Nov 17, 2021
In 2011, ASD established our company blog and published our first post explaining our mission statement. Since that time, we have published more than 650 blogs on our website in an effort to create an engaging, informative and relevant online publication dedicated to the funeral service community. Over the past decade, our blog has evolved from a forum for sharing helpful tips on using our answering service to a hub of valuable information for the entire profession.
As ASD’s Staff Writer, I consider it an opportunity to create content that helps funeral directors to better conduct business while shedding light on the issues that impact their daily lives. When I meet new people and tell them about my job, they will often try to summarize it with the sentence, “so you write about death?” The reality couldn’t be more different. I don’t write about death; I write about a group of professionals who inspire me by the way they have chosen to live their lives.
While I am not a licensed funeral director myself, I do believe I can make a difference to those in the funeral profession by giving them a voice and exploring their perspective with the written word. Too often, funeral directors feel misrepresented or invisible. There is absolutely nothing more rewarding to me than when a mortician leaves a comment on a blog post to express how something I wrote made them feel seen. Writing about the unique challenges funeral directors must confront every day can help illuminate how essential their work is for all of humanity.
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the ASD blog, we spent some time exploring our analytics to determine which posts had the biggest impact and resonated the most with funeral professionals. Below is a list of our 10 most shared blogs from the past 10 years.
1. 16 Essential Character Traits that Define Funeral Service Professionals
What kind of people decide to become funeral directors? For those who do not work in this profession, the answer has always been murky due to the poor representations in the media and the taboo that surrounds the topic of death. That’s why we decided to publish a blog post that paints a more complete picture showing all of the different shades to a funeral director’s personality. From courage, to humility, to dedication, these essential character traits are in the DNA of death care professionals. Click here to read the blog.
2. 7 Ways Funeral Homes Are Being Impacted by the Coronavirus
Published on March 17, 2020, this blog was one of the very first pieces written that addressed how the pandemic was impacting funeral professionals. At the time it was published, there was still so much that we did not know, but it was very clear that things were going to get worse before they got better. The blog outlined the many pandemic challenges funeral professionals were then starting to face, including fear of contagion from deceased bodies, lack of PPE, how to assist grieving families with the ever-evolving gathering restrictions and staff shortages. We never could have imagined just how much these worries would be compounded in the days to come. The blog became a go-to reference point in those early days of the pandemic when funeral professionals weren’t certain how disruptive the virus was going to be to their business. Click here to read the blog.
3. 30 Little Known Facts About Funeral Directors
Many people outside of the deathcare profession are unaware of the many ways funeral directors devote themselves to others. To help educate others about dedication and sacrifices made by funeral service professionals, ASD created the Funeral Director Facts series on social media. Each fact focuses on a different aspect of the deathcare profession with emphasis on the many ways funeral directors go above and beyond to serve others. The series was created to give morticians an opportunity to share information about their profession and help more people understand the true nature of funeral service work. Click here to read the blog.
4. 16 Photos that Exemplify the Best of Funeral Service
If you could define funeral service with one image, what picture comes to mind? There are the standard representations you can find on any photo stock website if you search ‘funeral’: the casket with the sprawling floral spray on top, the landau bars of a hearse, a single flower atop a gravestone. While these images may capture the most common funeral associations, they lack the most vital ingredient of a funeral service: humanity. More than anything else, funeral service is about the relationships and the connections between people.
Every single day, behind the door of a funeral home, a truly beautiful moment is taking place that demonstrates the power of remembrance. In this blog, we share 16 photographs that positively reflect the service-hearted nature of the funeral profession. Whether it demonstrates the funeral home’s commitment to making a memorial extra meaningful for a family, participating in community events or displaying reverence, these photos all capture why we are so grateful to work with the funeral service profession. Click here to read the blog.
5. 8 Funeral Directors Who Have Helped Shed Light on the Tragic Toll of the Pandemic
When it comes to grasping the magnitude of tragedy caused by COVID-19, deathcare professionals have become the witness bearers. Sharing their experiences has helped shed light on the human cost of this pandemic. This is by no means an easy thing as funeral directors have had to surpass their normal above and beyond service to become superhuman caregivers. They are asked time and time again to recall their traumatic experience and recall details most would rather forget. Many have invited camera crews and reporters into their chapels, despite barely having enough time to get a few hours of sleep each night, all because they understand how important it is for their stories to be shared. In this blog post, we list 8 videos featuring funeral directors who have helped shed light on the devastating human cost of COVID-19. Click here to read the blog.
6. 7 Ways Grief is Compounded by an Overdose Death
This personal essay examines how an overdose death creates barriers for healing and complicates the grief process. I lost my father to an overdose when I was 19 and wanted to help bring attention to this subject through my writing. ASD’s owners were incredibly supportive of this personal mission that was deeply important to me and in the months that followed they also encouraged me to create a resource list to help families who had been impacted by a substance abuse death.
Since it was published, the blog has been visited more than 40,000 times. I also receive more emails in response to this post than any other blog published on our website. Most of the emails come from people who have lost someone close to them to an overdose and want to connect with someone who has experienced a similar loss or to find a grief therapy group. They will often tell me how my blog made them feel less alone in their grief, which in turn helps me with my own. I do believe it is the most impactful piece of writing I have ever authored, and I am immensely proud of it. Click here to read the blog.
7. 10 Touching Tributes You Won’t Forget
After reading so many poignant stories about everyday people coping with the realities of death in incredible ways, we put together this list of our favorite stories. From creating a heart-shaped meadow in memory of a loved one to building a monument in the middle of the Sahara Desert, these moving tributes demonstrate how beauty, hope and inspiration can grow from grief. Loved ones are driven to do something extraordinary in memory of another, whether to work through their loss or to show the world how special the person was to them. One of the older blogs on this list, this post is viewed by about 100 people every day. It’s a great blog for funeral homes to share on their own social media to inspire their readers. Click here to read the blog.
8. 12 Hilarious GIFs Every Funeral Director Will Appreciate
So often, funeral directors must carry themselves in a dignified and solemn demeanor because they never know when they might be approached. However, most people don’t know that secretly, funeral professionals have a great sense of humor. Dealing with death on a constant basis is an important reminder that life is too short not to stop and appreciate life’s funny moments when you can. Working in the funeral business, there are some situations that only other deathcare professionals can understand the humor of, which is why we wanted to create this blog post. To illustrate some of the funnier challenges of being a funeral director, we created 12 hilarious GIFs we think every funeral director will appreciate. Click here to view the blog. Click here to read the blog.
If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out our other comical posts listed below as well as our favorite funeral-humor Instagram pages where we find a lot of our comedic inspiration.
- The Struggle is Real: 11 Hilarious Memes About Funeral Home Problems
- 20 Memes Only On-Call Funeral Directors Will Understand
- 8 Memes That Explain Why Funeral Director Hate Death Certificates
- The Funeral Life Instagram page
- Mortician_Memes Instagram page
- Open Casket Culture Instagram page
- Funeral.Memes Instagram page
9. 8 Imaginative Ways to Personalize a Funeral
Perhaps the most important skill a funeral director can have is the gift of listening. When meeting with a family, directors ask questions about the character and personality of the person who passed. They find out about their hobbies, careers, passions and favorite places. These arrangement conferences give funeral directors inspiration and ideas for personalizing the funeral service. While every family is different and many cultures and faiths require a traditional or religious ceremony, there is a growing movement in our culture towards unique and personal funeral services. Funeral directors have been able to provide comfort to families by incorporating the personality of the deceased into the service. We’ve seen so many unique and beautiful examples and wanted to share some of our favorites in this blog post. Click here to read the blog.
10. 5 Funeral Director Misrepresentations That Need to Die
Since I began writing for the funeral profession, I’ve become much more attuned to portrayals of funeral directors on TV shows and in movies. I pay attention to the dialogue written for them and the motivations of these characters.What I find so frustrating is how little time and creativity entertainment writers invest when creating mortician characters. Funeral directors on TV shows and movies have little to nothing in common with the real people who live this profession. These one-dimensional roles fail to ever consider what motivations or layers might exist within a funeral director. They are so one-note, in fact, that I’ve begun noticing these misrepresentations repeat themselves across genres and time periods. In this blog post, I highlight five different funeral director character tropes that need to be put out to pasture. Click here to read the blog.
And there are you have it. Those are our 10 most popular blog posts from the past 10 years. Which blog on our list resonated with you the most? Do you have an idea for a blog post you would like us to publish in the future? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
About The Author
Jess Farren (Fowler)
Jess Farren (Fowler) is a Public Relations Specialist and Staff Writer who has been a part of the ASD team since 2003. Jess manages ASD’s company blog and has been published in several funeral trade magazines. She has written articles on a variety of subjects including communication, business planning, technology, marketing and funeral trends. You can contact Jess directly at Jess@myASD.com
