2015-09-16 “Graham”

This is my youngest grandson Graham. He is in grade one. On his second day of school he stopped to see me before he left. He had his suit on and his Blenheim Community Funeral Home name tag. Like many young boys he has aspirations of becoming a fire fighter or a police officer someday but for now he considers himself an employee of the Funeral Home. He lives right next door, so once in awhile he will get his suit on and show up for work and say I’m here, Papa…do you have any work for me to do?” And so we find some work because I want to make him feel just as important as he makes me feel when he does that. This past spring he brought his class over for a tour of the Funeral Home. I’m sure some parents probably thought it was strange that a group of children so young would go for a tour of a Funeral Home, but at the end of the day I think that it was a great idea. We looked in the cars, took turns talking into the microphone, talked about why people come to Funeral Homes which brought about some conversations (mostly about some of their pets that died), checked out the kids room and had some snacks. Everybody left that day with colouring books and crayons. I think that as a result of that tour, there is a group of children who won’t be afraid to go to a Funeral Home.