One would hope, at this point, that the anger would have diminished somewhat, and I guess it has, but not quite as much as I would have liked, due primarily to the ineptitude of the staff at the funeral home.
On Thursday my family prepared for two 2-hour viewings of my grandfather from 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. Our family was invited to show up early because my aunt was having a really hard time with the whole thing, and wanted extra time to personally spend with my grandfather without a bunch of other people around. Upon arrival at two o’clock we were happy to see that the lights in the funeral home were on. There had been some power outages in the area, so we were worried about the lights at the funeral home. Before we arrived the funeral home assured my family that they had candles placed around the room and that it would be “dim”.
While my aunt drifted over to be with my grandfather, the rest of us gathered around a television to watch a slide show I had created from old pictures that my brother had scanned in. I had used iMovie and applied a liberal usage of the Ken Burns effect, and everybody seemed pretty happy with the result. Then, at 2:10 p.m., the lights went out.
“Dim” does not begin to describe the situation. Like many funeral homes, this one did not have any windows in the actual viewing room, so our room was lit by indirect ambient light from the front doors, two battery powered emergency lights, and about 6 or 7 small candles.
At 2:30 the emergency lights went out, so all we had were candles and the ambient light. If you think funeral homes are creepy, you should try hanging out in one with all the lights out. Finally the good will of my family broke, and one of my other aunts approached the funeral director.
“The lights have been out for 20 minutes. What is you back-up plan?”
“Well, the power is out in the area, and we can’t really control that.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Do you have a back-up plan for this type of situation?”
“No.”
Having just lost her father, my aunt didn’t have the energy to fight, so she found my brothers and me. My older brother and I approached the funeral director and asked what he was going to do. It took all I had to not punch him when he said there was nothing he could do. My older brother said, “No, that is not acceptable. You need to go buy a generator and get the lights on in this room. Now.” He said he would have to ask his manager, and while he disappeared we conferred about what we would do depending on when the lights came back on. We agreed that we’d ask for $1200 if the lights weren’t back on by the end of the first viewing, $2400 if they weren’t back on by the beginning of the second viewing, and $3200 if they were still off by the end of the second viewing. The price was based on what we paid for the viewing, and then we doubled it, that way even if we only got 50% of what we asked, we’d still get a full refund. We suspected they were keeping their fingers crossed that the power would come back on and wouldn’t have to shell out for a generator.
While we were waiting they lit a friggin’ oil lamp and placed it by the casket. Aside from the horrible odor, we had nothing to worry about except for the oil lamp tipping over and setting the whole room on fire. When the oil lamp started to fade they balanced a flashlight on the same table and pointed it at my grandfather. I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how infuriated I was to see my grandfather like that. Also, please keep in mind that the rest of the room was still dark, still lit only by a few flickering candles.
Finally at 3:41 p.m. a generator was connected to lights by the casket. At least anyone who wanted to see my grandfather wouldn’t feel like they were in a third-rate haunted house. The odd thing is, though, that lights in the hallway and in the other viewing rooms were on. As far as I could tell, ours was the only room in the whole place that was still dark. I’m not sure what that was about, but it didn’t help matter to see other rooms brightly lit when ours was still dark.
At 4:23 p.m. full power was restored to the building. Our room was completely lit, and for the next 35 minutes we were able view the slide show and have conversations with our family and friends without having to use candle light or a flash light.
The way I figure it, we were without power for 143 minutes out of a possible 180 minutes, amounting to almost 80% of the time we were there. I think were entitled to at least 80% of a refund for the viewings, if not more. It’s not like we can have another viewing next week. That was it. That was the only time we had. The stress and discomfort of spending so much of that time in the dark physically manifested itself in my relatives.
I’m not quite ready to say exactly where this happened, depending on how the bill is settled, but I’ll let you know what happens. Also, to prove I shouldn’t play the lottery any time soon, my dad’s uncle died on Sunday. I wasn’t close to him at all, and am not really sure if I ever even met him, but I’m pretty sure that my dad is beyond exhausted. A sister, father-in-law, and uncle within three weeks is un-fucking-real and I’m not sure that anyone should ever have to deal with that.
