Job Spotlight: Tony Taylor, funeral home director

Some might think being a funeral director and dealing with grief on a daily basis would be a depressing job.

Tony Taylor does not find it so at all.

"I look at a funeral as a celebration of someone's life," he said. "The deceased person is leaving the troubles of this world behind. The work could be depressing if you let it be, but I think of it as a calling, just like being a minister. It is not just a business. I am getting to help people in their most difficult time. It gives me a lot of satisfaction that I am here for them."

It is not the career that he planned for himself as a young man.

After attending Alabama State University for a couple of years, Taylor spent four years in the U.S. Army.

Serving in Germany and at Fort Benning, he worked as a military police officer. When he got out of the Army, he planned to go back to college.

"I wanted to be an FBI agent," Taylor said.

It was 1991 and an uncle, Clarence Taylor, was opening up a new business, the Taylor Funeral Home on Fifth Avenue in Phenix City. He decided to put off college for a short time to help.

Today, he is still working at the same location with his uncle.

"I ended up going back to college, but it was mortuary school," Taylor said.

Licensed in Georgia and Alabama, the 47-year-old Taylor said he has never regretted his decision.

"It is still hard to believe. As a young man, I was scared of dead people," he said, smiling.

The Ledger-Enquirer spoke with Taylor recently to discuss his job. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How many people work at Taylor Funeral Home?

We have 15 employees, 10 of whom are part-time.

What is your role?

I do most of the embalming and the preparation of the remains.

Has the process changed much through the years?

Not really.

Is embalming, the treating of the body with chemicals, very important?

It is. It works as a disinfectant and also preserves the body for presentation.

You do makeup on the body, fix the hair, etc.?

Yes, restoration is very important. We prepare the remains to give a positive body image and we want the deceased to look as close as possible to when they were alive. We can't do anything for the person who has passed, but we can try to make things better for the living. Having the body looking good is part of that.

Sometimes, you can make the deceased look even better than in their final days, can't you?

If a person has been ill for a long time, they may have not taken care of their appearance, may have lost a lot of weight, may not have done their hair, not worn makeup.

We work to make them look a little more like they were before that time. We want to put a little weight and vigor back in the face. We want the memory of that last look by family to be pleasant.

To hear someone say, "Mama looks good," to me, that is priceless. That is satisfaction.

It is not always easy to get that satisfaction, is it?

You get a person who has been shot or in an automobile accident, it can be difficult. The body might be swollen or disfigured. It might be missing an eye or a limb.

It is an art and a science to make the preparation. If the body comes to us three or four days after death, sometimes there is just not much we can do.

What are the hardest cases?

Working with children is the toughest. It is very hard to work with a child because they just never had a chance to really experience life. It's tough.

What about preparing the body of someone with whom you are familiar, a friend or a neighbor?

Here in Phenix City we are a small community. There are people I see at the grocery or at a restaurant. I work on a lot of people I know personally. If it is a friend, I might think about good times we had. But I can't dwell on that because there is work to be done.

Are there any thoughts other than the job you have when working on a body?

I might wonder if a person was saved. Did they know the Lord? I can't think too much about the person in front of me because I have a job to do.

Can the family of a deceased person be difficult to work with?

Some are mad at the world, but we work with them. Anger is part of the grief process. We do not take anything personally.

About how many funerals do you handle?

We do about 5 to 6 per week. We keep busy.

What about the cost of funerals these days?

The national average is about $6,500. It can cost much more. The family really controls the costs. It all depends on what they want from the funeral home.

Do you do cremations?

Yes. Those are becoming more popular. Some of the reason for that is the price. Some find it easier to deal with. Some people go with cremation but still have a service.

How important is pre-planning?

When a person dies, there are about 100 decisions to be made. Will there be a service? What kind of casket? How much should be spent?

These should be made when there is peace and calm. Pre-planning just makes everything easier. It is really like any kind of event planning.

Do you ever get strange requests from family?

Not really, I have heard about cases elsewhere. One had the body sitting in a recliner at visitation as though watching television because that is what he loved to do.

This story was originally published November 1, 2014 at 11:47 PM with the headline "Job Spotlight: Tony Taylor, funeral home director."