Bringing comfort and peace

‘Tis the season for gathering with friends and family to share a meal and exchange gifts.

But the holiday season also brings bittersweet memories for those who are reflecting on loved ones no longer collected around the table or opening presents under the Christmas tree.

Everyone will be touched at one point by the death of parents, siblings, and friends, and often the pain and sorrow can be softened with a loving funeral service delivered by kind funeral directors who ease death’s burdens and foster warm memories.

Fayetteville Technical Community College is the gold standard for funeral service education in North Carolina, offering the only American Board of Funeral Service Education accredited program in the state. The program, launched in 1974, is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. Over the years, about 1,400 students have graduated through the program, according to department chair James Bullard.

Nicole Henderson, 37, of Hope Mills had always wanted to be a nurse, but life got in the way and she didn’t complete her education. When her mother developed cancer, she fell into the role of caregiver and realized nursing wasn’t the job for her after all. Instead, she pursued a different calling and set her sights on becoming a funeral director.

“I knew I wanted to be in a servant’s position in some form or fashion, and I was interested in the death industry,” she said. “The more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more it became clear to me that this is what I was meant to be doing.”

Nicole was living in Alabama at the time and took a job as a receptionist at White Chapel-Greenwood Funeral Home in Montgomery. It was rewarding but something was missing — she wanted to have contact with grieving families and participate in caring for the decedents and helping with their funerals.

Her family moved to Hope Mills in 2017, and she began working as a funeral attendant at Reeves Funeral Home. It was a step in the right direction.

“Working as an attendant meant I got to help with funerals and with visitations and facilitate the removal of bodies from hospitals or in families’ homes and have real interactions with the clients we serve,” Nicole said. “I wanted to be the first face the family sees when I arrive to gather their loved one, and I wanted to be the last interaction they have when the funeral is over.”

She enrolled in FTCC’s program and received both a diploma and an associate degree in applied science in funeral service. She was licensed on June 14, 2023, through the North Carolina Board of Funeral Service.

FTCC has partnered with other community colleges across the state to expand the opportunities for students pursuing a funeral service education degree. One of its most recent partnerships is with Brunswick Community College, having signed an agreement in September. Students will begin taking classes in 2025.

Brunswick Community College is the sixth college to partner with FTCC’s Funeral Service Education program. Randolph, Richmond, Robeson, Vance-Granville, and Wayne community colleges also offer coursework through FTCC, according to Catherine Pritchard, executive director of marketing and communications.

Most coursework is offered online, and the three lab courses requiring in-person training provide students with the flexibility to meet those requirements without excessive travel.

“Students can do their work-based learning at local funeral homes in their community or travel to our campus to complete lab hours for those courses,” said Sharon Gallagher, the dean of FTCC’s Funeral Service Education program.

James Bullard, 56, was an emergency medical technician for 36 years, but providing mortuary services had always been his long-term career goal. He completed FTCC’s funeral director program, became licensed in 2007, and has worked part time at Butler Funeral Home of Roseboro and Stedman for nearly 20 years. He views his work as a calling.

“I’ve seen people come into this world as babies, and I’ve seen them pass away in front of my eyes,” James said. “I’ve seen the emotional aspects of what the families go through at that time, and I like to work with them to make it as easy for them as possible, from the disposition of their loved one’s remains to the kind of funeral service they want.”

Teaching is his way of giving back.

The Funeral Service Education curriculum teaches students basic funeral service skills. In addition to general education courses, the program offers technical courses such as human anatomy, embalming theory and practice, embalming chemistry, restorative arts, funeral law, and funeral home operations.

When James introduces visitors and students to the program, he ushers them into a simulated funeral home stocked with a variety of caskets and mannequins for practicing reconstructive modeling of decedents, necessary for staging viewings. A small lab filled with embalming equipment and chemicals is where students learn real-life embalming skills, with donated human remains as part of their clinical instruction.

Important to FTCC’s funeral service education curriculum is the Anatomical Gifts Program, which accepts whole-body donations from families or the deceased who wish to contribute to educating future funeral directors.

“When people call about the donation program, we explain the full purpose of the donation, we make certain they understand that once they come here, we will treat their loved ones just like the funeral home when we take them into our care,” James said.

According to the North Carolina Funeral Directors Association, funeral service providers make up a $20 billion industry across the United States. It’s also a growing profession. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 4% growth rate between now and 2033.

The N.C. Board of Funeral Service, established in 1901, oversees 758 funeral establishments, 903 funeral directors, 1,819 funeral service licensees, and 136 crematoriums.

Amanda Fogle, 37, of Fayetteville is a former law enforcement officer who hails from the Chicago area. Her grandmother’s death from a brain tumor marked a career turning point.

“When grandma died in 1994, my family didn’t want me to see her in the hospital,” she said. “But when I attended her funeral service, I did see her, and she looked like grandma, and that’s when I decided I wanted to do what the funeral directors did to make her look like we remembered her.”

Amanda admits her family feels uncomfortable with her choice and would prefer her to continue her career as a first responder. She believes they will shift their perspective over time.

“I just tell them that I have been a first responder in the past, and now I am going to be a last responder,” she said.

The State Board of Funeral Service of North Carolina requires that an individual serve a 12-month apprenticeship or resident traineeship at a licensed North Carolina funeral establishment (funeral home) before being eligible for licensure.

Ian Wall of Lexington is an embalming apprentice with Burroughs Chapel Funeral Home in Lexington, North Carolina, fulfilling a calling he felt at the age of 7 when his great-grandmother died.

“I remember being very curious about how the funeral home operated,” he said. “In 2016 I lost my sister, and that’s when my desire to get involved in funeral services took hold.”

In 2022, Ian enrolled in FTCC’s funeral service education diploma program and started working at Davidson Funeral Home as an apprentice. He began another apprenticeship at Burroughs in 2023. It holds special meaning for him because it is the same funeral home that handled his sister’s arrangements. He is also a certified crematory operator and is working toward getting his funeral service education associate degree.

Ian, 38, works part time at the funeral home, balancing his duties there with his family and his full-time job as an engineer at Collins Aerospace. He’d like to own a funeral home someday.

“I’m very busy as you can imagine,” he said. “But I love knowing I made a tragic experience a little easier for a family if I was able to comfort them in a small way or remove some of their burdens.”

During the holidays, those burdens can seem a little heavier.

Nicole, who has lost both her parents and several friends, sees her role as a way of paying it forward and sharing her clients’ grief. She understands that planning a funeral during the holiday season can be especially poignant.

“They are experiencing a time when they think they are supposed to be joyful, but they are also dealing with loss and that makes it hard to be happy,” she said. “There have been times that I have sat at the table with those families and cried right along with them.”

Read CityView magazine’s “Home for the Holidays” December 2024 e-edition here.