Caleb Wilde > Quotes

“Today, though, doctors and nurses have replaced family and friends, an unintended consequence of the advancement of medical science. We fear death because we don’t know it, we don’t see it, and we don’t touch it. And what we don’t know, we’ve painted in broad strokes of darkness and negativity. The death negative narrative wouldn’t be so strong if we only had the ability to see, touch, and hold our dying and our dead.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Along the way, I learned the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, which means 'the healing of the world' and is accomplished through presence in the midst of pain. It can be summarized in the phrase "I'm here with you and I love you" and is accomplished through simple acts of presence. It became a rallying cry for me in my work as a funeral director. Rachel Naomi Remen, in an interview with Krista Tippett, describes it as 'a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world...It's not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It's about the world that touches you.' Presence and proximity before performance. As I took that to heart, I started to see small, everyday examples of tikkun olam everywhere. When a mother comforts a child, she's healing the world. Every time someone listens to another - deeply listens - she's healing the world. A nurse who bathes the weakened body of an elderly patient is healing the world. The teacher who invests herself in her students is healing the world. The plumber who makes the inner workings of a house run smoothly is healing the world. A funeral director who finds that he can heal the world even at his family's business. When we practice presence and proximity, we may not change anyone, we may not shift culture or move mountains, but it's a healing act, if for none other than ourselves. When we do our work with kindness - no matter what kind of work - if we're doing it with presence, we're practicing tikkun olam.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Death is dark, but it's also light, and between that contrast I saw a death positive narrative begin to appear. The dark and light can produce a rainbow of color that exists in a spectrum of hues, shades, tints, and values. Its beauty is firmly planted in the storm, but we've become color-blind. And I tremble to say there's good in death, that there's a death positive narrative, because I've looked in the eyes of a grieving mother and I've seen the heartbreak of the stricken widow, but I've also seen something more in death, something good. Death's hands aren't all bony and cold.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“We’re only satisfied when it feels like we have sufficient explanations and certainties.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“To become comfortable in silence may be the first step in becoming comfortable with death because, on the most basic biological level, death and silence are the same. Conversely, being comfortable in the silence may be the first step in pursuing life. As I would come to learn, death may not be so horrible after all. In fact, death may be the most beautiful thing about this human experiment. But I believe we can only see the positive in death when we learn to accept the silence. When we're able to tap that reservoir of bravery and lay aside all our words against death, and sit, not as the teacher of death, but as the student, listening to what death has to say in the silence, this is the first step.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Because sometimes when it seems like everything is falling apart, we’re actually coming together.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Instead of giving a timetable to grief and how we relate to the death, an icon or a shrine accepts that grief and death are still here with us even now because we simply have ongoing bonds with the deceased. They will forever be a part of us and instead of trying to "heal" and find decathexis, we must learn to adjust because love has this amazing way of living on past death, in both grief and joy.
You aren't sick with grief; you're healthy with grief.
And you don't need closure; grief will always be the in-between, and that's okay.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Ironically, sometimes heaven happens when we’re closest to hell. Because heaven is wherever love reigns, even in those circumstances that are painful and full of tears. Sometimes heaven even happens on earth.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“With this mortality positivity and lack of shame, I have become more willing to acknowledge that I need other people to help me. I am able to acknowledge that I am growing and that I can learn from others. For me, vulnerability isn’t giving into shame and acting like I have it all together because I don’t. Vulnerability isn’t acting like I can do it all by myself because I can’t. Vulnerability is being honest with where I’m at and grabbing the hands of those who can guide me, and being shameless enough to admit my problems to them.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“three types of touching: touching with desire, touching with demand, and—the most rare option—touching with devotion.1 Touching with devotion is an ardent recognition of the value of people . . . it’s not forceful or uncomfortable; rather, it’s respectful and produces ease.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“There is a difference between empathy and sympathy and it is an important distinction for those who work in caregiving. Dr. Nicola Davies writes on her website, “Imagine being at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Peer up to the top of the hole and you might see some of your friends and family waiting for you, offering words of support and encouragement. This is sympathy; they want to help you out of the pit you have found yourself in. This can assist, but not as much as the person who is standing beside you; the person who is in that hole with you and can see the world from your perspective; this is empathy.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Nearly every hospital has a morgue to house the deceased so that they’re out of sight. In a sense, a death to the hospital is like an atheist to the church. It’s that gnawing reminder that this facility, this institution doesn’t have all the answers to all the world’s health problems. So they ostracize the deceased to a cold little room in the back and hope that no one notices. Perhaps there’s no place where the death negative narrative has a greater hold than within the walls of a hospital.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“And, sometimes, although rarely, I'd wonder if maybe I could drive a Countach in heaven since I couldn't afford one on earth.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“After a total of about ten man-hours of stitching, gluing, filling, and applying makeup, his head still didn’t look right. Dead people never look right.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Grief is as unique as one’s relationship with the deceased. No grief is the same. Some forms of grief are healthier than others, but one form of grief isn’t right, and neither is someone else’s wrong. Nevertheless, death asks us to pause. It doesn’t tell us what we need to do when we pause (there may be nothing to do at all), but it asks us to be in its presence. To sit with it. Listen to it. To lay aside chronos and embrace kairos. That’s what finally caught up with me when I sat weeping in my car, remembering my grandfather, and thinking about how much I would miss him. It’s not a moment of weakness but of strength, and we need to be reminded to allow for these natural pauses in life. We will find that death sits at the heart of what it means to be human, and we may just find ourselves when we practice the death Sabbath.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Whether the pressure is from an inward or an outward expectation, there's always this nagging feeling that we should be able to restore any form of disfigurement, that embalmers should possess some Harry Potter magic in our prep room and magically wave our trocar (a large needle-like instrument we use during embalming) while chanting Abracadabra, pulchra cadaver and then "poof we have beautiful corpses. But there is no magic trocar.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“I took note of Chad’s mother’s smile as I was setting up the flowers around the casket, and I asked her how she was doing. This all-too-common and easy question is fully loaded at a funeral. If I’m honest, it’s a question I should strike altogether from my funeral vernacular. It’s no surprise when someone responds, “I’m at a funeral, how do you think I’m doing?” But her response has stuck with me. She said, “I’ve never slept so good in ten years. There is something worse than death; there’s staying up night after night worrying about the whereabouts and well-being of a son who is controlled by addiction. He’s resting in peace and so am I.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Hell, for most believers, is only reserved for the likes of Hitler, Joffrey Baratheon, and the Others, but hardly ever for their own.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“This is why we so crave truth tellers, religious leaders, economic forecasters, and political pundits who give us a sense of certainty. We’re only satisfied when it feels like we have sufficient explanations and certainties. But in silence, we have to consciously deny our survival instinct and biological wiring and acknowledge that our answers, our explanations, our certainties, our immortality projects may not fulfill our questions, doubts, and uncertainty. In fact, the lack of certainty lays a foundation for fear. Perhaps our fear of death is because there’s such a lack of certainty in the wake of its silence. Perhaps we fear the silence just as much as we fear death. Perhaps we fear silence more than death.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“When we arrived, we found that the family had draped black linen across the front door. A sign was hung over the ribbon with this announcement scribbled in child’s handwriting: “Dad died. Come on in if you want to see him.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Death is our oldest evolutionary enemy, and we are so advanced at fighting it that for about fifty to ninety years, most of us win.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“We arrived, and my aunt took me aside and asked, "Can you do this?" My grandfather Brown was a little heavy and I thought she was asking if I was physically strong enough to lift him.
"Oh, sure. I can lift him, no problem."
"No, I know you can lift him, but can you do this?"
She wasn't talking to Caleb Wilde, the funeral director. She was talking to Caleb Wilde, the grandson. It took me a minute to switch from funeral director to grandson, but I gathered myself and said, "Yes." I don't think my answer satisfied her, and I don't think it satisfied me, either.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“If the problem of mortality shaming flows from a view of God as “perfect,” wouldn’t it be interesting if the narrative was turned on its head and instead of a “perfect” God, we talked about a God who was vulnerable? Wouldn’t it be interesting if vulnerability lies at the very core of God? If we shared this view of God around death and funerals, Chad’s friends might not have held their heads in shame, but maybe they could have found community. If the pastor could have talked about a God who stands, maybe even kneels, with us in weakness and vulnerability, maybe they would have found God. If God is really love, if God sees us and feels with us, it means that at God’s core is this vulnerability, an interdependence that allows God to feel our pains, to know our sorrows and our joys. Maybe it’s okay to have sorrow. Maybe it’s okay to weep. It’s okay to be vulnerable, for when we do so, we aren’t becoming unlike God, we are, in fact, worshipping.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Dead people never look right.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Death is everywhere, present in every aspect of life. Everything we eat, from greens to meat, in all its wonderful pleasure and presentation, is a sacrifice of nature for our survival. And our bodies, which feed on those greens and meats, if buried, will one day become the food for other creatures, small as they may be. Nearly everything we eat is made up of the dead of something else. In every death is life, a birth of something new. It’s usually small life, but it’s there, somewhere.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“But God, with all God-power and all God-presence and all God-love, did nothing. I pondered whether perhaps”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“Hell is where people go who aren’t like us, or who aren’t like what our God wants us to be. Hell is the most awful form of othering, a place that is simply too horrible, too awful a torment for us to believe that anyone we know is going there for all eternity. It’s so horrible that we can only send an idea of someone, or someone we have no empathy toward, no love for. And yet, despite our inability to send those we love to hell, we inexplicably think that a God who is love, a God who knows everyone, a God who is near to the brokenhearted . . . this God who is intimately acquainted with all of us can just capriciously send billions and billions of people to eternal torment. If we, in our love, have such difficulty believing our people go to hell, how much more difficulty would a God of love have in sending God’s children there?”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“My Christian upbringing also contributed to my negative perspective about death. Many Christians teach that death is the punishment—a curse—for the horrible act of sin. All of us are stained with mortality; it’s not a natural part of who we are, nor is it something that’s healthy for our species. Death is to be fought in every case, just like our sin. The idea that can come out of this is that we are meant for something more than death and as long as we are mortal, we will never be enough. I needed a new view of death. So I had to tell myself a new story. Death is dark, but it’s also light, and between that contrast I saw a death positive narrative begin to appear.1 The dark and light can produce a rainbow of color that exists in a spectrum of hues, shades, tints, and values. Its beauty is firmly planted in the storm, but we’ve become color-blind. And I tremble to say there’s good in death, that there’s a death positive narrative, because I’ve looked in the eyes of the grieving mother and I’ve seen the heartbreak of the stricken widow, but I’ve also seen something more in death, something good. Death’s hands aren’t all bony and cold. Some may hear me say There’s a death positive narrative and think I’m saying Death isn’t as hard as you think it is. Let me be clear, that’s not what I’m saying. Death is as hard, if not harder, than any of us can imagine. I’m saying we’ve heard an incomplete narrative. Death is like mud; it’s dirty, messy, and incredibly tough to walk through, but, surprisingly, it holds vital ingredients to life, and when seeds are planted, it can help sprout new life. Death isn’t just the dirty and the messy. We see death as a loss, and it is. But in death, we often find our most honest self, a stronger community, and some find that they are able to overcome the fear of death and live life to the fullest. It’s not a supermodel-type beauty that is genetically ingrained in the DNA of death, but a beauty of struggle and resiliency that, in the end, can produce a spectrum of growth.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How Death Saved My Life

“On the morning of the funeral, we arrived at the church an hour or so early to set up and prepare. We like to be the first ones at a church funeral, but today we were beat by Chad’s mother, who was setting photos of her son around the small sanctuary of the church with a smile on her face. She had photos of Chad as an infant, dressed in his baby clothes; the classic T-ball photo shoots that are equal parts Americana and boyhood dreams; the prom photo shoot; the graduate photos. And that was it. The pictures stopped after high school when he decided to pursue a life away from his parents.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“these aren't perscriptive words about how everything will be better with time, nor are they religious platitudes about how God has a plan....these are vulnerable words, that aren't looking for certainty”
― Caleb Wilde