The Will to Die

by Joe Pulizzi

  “She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s lost about ten pounds, from what I can tell.”

  “Did she put up a front?”

  “Actually, she was pretty cool. Now don’t get me wrong; she drew the line right away, but she could have gone passive-aggressive on me. I think she’s really trying to be supportive when she probably wants to slap me.” I paused. “And she’s in a tough position right now—one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you.”

  We ordered two Diet Cokes and some onion rings and sent the waitress away.

  “Any word from PopC?” I asked.

  “Nope, but I just followed up this morning with an email. I’ll call them tomorrow,” Robby said. With everything going on at the funeral home, we still desperately needed that business to come in, long shot or not.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Here’s the deal: My dad left me the funeral home in his will. He asked me to run it for a year and see if I like it. I honestly don’t know what I should do. Jack—you remember Jack, right?” Robby nodded. “He wants to buy the place if I don’t want to run it. I talked to him today and he seemed cool either way; he just doesn’t want to retire. Selling it would solve a lot of my financial problems and keeping it might be a lost cause considering the current state of the business. Do you mind running through some of these numbers with me? I could use a second opinion, and you’re the only one I trust.”

  Robby thought for a second and said, “First of all, good on your pop for giving it to you. I know you figured he would, but you never know. Either way, you’ll make a good decision. Second, of course I’ll run through the numbers with you, but I need something stronger than a soda to review spreadsheets.”

  I waved the waitress over and ordered a Tito’s and Red Bull for me and a Jack on the rocks for Robby.

  I gave Robby the overview from Uncle Dan and went into a few specific points regarding embalmings versus cremations.

  “I know you aren’t a funeral expert, but you’ve lived and breathed charts, trends, and analytics since we started the agency. Tell me what you see.”

  “Okay, I get the whole embalming versus cremation thing. Embalming is going away, which means your dad’s business model, which was built on embalming and the services around it, is in extreme trouble. That said, whenever you see something like this in a trend line, it means one of two things happened. First, you check the numbers. They may be wrong. But let’s say for shits and giggles they aren’t wrong. Then the only other explanation is an event.”

  “Event? What do you mean by that?”

  “Something powerful that changes the entire direction of the business. In this case, it could be economic. Let’s say the economy became so bad that people stopped using funeral services at all. Unlikely to start, but since last year was pretty good for the economy around here, less than a one percent chance. So if we rule that out, we’re talking about an event that changes the entire landscape of the business. A good example of this was when Chipotle had to deal with that case of salmonella poisoning and the press got ahold of it. That event completely reset their business. It took them years to make it back to their original revenue numbers.”

  “So in this case, something like a horrific PR incident, like something about my father that started making the rounds in the public, and people started boycotting?” I asked.

  “Yes, something like that,” Robby said.

  “Except we would know if that happened, wouldn’t we? Heck, I just ran into my old sixth-grade teacher who couldn’t stop raving about my dad saving the downtown area.”

  My phone vibrated. Sam texted that Jess had arrived early to the funeral home. She must have left early. I motioned to the waitress to bring the check.

  “I have to go,” I said. “Jess arrived in Sandusky early.”

  “You do this every time and leave me with the check,” Robby said, half joking. He knew I barely had enough money for morning coffee.

  “It’s one of my better qualities,” I said.

  “So do two things,” Robby said. “First, double-check the numbers to make sure they’re right, and second, start sniffing around to see what happened between a year and a half ago and two years that might have changed the direction of the business.”

  At that, he got up, we hugged, and he followed me out to the parking lot so I could grab my extra clothes out of his car.

  Chapter 7 – The Life Settlement

  I found Jess and Sam in one of the visitation rooms waiting for me. Sam looked mad, maybe for me not being here when Jess arrived, but I simply couldn’t tell anymore. The reasons were piling up.

  “I have to go work on Mr. Davies,” Sam said as I approached. “Bye, honey,” she said to Jess. “I’ll see you later.”

  Then Sam handed her off to me, and I gave Jessica a long embrace. “I’m sorry about Grandpa,” she said.

  “I’m sorry too,” I said. “He was way too young to leave this earth.” I paused. “Thanks for coming so quickly.” I stood back and took a good look at her. “You look great, Jess. So, other than this depressing news, how have you been?”

  “I like the change,” she said, referring to the move from community college to main campus life at Penn State. “A few of the classes are horrible—statistics, for example—but I love my journalism and media classes. Hey, I found out today that I have to put up a blog site for my Future of Media class. Do you know anyone that knows how to create a blog?” she said with a smirk.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said with a half-smile. “I’m sure your Uncle Robby can help you with that.” The more I heard her talk about college, the more selling the funeral home seemed to be the only option.

  Janet entered the room. “I’m sorry to break up the reunion, but Mr. Davies’s daughter is here to discuss the plans for her father. She was going to come in tomorrow morning but she’s here now to meet with someone.” She paused. “This was your father’s role. Do you want to meet with her, or do you want Jack or myself to do it?”

  “No time like the present, I guess. I’ll take it.” Then I turned back to Jess. “Why don’t you come, too, Jess?”

  “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that.”

  “If you don’t want to do it that’s fine, but if you feel up to it, I’d love it if you could join me. Jack and I picked up this woman’s father this morning.”

  She paused. “Okay.”

  “Where is she, Janet?” I asked.

  “She’s sitting in your father’s office. I put the file on the desk. You’ll see the checklist. Do you need me in there for support, to make sure you remember everything?”

  “I think I can handle it, but don’t go too far away, okay?”

  Janet smiled. “Of course.”

  I led Jess over to my father’s office. We walked inside and a woman looking to be in her late forties, early fifties rose to meet us. “Hi. My name is Will Pollitt. I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said shaking her hand.

  “Thank you. I’m Sarah Evans, Timothy Davies’s daughter. I appreciate you meeting with me on such short notice.”

  “No problem at all,” I said. I brought Jess into the conversation and said, “This is my daughter, Jessica. She just arrived from Penn State. We had a death in the family as well. I’m not sure you’ve heard, but my father, Abe Pollitt, died a few days ago.”

  Mrs. Evans gasped. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that. I met with Abe about six months ago to do some preplanning. I was settled on Traynor Funeral Home, but I liked Abe’s approach and switched. How did he die, if I may ask?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but we believe it was a heart attack, Mrs. Evans” I said.

  “Mrs. Evans is fine, but you can call me Sarah.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. Do you mind if Jessica sits in with us?”

  “Of course not.”

  Sarah took a seat across from the desk. I grabbed Mr. Davies’s file from the desk and sat next to her. Jessica took a seat next to the window.

  I le
aned in, “Sarah, since you’ve done the preplanning with us, we only have to run through a few items. You’ve already picked out the casket, the church, and we have a preliminary flow. Janet has written up the obituary. I’ll need you to review this and get back to us before noon tomorrow with any changes. Then we’ll make sure we get it in the paper, which will also go online so you can share it with your family.”

  “Thanks, that all sounds fine, but I’ll just review the obituary now, so we’ll be all set,” Mrs. Evans said.

  Jess and I waited in silence for a few minutes for Mrs. Evans to review the obit. As I sat, I realized this was the room Dad died in. To my left in the trash can sat two halves of a broken coffee mug, his favorite mug. Someone forgot to empty the trash, I guess. Denise’s belief that Dad didn’t die of natural causes started to prick at the back of my neck, and I almost had to excuse myself. I looked at Jess, who was gazing out the window, which seemed to calm my nerves a bit. I busied myself by running through Janet’s checklist to make sure I didn’t forget anything.

  Mrs. Evans made a few minor changes to the obituary and handed the paper back to me. Then I pulled the last form from the file I was holding and handed it back to Mrs. Evans. “Sarah, the financial part of this is never easy to talk about, especially so soon after your loss, but I’ve learned it’s better to just get this out of the way now. Are you okay with that?” She nodded. “You’ve already noted in your preplanning that you want to make monthly payments to cover that final amount, which is completely fine. We just always like to remind the family that you can pay in full within a week after the funeral and save ten percent.”

  Mrs. Evans reviewed the itemized list of charges and said, “Yes, I think I’d like to take care of it. I can do that now,” she said as she pulled out her checkbook. This completely took me off guard, since the total amount of services came to approximately eight thousand dollars. From my limited experience, people like Mr. Davies and Mrs. Evans didn’t have that kind of money to pay in full.

  “Okay,” I said. I went behind the desk and sat down in Dad’s chair. I opened the second drawer and found a stack of invoices. “The total will come to eight thousand one hundred and twelve dollars.”

  Mrs. Evans started to write the check out saying, “My father took out a life insurance policy many years ago, but we cashed it in a few months back. There were just too many medical bills, and I honestly didn’t know how long he was going to live. At the time, it seemed like a great idea, but since he passed so soon, not so much now.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you could cash in a life insurance policy until earlier today. My father did the same thing,” I said.

  “I didn’t either. It was called a life settlement. Dad was approached by an insurance guy right before he moved into Blessings. He wanted to buy his life insurance policy. It was a five-hundred-thousand-dollar policy, and after a bit of paperwork, we took home about one fifty. He was living with me at the time, and I just couldn’t take care of him by myself anymore. He really needed ’round-the-clock care. And even though Blessings isn’t the best place in Sandusky, it still costs about two hundred fifty dollars a day. Can you believe that? Anyway, the life settlement made all that possible.”

  I was fascinated by this and asked, “Your dad sold his life insurance policy and received, in cash, about one-third of the lifetime value? So you’re saying that it’s not a good deal now because your father passed so suddenly after you cashed in the policy.”

  “That’s correct. I suppose if we didn’t sell the policy, I would be receiving half a million dollars,” she said as she handed me the check.

  “Thank you, Sarah. I’ll give all the information to Janet, and she’ll call you tomorrow to confirm the rest of the details. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “And I’m sorry for your loss as well. I guess all of us are having a pretty shitty week,” she said and immediately turned to Jessica and said, “Sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to curse in front of you.”

  Jessica stood, walked over from her chair, and gave Mrs. Evans a warm embrace saying, “No, Mrs. Evans, you said it right; it’s all pretty shitty indeed.”

  They both smiled, and Mrs. Evans left as an instrumental version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” played softly from the speaker system.

  JESS ASKED TO HAVE dinner with Sam and me. My two favorite women in the world, but one of them hated me. Afterwards, Jess went to meet a couple of friends she hadn’t seen for a while, which gave me a few hours to continue reviewing Uncle Dan’s report on the funeral home.

  As I headed for Dad’s office, I stuck my head in to see Janet. “Do you have a few seconds?”

  “Of course,” she said. Janet stood up and followed me over to Dad’s office.

  “I’m trying to figure a few things out, and I think you are the best person to ask.”

  I sat in my dad’s chair, and Janet took the seat across from me.

  “No problem at all,” she said.

  “I started reviewing the state of Dad’s business. Dan’s company put a nice little report together for me, but a couple things don’t add up. Now if I’m reading all these numbers correctly, over the past five years, the business has been cut in half. Does that sound about right to you?”

  Janet sat and pondered the question. “Last year was brutal. Your father had to let go of four people. Through all the bad times before last year, your father was the picture of optimism, always giving motivational speeches to the team, talking about how we were going to turn things around. You know he was quite a speechmaker, your father. Anyway, all that stopped at the beginning of last year. You started to see the concern in his face every morning. He aged more in the last eighteen months than the previous ten years. You know how he was such a young-looking man for his age. Your mother’s death took a toll on him.” Then she looked over her shoulder and whispered, “I’m not sure who on the staff knows about this, but he sold the cemetery last year. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “He had to sell the cemetery to cover what payroll he had left. I even told him I’d take a pay cut, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Do you know who he sold it to?” I asked.

  “Traynor Funeral Home,” she said. “It seems most of the business we used to get goes to Traynor now. We get a lot fewer church folk as customers, and those that aren’t religious don’t see much value in our embalming services. But I’m sure you already knew that.”

  “I had a pretty good idea,” I said. “This helps a lot, Janet. The cemetery sale answers a couple questions I had.” I scratched my head. “Dad’s reputation, the funeral home’s reputation, still good in the community?”

  “Your father is ... was ... the most liked man in this community. Even though you and I knew that he could really be a son of a bitch at times, when he was out in public, he could do no wrong. He could charm the knickers off a nun. This city considers him one of the key architects behind all the success to downtown and the waterfront. But maybe he was losing his touch a bit over the past few years, and it could have affected the business.” Janet started to get emotional.

  “Thanks, Janet,” I said. “That was all very helpful.”

  She stared at me for half a second, got up, and left the office.

  Chapter 8 – The Family Meeting

  I had a few hours to kill before dinner, which gave me some much-needed time to look around Dad’s office. It was a nice-sized office. Basically a big square with a door for visitors and a back door that led into the hall, then down to the embalming room, and a small closet left of the window facing the street.

  While the room was clean at first glance, it was the kind of clean where you don’t move the pictures or lamps when you dust, and maybe only sweep around the heavily trafficked areas. It needed a good wall-to-wall cleaning, especially in the corners where most of the dust bunnies were collecting.

  I sat back and studied the ancient mahogany desk in front of me. Three drawers on eac
h side, each one bigger than the last, from top to bottom. There also looked to be a middle drawer, maybe where a new desk would house a keyboard tray, but it didn’t open.

  The drawers were fairly organized. Office supplies in the top drawers and files in both bottom drawers. The left drawer contained files for Pollitt employees over the years, while the right drawer contained information on the bigger funeral home expenses. There was a file for makeup, one for embalming fluid, and a rather large one for the roof replacement, which happened about a decade ago. There must have been over a hundred files in all, each one precisely labeled with Dad’s handwriting.

  I made a mental note to run through the employee files at some point, then made my way to the closet. Locked. Janet had given me Dad’s keys the night before so I could get into the house. At first glance, you’d think they were a school janitor’s keys. There had to be at least fifty keys, all shapes and sizes. It took me ten minutes to find the right key and unlock the closet door.

  I opened the door and found a chain hanging above my head, seemingly connected to a light. I pulled the chain. There were four shelves that wrapped around the three sides of the closet, and each one contained stacks and stacks of small black notebooks, maybe the size of a Moleskine. I’d seen Dad write in notebooks like these over the years but never knew where he kept them.

  Knowing my father, I started with the bottom left side and guessed correctly, that was the oldest, and they went progressively newer until they wrapped around to the other side, then started all over again on the left side of the next shelf up. The top shelf was only half-filled with notebooks. Unfinished business, I thought, feeling a bit of sadness in my chest.

  I picked out the first one and opened the front flap. My father had beautiful cursive handwriting, and I was excited that I could easily read every word.

  November 15, 1974

  Today is my first day as a funeral assistant at Frisch Funeral Home. In every success book I’ve ever read, it said that the most successful people in the world write down their daily activities. I figure this is as good a day as any to start. Mr. Frisch was nice enough to give me this job as an apprentice. I think he took a shine to me, or felt sorry for me, I’m not sure which. Probably the latter, with two small kids at home and a young family just fighting to survive.