I have noticed that it seems that culturally the notion of respect for other human beings has changed, and not in a good way.

  It is evident that culturally, our ability to be respectful to others is changing and has changed – possibly not for the good. I suspect every reader knows precisely what is being addressed in this writing. I would like to suggest that one essential, a major one, a vital one – is basic human respect.

  I have concluded that having basic human respect is not a character trait that you can develop by reading a book, or even reading this article. Respect is a core character trait, and some people will never develop it. You know, the “take no prisoners attitude.” I would humbly like to suggest that having no respect for our bereaved client families is not just dangerous, in a caring profession like funeral service it is cruel, thoughtless and ridiculous!

  Respect for the client family and their world involves a sincere interest both in them and in their world. We show this interest by the manner in which we attend to them, you know “fuss” over them. We show respect by carefully excluding outside interference as much as possible while we are there with them and exclusively for them, and by demonstrating that what is important to them is important to us. However concerning respect there is a glaring truth: Showing respect to the human race is not easy at times; many times it is simply near impossible.

  The insight concerning mutual respect is that we don’t have to like all our client families – but we are to respect them, respect means unconditional forgiving, patience, kindness, understanding and support. We don’t have to like them, we have to respect them.

  Some thoughtful steps in respect:

Accepting the Client Family

  All of us in this profession have thought about the important concept of acceptance and the role it plays in the funeral experience. As helping people professionals must think about acceptance. It is one of the core values that is inherent in our profession and has been a hallmark of our great profession for hundreds of years.

  To me acceptance of others means treating the client family as equal and regarding their thoughts and feelings with sincere respect, equal with my own thoughts and feelings. It does not mean agreeing with them nor thinking or feeling the way they do; it does not mean valuing what they value. Rather, the attitude that the client family has as much right to their ideas, feelings, and values as I have to mine, and that as a funeral professional, I want to do my utmost to understand their life in terms of their ideas, feelings, and values rather than in terms of my own. Clearly, it is an extremely valuable attitude to strive for.

  As mentioned, such an attitude is often difficult to maintain and even more difficult to communicate when confronted with the “difficult/dysfunctional” client family.

  I have encountered many different family situations over the years. Some have inspired me as to the limitless possibilities of the human spirit to prevail against the greatest of odds and obstacles, and some have been so complicated, so dramatic, so dysfunctional, that I would just leave the funeral home shaking my head, and hoping that I was good enough to “get through this.”

  Client families may be highly varied in their states of mind. However as a professional I try to report to myself what I have received from the client family, and no matter what, I attempt to treat whatever they say with respect and the client family as of equal worth with myself.

  Another very important aspect of acceptance is the ability to treat as a respected equal someone of another culture, race, color, or faith. Acceptance does not require strong liking, but acceptance is undoubtedly impossible when strong dislike is present. We cannot truly help a person we cannot accept, in my opinion, and there appears little of anything anyone can do to change the perverted world view of a bigot.

  The inability to accept someone may occur even when cultural differences are absent. An honest, authentic, true incompatibility of personalities may exist – I know this has happened to me, and it still happens to me. In short, in the funeral experience we should strive to be able to first and foremost accept ourselves and to act accordingly. Our range of acceptance may or may not broaden with time and maturity, we might well be stuck, but in the end the truth is we can help only when we can accept – there is no way around or a detour to this helping truth in respectfully accepting another person and their feelings.

Genuine Liking – A Key in Creating Respectful Rapport

  We are either born with it or we are not – it is terribly difficult to fake. If our personal preferences lead us to great interest in say machines, plants, animals, abstractions, or whatever, but not to people, we should indulge and foster such preferences – but probably steer clear of funeral service. Some professions do not demand and some even exclude a genuine liking for people. However, for those of us in funeral service a genuine liking of people is essential and it is a real asset in establishing respect.

  The funeral professional who genuinely likes people tends to be optimistic about humankind. They feel involved with those about them whether this is person to person or, indirectly, through service to the wider community. The genuinely liking funeral professional tends to be tolerant of people’s weaknesses and foibles but they are also convinced that people have it within them to act heroically and selflessly. The funeral professional who feels genuine warmth toward people likes to learn about them and their behavior, their motives and reflect upon their inner life.

  The “people liking” funeral professional tends to delight in professional literature and human psychology. This type of respectful funeral professional stays clear of pettiness, gossip, and acrimony. If this funeral professional’s liking for the human race is indeed genuine, he/she usually does not have a particularly strong insecurity to be liked in return, in other words this respectful professional has learned and accepted the wisdom lesson that you cannot be all things to all people – never under any circumstances, but we can try.

  We live in a very cold universe at times. We live in seemingly very cynical times. We live in a world that appears to be addicted to the negative and in proclaiming the negative in every which way possible.

  Basic human respect in such a complicated impersonal climate, in these particular times in history is definitely a difficult task. However it is my firm conviction that our beloved profession has indeed encountered difficult times in our long and rich history of service to humanity, and in the end our beloved profession has always prevailed. To be sure we have prevailed with the scars and wounds, with some warts, and blemishes, but we have prevailed.

  The prevalence of our beloved profession, in the end I believe firmly, is always, and has always been attributable to the basic respectful decency of the average, typical, funeral professional who holds tight to the worthy mission of being one and at the same time the caretaker of the dead and the caregiver to the living. It is indeed an honorable calling.