BURIAL IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH CLOSURE

Over the years I have talked with many officers who were assigned as funeral coordinator when a death occurred at their agency. Their assignment,as well as the death, was unexpected. Then they were tasked with managing a funeral scheduled by the chief for three to four days after the death.

The chief had often made this announcement of when the services were going to beheld after he returned from being with the surviving family and making the death notification. If this were a rare event I wouldn’t be so concerned but I have heard similar stories so often that I believe it has the potential to be problematic.

 I asked these coordinators if they knew why their chiefs decided to have the services so soon after the death. The most common response was that the chief wanted the family to have closure. Burial is not synonymous with closure.

 The term closure is often included in various descriptions of the stages of grief that people typically experience when a death occurs. However, these stages of grief are neither specific periods of time nor occur in a specific order. Grief is a journey, not a destination. Closure, or acceptance as itis also called, is a part of the grieving process that people will usually experience and with help from their families and friends will travel through in their own time and in their own way.

The funeral and burial are a vital part of that grieving process or journey. Rushing the funeral services and burial does not help the family have closure. It often causes more anxiety and stress than it eliminates. Chiefs need to make sure the families get direction and guidance, not instructions. The families need to make the best decisions possible based on the best information available. To do this they need a reasonable amount of time to become informed and to make their decisions. Closure cannot be scheduled or rushed.

 I have conducted some informal research into the number of days from the line-of-duty death of officers and the day the funeral services were held.Thirty-five percent of the statistics I gathered described how the officers were buried four days after the death and four percent were buried three days after the death. That’s 39%, four out of 10, or 40 out of a 100.

 Now, as a funeral coordinator, I know that if I have a funeral scheduled four days after the death I have three days to do all the planning.Actually, I only have two days to do the primary planning because if I’m not ready the day before for the walk-through and viewing etc. I’m not ready.Now, if I have a service scheduled for three days after the death, I really have one day, but I’ll need two, to be ready for the services. Can it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Yes. Can it be done best? Doubtful.

I don’t think this is a professional response and is not fair to the funeral coordinator or the surviving family. Yes, there may be extenuating circumstances and that’s understandable and can be accommodated. But chiefs shouldn’t be scheduling services for three or four days after a death just so that the family can have closure.

 I have talked to some of these chiefs and asked them why they decided to schedule the services so soon after the death. Besides the closure statement several added that the minister or chaplain was at the home with the surviving family and said that the church was available. They knew that the honor guard would be available and ready. A call to the memorial park showed that the park was available for the interment. A notice would go out that day and agencies would be able to send representatives. What else had to be done?

Well a lot more needs to be done and it takes a couple of more days to get these things done and done best. So I implore chiefs to allow the surviving family the opportunity to grieve and prepare themselves for the difficult decisions they will have to make. These decisions include determining when and where to hold the services. These are decisions that should not be rushed or made for them.

 John Cooley

PoliceFunerals.Com