Dear Laird Employees,
This email is several months in the making. I have been wanting to email you and detail out my experience working with your team. I had to wait 5 months to calm down and write this out peacefully. Yes, it took me 5 months. You see, I want this email to come across as educational and not have you blow it off as the emotion ranting of a grieving mother. And that took 5 months.
I have never imagined that I would ever have to make funeral arrangements for my daughter. But in November of 2014 that is exactly where my husband and I found ourselves. We were blindsided by the loss of our little girl and still in shock when we arrived for our meeting with Corey. And even more shocked to be greeted with a cheery "Nice to meet you!" Yes, seriously, that is how we were greeted when we arrived to make plans for our daughter's funeral. That should have been the only shocking event, but sadly it was not. It got worse. So much worse.
In the course of our meeting we were given a callous "A coffin for a baby will run ya about 350 bucks." Yes, we understand completely that there are business aspects to be discussed. We understand that there will be a bill and you want us to be prepared for it. But seriously?
It was then explained that the use of the chapel is free for infant services. This is a policy that I completely endorse! Please understand that while this email is full of complaints and calls for improvement, this policy is the exception. It's thoughtful and gracious.
What is not thoughtful and gracious is using that policy to attempt to bully us into having the service at the date and time of your choosing.
After much haggling we finally got you to approve a Saturday service. But we wanted to push the date out a week since I was still recovering from surgery. We explained this several times, to which the response was "Ah, we have chairs you can sit in." Yes, that actually happened. That was actually directed at me when I explained that I wanted to be well enough to attend my daughter's visitation for the entire hours. Your employee actually looked at me, the mother of a dead child, and laughed while bushing off my concerns.
To add insult to injury we were only given three options for an urn, none of which were suitable for a baby girl. I asked if we could see other options. We were told there were no other options. I kept pushing and magically a catalogue full of options appeared. Why wasn't that offered up front? Why make grieving parents push for full disclosure. We weren't talking about some insignificant detail here, we were talking about my daughter's final resting place.
The caviler attitude continued for the rest of the meeting. Including arguing with us about listing her birth and death dates on the service program. I stated several times that they were the same date and we just wanted it listed once. Corey repeatedly stated that people always list birth and death dates. We had just finished filling out the death certificate request, he knew she was a stillborn. Why argue? What did he possibly have to gain? Why make us explain what we wanted over and over. Why did I have to push and push to get the date printed the way we wanted. It was not his call to decide what is best for our daughter.
I'm writing this to you so you can do something about this. No parent or grieving family of any sort deserves to be treated like this. I understand that you may become desensitized to death being in the industry, but your clients are not. They are grieving and struggling and they should not be treated as if this major life event, this tragedy is no big deal. Because it is a big deal. And if you can't see that then please, please find another industry to work in.
I originally thought we were the only ones being treated this way because our daughter was an infant. I was originally upset because I thought you all just didn't take the death of a baby seriously. But I have since learned that you treat many other clients this way. People burying parents and grandparents and siblings. I've read your Yelp reviews and I know that we were not alone in our inhumane treatment. You treat many clients this way and I am telling you now, this is not ok. If you get nothing else from this email, know that what you are doing is not ok. People come to you needing guidance and support and options. Not to be treated like their grief just another day at the office.
I am begging you to please educate your employees and change your patterns of behavior. Do not let one more family go through what my family has been through. Hire people who understand compassion and empathy. People who are supportive and considerate. People who can reach out and relate to other people. People who care.
And now I will close this email with the same closing that we got the day we arrived to plan our daughter's farewell. A cheery "Have a great afternoon!"
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