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HomeMy Public PortalAboutHeikkila, Marvin57d Ne 5 July .77, /995. A mortician's most difficult job - helping the living cope with death BY SHARI HAMBLETON The Star -News Marvin Heikkila has been helping his community deal with the reality of death for almost 20 years. Although preparing bodies for burial may appear to be Heikkila's main line of work at Heikkila Funeral Chapel in McCall, more importantly, he helps prepare family and friends to say good-bye. "Almost 90 percent of my time is spent with the living," Heikkila said. It actually only takes an hour or two to embalm a body and prepare it for viewing and burial. "People always ask me `How can you deal with dead bodies?' But that part of it is just a job. Dealing with the emotions — that's what's tough," he said. And talking about the finances of a funeral when someone is an "emo- tional basket case" is a challenge. Another difficult part of being a mortician is being on duty 24 hours a day, every day of the year, as both a funeral director and the Valley County Coroner, he said. "I don't mind it. Don't get me wrong. It's just hard." Beepers and cellular telephones tie Heikkila even closer to his work. During an afternoon interview Heikkila answered a telephone call about every 15 minutes — questions from those making future arrange- ments and from those asking about past services. Heikkila sits in the lounge area of Heikkila Funeral Chapel scratching notes in a schedule planner he re- ceived from his wife, Karen, as a birthday gift. "You know, I was told once that if something's worth doing in your life, it's worth writing down," Heikkila said, nodding toward his leather- bound planner. Heritage is important to this descendant of one of the oldest Finnish families to settle here in the early 1900s. "You've got to write things down." Sunlight streams into the lounge, warming patches of carpet and falling across softly tufted chairs and a love seat where Heikkila meets with those making funeral arrangements. An aged stereo in a polished wooden case sits in the corner. "That's what we call canned music," he laughs. The telephone sings again and Heikkila answers in the same level but friendly tone he has answered the past 10 calls, "Heikkila Funeral Chapel — This is Marv."' Shari Hambleton He pulls out the plot map of McCall Cemetery to check a plot reservation for the caller, chats for a moment, then hangs up. Again, he leans back and picks up the conversation with the plot map in his hands. "People need a place to go back to," Heikkila said of friends and fam- ily of the deceased. "The worst fear in the world is that they'll forget. You don't. But that's a fear." Heikkila's gentle demeanor conveys compassion without it seeming contrived. "You know the best thing you can do for someone in this situation?" he said. "Keep your mouth shut and just give them a big hug. Don't say `I understand what you're going through'... Don't say `I know how you feel.' You, can't know, unless you've gone through it yourself." But Heikkila does know about the loss of a child, about having to say good-bye and about making the long slow steps through the healing pro- cess of the heart. Heikkila lost his 10- year-old son in a camping mishap in 1964. He knows what heart -sick feels like. He also believes talking about the grief smooths the rocky road of emo- tional recovery. "People just need to talk," Heikkila said. "And it's my job to listen. They just need to say things like `My wife made the best damn pie in the world.' They just need to say that. When death happens, you tend to forget the negative things and remem- ber just the good. And that's okay." Heikkila and his wife started a Compassionate Friends group in McCall about five years ago, he said. The group meets monthly to lend sup- port to other parents who have had children die. "Some people think (visiting a cemetery) brings up too many memo- ries," he said. "But the more times they can release the grief, the quicker the healing process. That's basically what you're doing when you go to the cemetery." And remembering - or believing they will be able to remember — is a Mary Heikkila Valley County Coroner "You know the best thing you can do for someone in this situation? Keep your mouth shut and just give them a big hug." - Mary Heikkila comfort for those left behind. Heikkila smiles easily, lacking the generally accepted characteristics of the movie house undertaker — dark cloaked and morbid. Heikkila considers the funeral pro- cess less a memorial to the dead as a reality check for the living. "Some- times we're too protective of people," he said. "We don't let them face real- ity. We're a death -denying society." "When do you ever see advertise- ments on T.V. where the people aren't strong and healthy?" he laughed, lift- ing his arms in the air in a weight- lifter's pose in the middle of his em- balming room. "We encourage people to come to the viewing (of a body) for that reason ... to face the reality of death and come to terms with it." "I don't like the term `passed away,' " Heikkila said. "It's like say- ing `powder room.' It's a ... toilet. That's reality. People don't `pass away.' They don't `go to the beyond'. .. They're dead." That's not saying Heikkila does not have a religious belief. He keeps that mostly to himself. But his phi- losophy of a funeral as being a cel- ebration reveals the underpinning of his Christian faith. Heikkila said he enjoys his work but added he has encouraged his three grown sons to seek another path. "I guess I have discouraged them ..." he said. "Your life is really not your own."