Have you ever seen the 90’s movie with Mike Myers So I Married an Axe Murderer? It’s like that, only I really did marry a mortician!

Ryan decided to let me take a swing at this month’s blog when he got writer’s block. He said I could write about whatever I wanted, which is pretty gutsy of him, but I think I will stick to writing about our life and things from my perspective as the wife of a mortician.

A quick interesting, maybe funny little note about me; I am terrified of dying. Completely terrified. And I am married to a mortician. Go figure.

I should probably start at the beginning. I met Ryan when he was going to school for mortuary science in Cypress, California, which is where I’m from. I knew from the time we met that that is what he was going to school for. I read through one of his textbooks when we were dating and those textbooks are graphic and descriptive. So I had some small idea of what his work would entail. But thing with this career is that you really can’t know what it’s like until you’re in it, living it.

We moved to Mesquite, NV when Ryan graduated and that was my introduction to what I had gotten myself into. Life with a husband who is a funeral director is shall we say unique? Our life revolves around death. And this isn’t a regular 9-5 job; the phones ring at all hours of the day and night. Ryan can work 16 hour days and we won’t see him. We are pretty used to not making or having plans because we don’t know when work is coming. I have said that I wish God would send us a calendar just giving us some idea of when we might expect work and when we might be free to go on a trip, but I am still waiting on that. I can think of so many times our plans have changed before they even start. We recently were heading up north to do a Costco run and Ryan’s phone rang. A death. We had just passed an exit, so we had to drive into Nephi, grab lunch quick, and turn around so Ryan could go help this family. The kids and I headed back up to do the Costco run without him. There was the time we had left the kids with Ryan’s parents for the weekend and we had planned to go to a movie. We were at Krispy Kreme getting donuts when the phone rang. A death we had been told would happen in 24hrs or so happened earlier than expected. No movie. Or Ryan missing the birth of our youngest because he was in California burying someone and I went into labor 5 weeks early. It’s hard to try and adjust and to be honest, I still sometimes struggle with plans changing at the drop of a hat.

I am not involved in the day-to-day at the mortuary. I help with more behind-the-scenes things; I run errands, answer phones, sometimes do hair or makeup. But that is pretty much it for my involvement with the mortuary. I have helped with a funeral maybe once? I’m not much help, so Ryan has a few people that are good enough to help him out. People often assume that I am a funeral director too, but I did not go to school for that and I am not licensed. I am just the wife of the funeral director (ha).

If you know me in real life, I have probably told you stories of what my life is like. And you also know that I tend to tell those stories with a lot of humor. I like to think I’m pretty funny! Probably my favorite story that highlights how different our life is the day I went through the Chevron drive-thru. For this story it’s important to note that I drive a 12 passenger van. It serves two purposes: the first being that it fits all 9 of us and the second is that it allows us to take work with us when necessary. So I had gone to Chevron to pick up my daily dose of caffeine and I was in the drive-thru. They took my order and then one of the workers asked me why I drive such a big van. I explained that I have a lot of kids….and that sometimes I haul bodies too. Both the women were shocked and I forgot that they didn’t know me or Ryan! I had to backpedal and explain that I’m not taking people out or doing anything illegal, my husband is a mortician and we sometimes all go with him when he works.*Facepalm* That is what I get for just speaking so freely. It is so normal for us to be driving to the crematory or the coroner’s office, with a body, that I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s just part of our life.



So I guess to finish this off, I want to say that in my completely unbiased opinion Ryan is a great funeral director. I get to see the hard work, the care he puts into everything he does. I hope in reading this that you got to know us a little and maybe had a laugh too. As always, leave any comments or questions and share this blog with your friends and family!