to have to see them that way, and then to tell the family that it's my professional opinion that you don't see them. That was very difficult on me. That weighed very heavily on my heart, and I did have nightmares about it. It's not easy. It might look easy on the outside, like putting on nice clothes and driving a Cadillac [00:21:00] curse, but it can be very difficult and that's part of the reasons why.

Yeah. Do you have any kind of self-care? I have actually. Like I said, when we started our conversation, I am just now getting into trying to discover hobbies outside of funeral service. It's been very difficult for me not to make it my entire identity, but I see the need for that. It's just been very difficult for me.

To discover myself outside of funeral service, so I'm still working on that. As far as self-care, I love skincare, so like I'm, I definitely am a skincare regimen. I do go for walks. I'm definitely a person that. Socializes with people that are not funeral directors because we have such a tight-knit group.

I don't know how, how, if you know how tight-knit funeral services, but there's so few of us out there that we know everybody. So I try to hang out with groups of friends that don't have any ties of funeral service. So I can step away from the, as you said, the death and dying conversation, just having a great support system when I need to step [00:22:00] away from my day to day.

That's been. Amazing. But I'm still discovering that self care. It's just been very difficult for me. 'cause I'm a person that's always on. I've been running a hundred miles an hour with my hair on fire with this profession for the last 16 years. I'm just now starting to see the need for. Self-care. I did think it was a buzzword.

I did think that burnout was just a buzzword until it finally hit me that I need to take care of me because if my cup is empty, then I'm not gonna be able to fill anyone else up. That was a very hard realization for me, but I'm getting there. This is my self-care. Era, I guess. It's been amazing watching myself grow in funeral service.

Jill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you know, let's see, I'm probably 15 years older than you. I'll be 47 in like two weeks. Four seven. Oh, awesome. Happy early birthday. Thank you. And. Yeah, I'm kind of the same where I came from food service and we push hard and abuse our bodies and when you're younger you're just like, ah, whatever, whatever, whatever.

[00:23:00] Then hit my mid thirties and I was like, oh no, I can't, I, I need something because I'm not gonna survive if I don't figure out a way to take better care of myself. I started walking, moving my body, meditating, and now I don't drink anymore and I try to drink more water. You get to that point where you're like, our bodies can't keep this up when we are young.

You're like that, this 

Allyse: is fine. I'll be fine. I mean, I would work 72 hour shifts at the funeral home and it wouldn't even phase me, not really up till I'm awake, I don't care. I'm surviving on caffeine and true grit. That's all I was doing. Then I hit my thirties and I'm like, okay, I get it now. I understand the need for self-care.

I understand the need for. Let's step back and have hobbies that are not funeral service related. So I get it now. So it's, it's comforting to know, Jill, that there's the aha moment and maybe I am on the right track. 

Jill: Yeah, you for sure are. And that's where now I'm entering the era of Perry [00:24:00] Menopause, getting ready to step into that next phase as a female bodied person.

Last night when I climbed into my bed, it was like nine o'clock, and I'm thinking even 10 years ago. I would've been, what am I doing? It's only nine o'clock. I have things I should do or could do, and now I'm like, well lay here in my bed, read my book. No shame. It shifted. Rather than fight the changes and the shifts, I'm just embracing it and trying to take better care of myself so I can live as long as possible, as healthy as possible.

That's the key. I don't wanna live as long as possible and spend the last 10 years of my life. Completely miserable because my body is in pain. I wanna live as long as I can, as healthy as I can. So that's, that's my goal. And you said you like to do education and you educate other funeral directors. I know like the email, I'm trying to remember the person that connected us, I don't remember who she was to you, but they had said kind of like, you like to talk about the future [00:25:00] of the funeral industry.

Is that what you do when you're educating other funeral directors? Or do you go outside of that? Kind of group of people and educate, like what's that like for you? 

Allyse: Yeah, so I'm also a mentor as well. I believe in the future of the profession, I'm a huge advocate that we're going to have to make some serious shifts in the profession if we want to stay relevant.

That's always top of mind in my profession is how are we gonna stay relevant in the future? Educating and mentoring those that are coming up into the profession is how we're going to do it. So I'm a mentor to many students, many apprentices, many younger funeral directors. Again, being the person I needed as far as my training, I do regulatory, I do ethics.

I also teach on. What we do as different generations and how we can come together. I do that for other funeral directors and for students. I presented to a group of students last week and it was very well received. I'm trying very hard to pay it forward to the profession. Not everybody is receptive, set times, [00:26:00] but learning how to walk with each other instead of we're walking in the other opposite directions.

That's really been my focus, is how are we going to bring our profession? Together, we're not gonna embrace it, or young people are the enemy. We don't need them to come into the profession. That's not what I try to do. I try very hard to mentor those that are coming in and to open the eyes and minds of those who have been in for 40, 50 years in this profession to help.

Mentor us who are coming in and what have you seen and what can you help us with? So really that unity in the profession is what I try very hard to, as far as, as far as educating like the public, I, I haven't, not really. What I have done recently is I'm part of the group called the Funeral Professionals Peer Support Group, because this is a very difficult profession to be in, especially mental health wise.

We have been educating mental health professionals about what we do. If we meet a funeral professional and instead of just asking about the [00:27:00] profession, we already know about it, we can help our fellow professionals. So that's as far as public. I have done that in the last few months. So that was really, really eye-opening.

'cause we got a lot of questions and unfortunately just the public doesn't know a lot about what we do. We're portrayed in the media. Very negatively. Another one of my goals is to turn that around so we're not seen as a negative light because the media loves, loves to paint us in a not so great light, unfortunately.

Okay. 

Jill: And that's actually, so when I did my death doula training, that's when I started like paying more attention to funerals as far as a business, right. And there is definitely a lot of the, like, you know, funeral directors, they're kind of greedy. They just wanna make a lot of money. They wanna push the most expensive casket.

They're taking advantage of people when they're at their weakest. I've even talked to other funeral directors that are like, yeah, no, that that does exist. It's not all of us, but it does exist, right? That is, yeah. Yeah. Right. Like every industry and so every question, yep. [00:28:00] There's definitely that stigma out there.

And so there was part of me for a while that was kind of like, do we even need that anymore? Is that something that we need moving forward? And then. Last year in March, my aunt died and I was with her. I was the only person that was with her. One of my best friends, her grandmother died, and then my cousin's dad died all within four days of each other.

Allyse: Oh my gosh. It was crazy. Wow. It was 

Jill: crazy. And with my aunt in particular, it was my uncle's choice. He chose to have nothing. They got her cremated. He just went by himself, did his thing, and that was fine. But then my best friend's grandmother had the traditional Catholic funeral. I remember being at that funeral and thinking, now I get it.

I needed that connection. I needed to be around people I needed. To stop life as it normally was, and honor the fact that I just had a bunch of people in my life [00:29:00] all leave. It really did shift the way I thought about funerals, and that's when I met another death doula on my podcast that did funeral celebrant training, and then last week at this class, it was three days long.

It really did make me understand the great need we have as humans. To have something. A lot of us have had negative experiences, even for me, like I'm not Catholic anymore and I don't really feel a connection to that religion. So a Catholic funeral is not in my cards or my mother's, but. This idea that there is other ways to honor somebody's life and go through that.

And so yeah, now I'm like really kind of, and again, I'm happy to be like, this is what I used to believe. I don't believe it anymore. Now I'm kind of more over here and finding my own path, but there really has to be a shift in. The culture, I think in the way that they are [00:30:00] viewing funerals and funeral directors and the whole thing, because I am seeing now that there's such a need for it.

I love that you're kind of focusing a little bit in that direction as well of how can we move this forward into the future and serve people in the way that they need to be served while also still preserving some of the traditions that come with funerals. Yeah. 

Allyse: Absolutely. The older generation of the profession and just in general, they do have so much knowledge to give.

They are very wise, they are very knowledgeable, but we do have to look in a forward direction if we do wanna remain relevant. The truth is those. Days of everyone buys a copper casket and everybody gets a full traditional burial and everybody goes to mass, those days are are gone. And I know that's very difficult for those of us who have been in for a very long time to let go of that.

Just an example, I saw it even in my lifetime. When I was 15 [00:31:00] years old, I'm from Cornfield County, Indiana, and we had two days of visitation. That was the normal I worked at. I worked visitation, I mowed the grass, watered and planted flowers, proofread obituaries. I laminated his bookmarks and worked the visitation.

We had two visit, two nights of visitation and then we would have service the on the third day. So basically the families moved into our funeral home for a whole week. We had two chapels and we had. We had two visitations usually going on. We had two front doors. Just to, to give you a little bit of an example, when I got back home to Indiana, 10 years later, they had turned the smaller chapel into a banquet hall because we're not having that many visitations anymore.

Now we're looking at all in one day services. So the family's gonna have visitation for a few hours, service to follow, and then maybe we're not even going to a cemetery because we have cremation to follow. There was just an example of one shift. Where the family might not have a connection to a church at all.

Maybe they were Catholic. You're like, eh, I don't wanna do this anymore. So they're not going [00:32:00] to a church for a meal anymore. They need somewhere to go. Funeral homes have now created places for families to go after the service. So we can just go from a. One room to the next, and that was a huge shift. I was shocked, even in my small town, that we had embraced that it's the, the changing times what the families want, and we as funeral professionals, we have to listen to what the families are wanting.

I think we're doing a better job of that now, which makes me very happy because that means we're embracing what the future is so we can remain relevant. 

Jill: Yeah, and you know, we kind of talked about funeral celebrant and you did training as well? Yeah, I did. To 

Allyse: become a funeral celebrant. That's very cool.

Glenda was who trained me, and she's fantastic. I did that six years ago in 2019, and it was probably one of the best. Feathers in my cap that I could have gotten in this profession because I can be everything for the family, even the officiant. I also love when, when g Glen, when Glinda was, was training us.

I love that she put into [00:33:00] perspective that some of the reason why people had such a bad experience at funerals is because of the officiant. And the problem is there's nothing that I can do. I've had some really awful experience with Officiants and I wish that I would've had one of those big hooks that you see in the theater, and I wish I would've just been able to drag them off the the podium.

That's true. So allowing myself to become a celebrant, I was able to be the person I wish I would've seen up there. Instead of somebody screaming at the crowd telling them about fire in brimstone, I was actually able to have something that was a. A meaningful celebration because that's what people are shifting to.

It doesn't have to be mournful, it doesn't have to be that's this Catholic mass. It doesn't have to be a ritual. It can be a true celebration of life. It's okay to laugh during a funeral. It is. Okay. Because that's, those are still memories. You can still laugh about those positive things. So I love being a celebrant because I get to build some really amazing services, and it sounds like I knew the person.

I will never say I didn't know the person that totally discredits you [00:34:00] from the get-go. But I'll say exactly what is in the minds of the families, because that's where the services, as they taught you, the services in their heads, I see a huge shift in needing the celebrants, especially as people step away from.

Religion. I'm seeing a, a need for an actual celebration of life instead of we just go to church, we just hear the same scriptures over and over again. Families are not gonna want that in the future. 

Jill: I'm excited. Genuinely like super excited. When I got done this class, I was exhausted because it was very emotional.

Yeah. Had to listen and I'm glad that she did it. She shared a lot of the toughest ones that she's done. Yes. Children that have died overdoses, a lot of suicides. The easy ones like Grandma died peacefully. Sure, we can all get through that, but it was some of the harder situations that none of us want to deal with.

I loved that she talked about how, especially if somebody dies by suicide or overdose, where there's just this [00:35:00] sense of shame that a family feels Yes. How we could be the ones as the celebrants. To tell honestly that this is what happened. You know, we're not gonna hide the fact that they died by overdose.

Yeah. We're not gonna hide the fact that's, that they died by suicide, but again, we're gonna use the correct language. They didn't commit suicide. They died by suicide. They died by, yep, that's exactly right. And it allows. The people around to hear the honest truth and it saves the family from having to say it or to avoid the conversations.

To me, that just feels so healing and it feels like such a gift that we could give to people to be able to be that person that is their voice, to speak for them during a difficult time, while also sharing the positive things because of an addiction, but also there was still a lot of positive things about the person.

Let's combine it together. Let's not put them on a pedestal, pretend they were a saint, but also let's share everything about them. So yeah, I left that training [00:36:00] and I just was like, I love everything about this. I cannot wait. To be this person for people. Yes, 

Allyse: it destigmatizes death, especially deaths of despair.

I loved killing all the elephants of the room, was how she put it, and I loved that for that very reason because there is such a stigma around tragic deaths, around deaths of despair around death by suicide and addiction issues. But it's there in creating that safe space where. We're not here to be ashamed of what happened.

We're here to embrace, acknowledge the life that was lived, and acknowledge the loss that occurred. And I love that. And that's the best thing you could have taken away from that. So that's exactly what I took away for it too. And if left me feeling hopeful for the future of celebrating life, and if you wanna get in this profession, I tell people that come to me asking about it.

You've gotta love life. That's the whole message. I have potential students that have come up to me and say, I hate the living, and I just wanna be in the back. And that's not really the right attitude. You have to [00:37:00] have a deep love of celebrating life in order to do what we do. 

Jill: Yeah, I like that way of putting it because I do think a lot of us go into professions, even a lot of cooks, right?

Cooks, because we wanna hide in the kitchen. We don't want to deal with the people, we don't wanna serve them. We don't wanna go out and have to talk to them. We wanna hide in the kitchen. But in order to really provide the service, especially in your space, you need to be able to work with the people, work with the living that are left behind, because that's the thing, the funeral's not for the person that died.

It really is for the people that are left behind and it's giving them whatever it is that they need to feel heard and supported and understood. But I could also understand how a lot of people would be like, nah, I just wanna hang out in the back with the dead bodies. Talk to the families. Oh yeah, yeah.

Allyse: Everyone has their gifts. There are gifts that I certainly don't have, no one has all the gifts, but even to do this, I mean [00:38:00] even on in the, even if you do just wanna be in the prep room embalming, you still have to want to honor that life by making them look as good as they possibly can. So there still has to be a, a love of of life 

Jill: there.

Yeah. And I mean, you were young when you got into this, but. I know, like for me, when I took my training and I started really getting okay with death, it changed the way that I live my life. Like there is this, even if it's not always love for life, there's an appreciation for it in the sense that. There is always beauty around us.

Even when there's a lot of ugly, there's something beautiful around us and it's not gonna last forever, so I might as well appreciate it now knowing that I'm gonna spend a lot more time dead than I am alive, so why not try to at least appreciate it? Is that something that you've experienced or even seen other people in the industry?

Allyse: Yeah, I've definitely seen that. I've experienced it myself. It's lovely to see everybody else's per perspective too, 'cause not [00:39:00] everybody has their same perspective on that, but it's, it's amazing to see others have different eras in this career as well. I enjoy watching others succeed. I enjoy watching other people find their peace, especially in this profession because it can be very high stress.

I enjoy watching other people. Find their truth, their peace. So I've enjoyed that aspect of it. I've enjoyed watching my eras in this profession as well. It has. Been eye-opening, especially as I've gotten older. What's actually important? What do you actually want out of this life, out of this profession?

So yeah, I've had those, those just pop outta nowhere. That's kind of how it happened. It's like, wow. Or a case will just humble me so much. Like I'll have a family that really humbles me. They'll say something or something will happen with the loved one that was brought into my care. And those are the moments that you have the most growth when it becomes uncomfortable.

Then there's the growth aspect of it. 

Jill: Have you ever had a case that you just couldn't do, it was too triggering for you, or it was somebody you were really [00:40:00] close with? Was there ever a time when you were like, I don't think I could do this one? 

Allyse: Never. I've never not stepped up to the challenge, the heartache.

The heartbreak or the opportunity to serve somebody that I knew personally. The last person that I had to care for that was close to me was a childhood friend of mine. I'd known him since I was 12 years old, and he had died of cirrhosis. He knew he was dying. I was able to have one final conversation with him a few weeks before he passed, and then his family called me.

I showed up to the hospice facility. I did the transfer. I was the one that came and picked him up. There at the hospice facility, they were doing a simple cremation, but I was still able to bathe him, dress him in the clothes that he wanted, and I was still able to give that family who became my family in my teen years.

Um, I was able to let them say goodbye to him and it was very hard to do that, but it was the final act of friendship and kindness that I could have done for him, and he's [00:41:00] been gone for. A year and a half now, and I still miss him every day. But we talked about it even before he died. 'cause he knew he had about six months to live and he said, I don't want anybody else taking care of me except for you and take care of my family and let them see me like you did when my dad died.

'cause I had also helped with his dad when he died. So it was kind of surreal because when I went to pick him up at the hospice facility, he did look strikingly like his dad. So it was a full circle moment. That was my last kindness to my friend. That was the gift. I could give that family one more time because they had taken me in as a teenager.

I'm not close with my family, so I've made my own little family along the way, and they were definitely one of those that took me in. 

Jill: Yeah, and I love that you pointed out you're not gonna avoid the heartache and the heartbreak. There's this feeling in society that we need to avoid those things. We need to numb all the pain.

We don't wanna experience any pain. But again, the older I get, the longer I've been in this work. The more I'm understanding that you [00:42:00] can't fully feel joy in life if you don't actually feel the pain fully when these things happen. Avoiding it by saying like, no, you know what? I can't do this person because I'm too close to them.

It's gonna hurt. Too much i's still gonna hurt. They're still gone. But if you can give them that experience, and to me at least, you know, again, sitting with my aunt, it was not easy. But it was a gift that I could give her at the end of her life to not be alone. I don't know. I think it's beautiful that we could do this and Yeah.

And it sucked. I still cry. Yeah, it does. Yeah. But, 

Allyse: but even, but I would, I would not do anything differently. And neither would you, Jill? I would never do anything that I did differently because I was able to show that last act of friendship. And because you were able to show that last act of love. For her.

So no, I don't regret it at all. But even if I knew back then what I know now, I would do all of this over again. It has been a lot of heartache. It has been a lot of heartbreak, believe me. But [00:43:00] knowing everything that has conspired in the past 16 years of my existence in this profession, I would still do everything over again.

Jill: Gladly. I love that. Perfect. And we actually are just about at the end of our time, so that's a great way to wrap it up. Why don't you tell us if somebody wants to reach you, if funeral professionals are listening and they wanna find out more about your training, what would any of that look like? 

Allyse: Yeah, so you're welcome to email me.

You're welcome to call me. I make my cell unavailable. All of my information on how to contact me is on LinkedIn. I, I, I'm not a social media person, but I have LinkedIn just to stay connected to my colleagues into the profession. So I welcome anyone that needs anything, any help, any advice. Any mentoring.

If there's anyone that wants to get in this profession that needs someone to guide them and help them, I'm always happy to help. Definitely LinkedIn or my website. I do have a, my training company is called Have License. We'll Travel, so if you want any other information on me, what I do, please reach out.

Always welcome to have anyone [00:44:00] contact. 

Jill: Yeah, and I'll put links to your LinkedIn and your website in the show notes so people can find you. And I think that's really cool because there are probably a lot of, especially young women that are interested in going into this profession, but they just are like a lot of young women, a little bit intimidated.

'cause it does seem to be a lot of, you know, older men that are like, no, this is the way we do it. So I think it's cool that you mentor people. So hopefully if there's anybody listening and they wanna get into it, they would reach 

Allyse: out to you. Please reach out to me and I'm more than happy to help anybody.

And if you want any other information on the profession, anything about funerals, then you can also go to remembering a life.com, which is the NFDA. So, and that's a National Association for Funeral Directors. So that's a, they're a great resource too. And I, I love the National Funeral Records Association because they embraced me.

Even as a young director. So if you're out there feeling like, I don't know, I'm on the fence, or I don't have a place, I maybe I am a licensed funeral director, and I just don't feel like I [00:45:00] have a tribe here, there is a place for you. I can help you find your people. 

Jill: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Elise. I really appreciate you.

Thank you, Jill. This was amazing. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others.

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