With a perpetual smile pasted on his face, Moe Giratalla doesn't look like a man who expects to die any day.
From the look of wonder on his face, you'd guess the Akinsdale resident is spending the day touring ancient ruins or renowned art museums. Not quite. Giratalla is touring local cemeteries with an eye on choosing his final resting place.
"If life expectancy is a 12-inch ruler, I'm in my last two inches," said the 68-year-old retired civil engineer.
Giratalla suffers from various non-lethal ailments and expects to last no longer than five or 10 more years. But rather than fear death, he's planning for it, mainly to spare his children the burden of making his arrangements after he's gone.
"It's not unexpected. I expect it now any day," he said. "You cannot be sad about it. You have to take it in a positive way."
The importance of planning ahead was the main message behind a bus tour organized by St. Albert's Connelly-McKinley funeral home. On Wednesday the free tour made pickups at several seniors' residences before visiting four St. Albert area cemeteries. The tour was followed by a lunch and information session about the options and issues that arise when a death occurs.
"We're worried about retirement; we're not worried about death. But we should be. We should have plans," said family service consultant Marq Jeffrey during her presentation.
Connelly-McKinley provides regular well-attended seminars on various end-of-life issues. It decided to try the cemetery tour because bereaved families often have no idea what the options are, Jeffrey said. The tour attracted just nine people but Jeffrey hopes to get more when the next tour happens in September.
Attitudes
The funeral industry is becoming more proactive about educating people about the options available in funeral planning, said Jeffrey, who routinely makes presentations at nursing homes. After 18 years in the business, she's noticed a huge increase in people's openness.
"People will talk about this more. It used to be very taboo," she said.
Contributing to this growing acceptance is the fact that people are dying much older now than in past generations, said University of Alberta researcher Donna Wilson.
About 80 per cent of those who die are 65 or older and the last 50 years has seen a 300 per cent increase in deaths above 85, she said. This trend has helped foster a belief that dying is a natural part of life once people reach a certain age, which creates more comfort around planning for it, she said.
"It's becoming more and more evident that it isn't a disease that's killing people, but just simple old age – you know, it's a person's time," Wilson said.
The facts
Jeffrey has seen what happens when people haven't prepared or shared their last wishes.
Many families get carried away with spending, their judgment clouded by grief and guilt. Funerals can also trigger points of conflict in families, making the decision-making process difficult for all parties, she said. And it's not uncommon for wills to go unfound until after a funeral, so the deceased person's wishes aren't carried out.
For all these reasons, Jeffrey recommends talking to family members about your wishes, at the bare minimum. Ideally, you should sit down with a funeral director and make your own arrangements, which can be kept on file at the funeral home and even pre-paid if desired, she said.
Her information package includes a document entitled "72 Decisions," a simple list of questions that arise with every death. These range from the big issues like cremation vs. burial and open vs. closed casket to smaller details like whether or not to have shoes or glasses on the deceased.
Jeffrey's take on the matter is that death is inevitable and it does no good to deny it or "pretty it up" with fuzzy language.
"You need to know the facts. This is where you're going to get them," she said. "The reality is, that's what they're going to be dealing with at the time of death and it's not going to be pretty."
Grieving
Many people want a simple, no-fuss funeral for themselves, thinking this will spare their loved ones. But that's not necessarily the case, Jeffrey said. Surviving friends and family need the closure provided by a funeral and skipping that step can actually prolong the grieving process, she said.
St. Albert psychologist Wendy Hart agreed that funerals are an important ritual for those who are still living.
"If you bypass the step of the funeral, you can be left with a void, not knowing exactly where or how to start grieving," she said.
Final thoughts
St. Albert senior Norm Somerville, 85, attended the tour and found it to be "very interesting." It was the first time he and his wife Ethel, 84, had ever attended such a thing.
"We just want to avoid problems for the kids," Norm said.
The subject didn't make him at all squeamish.
"I was in the insurance business so I guess I'm used to it, talking about death," he said.
Reducing the burden on family was also the main motivation for Roy Kendall, 94.
"The older you get the more you think that it's not going to be that much longer so you try and make a few plans," said Kendall, whose wife Hazel, 92, is in hospital.
"It doesn't bother me to be honest with you," he said, about his approaching death. "We've both had a very good life and we're not afraid to go."
