“You think funeral services are important?”
“I do. Grief is a solitary, in fact, lonely experience. Without funeral services there would be no public place to express that kind of pain.”
“That’s interesting,” I tell him.
“So is your state of mind. You’re not thinking about doing anything…”
“Oh, like closing my own curtain?” I laugh. “Heavens, no, Dad!”
“I’d like you to find a job in a stable company and get some financial security—stick to one thing, Maddy, and work your way up.”
I sit up. “But, Dad, that doesn’t work in today’s economy. For one thing, it’s no longer a hierarchical path to the top. Old structures are crumbling because the flow of information can’t be controlled, which puts meritocracy in vogue. But if you ask me, merit is based on being a diversified person the same way good investing is based on having a diversified portfolio. That means constant self-reinvention, without giving up your core integrity, of course.”
Besides, I think, I don’t want to function in “survival mode,” I want to live in “thrival mode.” But I leave that part out.
“I wonder if you should consider going to a doctor.”
“Why?” I ask, surprised.
But before he can reply, Laura walks in wearing a warm down coat, offering her goodbyes.
My dad stands up and kisses Laura affectionately. “You have a safe flight home, Laura.” And he exits the room.
“Don’t worry, Maddy. You’ll crack it yet. So many have had rounds of failure and then hit upon success.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, what about the ol’ love life? You never updated us on that. Care to tell me anything about your current lovers before I take off ? Marriage has a way of stamping out firsthand experience. Generalizations will do.”
“Generally speaking, I’d have to say that career goals have a way of stamping out any chance at true love,” I say.
“On that I agree. But whenever you’re ready to choose to be with someone, just remember freedom comes only after you surrender to the choice.”
“Laura! Your cab is here!” yells Daniel from downstairs.
Laura hugs me goodbye and dashes downstairs. I walk to the chilled window and stare out at frozen fields of snow. Fat white flakes drift to the ground. I made a choice. I surrendered to a career, determined to get at least one successful company off the ground first. I’m not immune to relationships, on the contrary, I crave one—but I’m afraid it will get in my way. Deep down I’d rather play the results, or hedge my bets, because secretly I do believe a healthy happy relationship awaits me at the end of all this. It’s just that I didn’t expect the career phase to take so long. And now, everywhere I turn, all I see is constant rain—no, strike that…relentless hail.
A heavy drop falls on an owl sitting peacefully on a maple tree branch. The owl cocks its head, ever so slightly, unper-turbed by the flake melting squarely between its eyes, accepting this as a natural part of everyday life. That is true freedom, I think as the sun casts muted shades of orange across the landscape.
“Have you seen my glove?” asks Laura.
I turn around to find her scrambling around the couch. “No,” I reply. “But let me help you look.” I spot it on the floor under a fallen black chenille blanket, another remnant of Black Tuesday. “Here you go.”
“Whew, thank God, cuz it’s freezing out there.” We stand up. Laura gives me another hug. “Aren’t brises wonderful? Except of course for the ‘brisee.’ Seems like anytime you can bring friends and family together it should be…a celebration, don’t you think, Maddy?”
Suddenly it hits me. Why not create a business that makes funerals a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death? Not do away with the grieving process, but alter the way society perceives the whole funeral thing to begin with. Especially with baby boomers aging now, they, who have defied all conventions, would most certainly not stop at death, but defy it, by embracing it and altering it to fit their needs and desires. I feel a click inside my gut. I know I am on to something big, something that could help people, something that could be profitable and something that might even be enjoyable. I can feel the heat of my mission statement start to bubble inside me. Immediately reinvigorated, I walk Laura out the front door, still high from my epiphany, when my ten-year-old nephew, Andy, comes bounding up to the front porch.
“Aunt Maddy!” He plows into me and gives me a big snowy hug around my waist, simultaneously wrinkling brown pieces of paper in his hand.
“Hey, sport, what’s that you’ve got?” I ask.
Andy reveals dead leaves with holes strategically burned into them. My curiosity returns. “How did you do that?”
“Uncle Sam gave me a magnifying glass and then me and the sun co-lab-o-rated to burn holes into them!”
“Where’d you learn that big word?”
“Dad. Then Uncle Sam said it in a sentence, too.”
I nod—of course. I look at the spottily burned paper and can’t help but see the immediate potential for a budding enterprise. “That is so cool! Hey, you can turn the holes into designs and start a little business called Leaf Art!”
“Cool!” shouts Andy.
“You could sell them. Then you could take a portion of your profits and use it for charity and future investments. What do you think?”
“Double cool! What can I invest in?”
“Well, savings accounts don’t pay much on interest, so you’d be better off practicing dollar-cost averaging in some sound stocks.” Andy has no idea what I’m talking about but I don’t believe in talking down to anyone, instead trusting that eventually the listener will get it. “What’s your favorite thing?” I continue.
Andy thinks a minute, then lifts his foot. “My boots because they take me everywhere I want to go.”
“Awesome. Okay, what’s your favorite thing to do to help people?”
“I liked bringing Grandma cookies when she was in the hospital.”
“Got it. We’ll take your profits and buy one share of stock in the Skechers shoe company every month and we’ll donate ten percent of your profits to baking cookies for hospital patients. To get you started, I’ll pitch in and buy the art frames for you and make you some business cards. How’s that sound?”
Daniel overhears and smiles. “You’re good, Mad. Like a poet, only instead of finding new meaning with iambic meters, you do it with objects and concepts.”
“Can we do it, Dad?” Andy asks.
“Sounds fun, Andy, but I’ve got to sell more poetry books first.” He glances at me. “The rent just went up. Plus Keating. It’s been…kind of tough.”
I brighten with an immediate solution. “Well, you could write inspirational poems about his leaf designs. Have it be part of the design itself, you know. Then put them on consignment in art galleries as supplemental income. You can still use the same poems in your poetry books, and at the same time, enhance the father-son bonding experience. With the right marketing, I bet you could increase sales off the father-son angle.”
Daniel looks at me impressed. “Wow. How do you come up with this stuff ?”
“No clue. Except I think I’m preprogrammed to find multiple solutions in one shot. Maybe it’s a caretaking gene. All I know is, I have no ‘off’ button.”
“Dad, let’s do it!” shouts Andy.
“We’ll talk about it later, Andy. Come on, I want you to eat. Grandma made a grilled cheese sandwich especially for you.”
I’m about to head inside when I hear a familiar tune carried by a whistle. I turn around and there’s Uncle Sam, smiling at me and whistling “Fishing Free” by Maurice LeSarde. His hair is a beautiful shade of white and incredibly thick for a man of seventy-five. He lightly walks toward me and gently pats me on the back.
“Hello, Sunshine.”
I offer a big kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Uncle Sam. Guess who I met on the plane coming out here? Maurice LeSarde!” I beam.
“Now isn’t that something.” He smiles. “He’s my favorite singer.” Uncle Sam puts his arm around me as we walk toward the house. “So did you tell him hello for me?” he chuckles.
“I thought you could do that yourself.” I flash two tickets in front of him. “They’re for tonight if you want to use them. You can take a friend or dad if you want.”
Uncle Sam lights up. “Well, look at that. Front row and center! My, oh my, I don’t believe he’s been on stage in twenty years.” He turns to me. “Why don’t you come, Sunshine? We’ll leave now.”
“I just came from Tara’s funeral. How can I go and enjoy myself ?”
“Are you expected to sit shiva?”
“No. They aren’t Jewish.”
Uncle Sam nods gently. “Maddy, life is to be lived, even around death. There’s a reason you got these tickets. And if it was me who’d just departed, I’d want you to go, enjoy, and let mourning run its own course. There’s no reason to feel guilty.”
I think it over. “Okay, I’m game.”
Uncle Sam drives us along slushy freeways toward downtown. He turns to me. “So what’s the latest fish you’re trying to land? Anything I can help you tackle?”
I give him a wily smile. “When do we start?”
“Right after the concert?” He smiles back.
“You’re on.”
Inside the architecturally renowned Fisher Theater, we take our seats in a sold-out venue. House lights flash on and off as the audience settles into silence. Maurice LeSarde takes the stage to resounding applause and then opens with “Fishing Free.”
Uncle Sam squeezes my hand. “This is just beautiful, Maddy. Just beautiful,” he says as a tear rolls down his cheek.
I am grateful to share this moment with him as we mouth along to the lyrics.
After the concert we head backstage. Dawn greets us. “Hey, you made it. We can’t thank you enough.”
Inside, Maurice spots me through a minicrowd of press and friends. He grins. “You came. Hey, thanks for that restaurant recommendation. It was superb! I owe you.”
“No problem. You were fantastic! This is my uncle Sam. He’s the one who turned me on to you when I was six.”
Maurice shakes Uncle Sam’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Uncle Sam humbly smiles back. “It’s an honor to hear you in person.”
“May I get a quick photo?” I ask.
Maurice nods. I whip out my cell phone-camera and snap a shot of Uncle Sam beaming with humility and happiness next to his favorite singer.
“Maurice,” yells a man across the room. “The Detroit Free Press is here.”
“Excuse me,” he says, and saunters across the room.
Uncle Sam turns to me, beaming, “Thanks, Maddy, for a special evening. Now, I think you need to pinch me so I know I’m still here.”
I pinch his cheek.
He smiles. “Good. Now, let’s go wrangle this idea of yours.”
Market Strategy: Lights Out Meets the Funeral Industry
Uncle Sam and I trudge in snowshoes across a frozen lake carrying the necessary load of accoutrements for late-night ice fishing. We use his jigging rods and augers with skimmers to skim ice from the holes and set up an ice tent to break the wind. We place buckets upside down over burning Coleman lanterns to keep warm. Uncle Sam attaches chartreuse moonglow fishing lures to the hooks, slips them in the hole, locks down the jigging rods, and breaks out a flask of whiskey. We each swig a shot. The liquid is rich and smooth, coating my throat with a blast of heat.
“All right, let’s get to it. How many words?” asks Uncle Sam. “Three,” I proudly reply.
“Okay, hit me.”
“Customized funeral experiences,” I announce.
Uncle Sam doesn’t say a word. He swishes the whiskey, mulling it over. He nods. “Brilliant, Maddy. Brilliant.”
“Really? You think so?”
“I think this one’s a winner. If you want, I’ll take you around to see Richard Wright. He owns the local funeral home in Jackson. He can give you some pointers. And you might want him on your advisory board.”
“That would be great, thanks. Will you be on my advisory board, too?”
“Sure, why not? What are you calling it?”
“I don’t know. The idea came to me today after attending a…well, a rather ‘dead’ funeral.”
“Let’s mull it over and see what we come up with.” He passes the flask.
I kick the liquid back and blurt, “How about White Lights? Or Remember Me?”
“Not catchy enough.” Uncle Sam takes a swig and offers, “What about Happy Times?”
“Too happy.”
“Forever Events?”
“Maybe. Reflections Of ?”
“Singsongy. What’s a metaphor for ‘time’s up’?”
We look at each other and simultaneously shout, “Lights Out!”
“That’s the one,” says Uncle Sam. “It’s catchy and humorous and if people can’t laugh about it, they’re not going to be good clients.” He chuckles, adding, “You sure do like to play the results, Maddy, in more ways than one. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back home?”
“Research. There are so many opportunities, here, Uncle Sam…online memorials to name just one. Relatives who can’t make it to a funeral can see it online or see a video about the client’s life…or how about this—interface with the Internet so people can send e-mails with secret messages, important financial information, or just stuff they wanted to say and couldn’t to whomever upon, you know, expiration…”
“Start with the facts, Maddy. How many funeral homes are there in the U.S.? And how many services do they perform on average every year?” He pauses while I take it in, nodding and thinking. “You’ll have to study the competition, too,” he adds.
“Competition? What if there isn’t any?”
“Believe me, if you thought of it so will someone else, if they haven’t already. Besides, you want that—keeps you on your toes, makes you stronger. Without an enemy you lose the challenge to grow. Healthy competition is good. Remember Sun Tzu?”
“Okay, okay…so approach this with Sun Tzu’s advice in hand. ‘If you know yourself, but not your enemy, for every battle won, you will lose another.’”
He smiles. “That’s my girl. Now, how are you going to finance this?”
“I’ll write a business plan and approach some venture capitalists. But it may take months. I need to find a consulting job or go to a temp agency to pay the bills.”
“The idea’s too good, Maddy. How about if I become your angel investor?”
“What? You? Why?”
“Why not? Besides, I like to bet on ideas now and again. And Banks Baits, ‘the baits you can bank on’ is long gone. I could use something to keep me on my toes. What do you say? I’ll be your silent collaborator and put in fifteen thousand to cover your living expenses and administration fees for the next four months while you develop a business plan and do your due diligence.”
“I don’t know what to say, Uncle Sam. What kind of equity do you want?”
“None.”
“No. I have to give you something or I won’t do it,” I insist.
“Pay me back when you make a profit. No interest required. How’s that sound? And there’s no time frame on this. Never paying me back is fine, too.”
“That’s unbelievable,” I say, thrilled, and for once feeling truly supported, not just in a financial sense, but in an emotional one, because more than anything the money represents Uncle Sam’s belief in me.
“One other thing, Maddy. I’m throwing in an extra thousand for you to buy new clothes and treat yourself to a manicure, pedicure, facial and a massage.”
“Why? I don’t look good?”
He chuckles. “You look great, Sunshine, but I want you to feel great. Now, go determine the needs of the industry and then create your solutions.”
I don’t have the answers right now, but it’s only a ma
tter of time before I do and I am not about to waste another minute.
I research facts and figures about the funeral industry online from my modest apartment back in Los Angeles. But I need more than Google can provide. I’m thinking about where I can get access to LexusNexus and other more formidable search engines, when my phone rings.
“Maddy Banks,” I answer, not recognizing the caller ID number.
“Uh, yeah, um, Eve Gardner here,” says a young female on the other end. “Professor Osaka said we’re to meet.”
“Professor Osaka?”
“Yeah, you’re the grad he wants me to do an internship with…from UCLA.”
“Oh, yeah, I completely forgot,” I say, remembering how he inveigled me into this. “Look, I’m really busy right now—”
“So am I,” she says, cutting me off. “But I need the credits to pass this year and if I don’t pass my father is going to have a shit fit. Osaka insisted I be flexible for you, which I have to tell you is not my style.”
I stare at the phone. What had Professor Osaka sent me? Then it dawns on me—the UCLA library. I reel the phone back in, remembering, too, that internships include free labor.
“Okay, Eve, meet me outside the UCLA library in thirty minutes. Don’t forget your student ID card. And by the way, assume it’s a business meeting.”
I pace outside the UCLA library watching the second-hand tick inside my Lucite watch. This girl is already twenty-six minutes late. I shake my head. It’s a good thing I brought a Financial Street Journal with me. If she’s not here by the time I scan the Market section, she’s history. I glance over the paper. There’s nothing particularly exciting to read. I fold it up, getting ready to find an alternative means of entrée into the library, when a petite blond fashionista strolls toward me applying cherry-red lipstick to her generous lips before looking me over.
“Madison Banks, I presume?”
“Eve Gardner, I take it. You’re thirty-two minutes late.” I look her over. She can’t be more than nineteen years old, but she dresses like she’s thirty-four on her way to an afternoon tea party with Prince Charles. There’s an iPod and a cell phone clipped to her hip. A total high-tech princess complex. What on earth was Osaka thinking?
The Funeral Planner Page 4