u/kagayhina

TL;DR: My father passed away suddenly and we paid thousands to a funeral home. At the private family viewing, my dad was completely unrecognizable (terrible makeup, nose/mouth completely wrong, tie crumpled on top his casket). When we politely asked for adjustments, the mortician loudly yelled about us behind a locked door, saying she "wasn't playin' with this family." When confronted, she was incredibly rude and hung up on us. Want to know next best steps for holding her and the business accountable.

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Hi, my father recently passed away suddenly, and I was tasked with organizing his funeral. We went to our scheduled private family viewing (before the public one 48 hrs after) to spend time with my dad. When we arrived we found his tie crumpled up on top of the casket. As we walked closer we saw makeup all over the collar of his shirt, his nose was completely wrong, his lips the wrong color, mouth was set too far forward and deeply frowned, and overall no one felt at peace or even comforted with seeing my dad. We were all horrified, and not really in the "family not used to seeing dead person" way, but in a "my family member is unrecognizable" way. However I was prepared for this in a weird way and wrote some notes for the funeral home for adjustments. I also asked a staff member if he'd be wearing the tie on Sunday and she said "no you brought us the wrong shirt for him to wear a tie." Mind you, I brought in my dad's clothes a WEEK ago. They didn't notice until they were dressing him that it wasn't the right shirt? They couldn't have given us a call to let us know to bring a different shirt in?

I wasn't too happy but I kept it polite all the way through, despite grieving him and trying to make this the best goodbye it could be. She said she'd let the mortician know of our issues and to ask about the shirt. I returned to the room with my father's body in it.

As we were standing inside, I hear through a staff only door, "What do you mean they have issues? So are they gonna bring a new dang shirt or not? John**, you better go out there and tell this family I'm not playin' with them!"

My whole family heard. We were all pretty much in shock, so my older sister tried to go speak with her but the door was locked. So she went back out to the staff member and asked to speak to whoever was in that room. Instead of coming out, the mortician(?) called my sister and asked "what the issue" was and my sister calmly explained our adjustments and asked about the tie. The mortician insisted we need to bring a new shirt in if it was a problem and that she'd see about the other issues. My sister then said "And I do want to let you know, that your voice carries and my whole family heard you talking about us. We're a grieving family and we just want our loved one, my dad to be respected that's all." The mortician was silent before saying "what are you even asking about?!"

Not wanting to upset our family further my sister simply said "You know in your heart what you said. We just ask you be more mindful. Have a nice day." And the mortician hung up. The WHOLE time we could hear her talking through the phone, but also through the door 😭

We couldn't believe that we had just paid thousands of dollars to this funeral home only for us and my dad to be treated this way. I feel like I should report her to someone, but unsure how to escalate from here. Is there some sort of formal reporting process or a board? I just think it's unacceptable that she talked to our family that way. I wish I didn't pick that funeral home. Feeling some regret and worry about my dad not being respected.