Academy of Professional Undertakers

Jake Newland is a little bit afraid, and a little bit hopeful.

Jake just got back from the annual meeting of The Academy of Professional Undertakers. He helped form The APU 40 years ago. The idea was to learn from others in the profession, by sharing ideas, how to serve mourners better, especially those who did not have clergy or other grief helpers. Jake and the other founders of APU felt that funeral directors had a unique access to people in times of grief, and thus a unique opportunity to provide human help for human hurt.

At first the APU grew rapidly. Everyone thought it was a great idea, to be professionals, like lawyers or doctors or ministers. FDs were proud to put the APU logo on their business cards and in their ads, noting that they ascribed to the APU code of ethics and continuing education. Gradually, though, the APU declined as its members realized that nobody cared if they were better at helping the lost and lonely, and as they realized that they were losing business to their competitors who did not ascribe to the APU code of ethics. They didn't want to learn how to be better friends in times of grief; they wanted to learn how to be better business people. They didn't want to make friends, they wanted to make money.

Jake noticed that he was the only one at the meeting wearing the APU pin and his past-president's pin, the only one with the APU crest on his black suit coat. He was not the only retired FD, though. The ONLY undertakers there were retired, hardly 30 left out of a nation-wide academy, rattling around in the big county fair building outside Denver, reminiscing, chatting over morning oatmeal and eveing meatloaf with old friends that they see only once a year. In a few years, they will all be taken under themselves, just as their undertaking on behalf of good grief instead of bad grief will also be taken under.

Jake thinks their undertaking failed because they didn't believe their own credo, that they could learn from one another. They never had a fellow undertaker or a mourner speak at their meetings. They always had professors or politicians or business leaders. Who wants to belong to an organization whose own members believe that anyone outside their profession, from social walkers to street walkers, knows more about what they do than they themselves know?

Now, though, he is free. He isn't a professional undertaker any longer. He's not even an amateur undertaker. He is free to be himself, without a pin or a crest to tell him who he is. It's a little bit scary, and a little bit exciting.