Graveside Grace & Oversight Overhauls | 4M #226
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-twenty-sixth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #226, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
From grief came goodness
In December, a retired police officer discovered that a grieving widow had been spending her nights at her husband’s grave in a New York cemetery where the officer worked. He learned that her husband had suffered a fatal heart attack on the same day the two submitted an offer on a new home, and their down payment funds were used to purchase a cemetery plot. After the woman lost her job and became homeless, she would return to the cemetery to sleep after a full day volunteering at a local food pantry. The officer stepped in, securing first a hotel, then an empty college dorm, and finally an affordable tiny house for the woman to call home. “It was just the right thing to do,” the officer told a local news outlet.
From Coast to Coast, Funeral Homes Trust TMCFunding
Trusted by funeral homes and communities across the U.S., Treasured Memories® Community Funding is the leading crowdfunding platform designed specifically for our profession. With over $1 million raised and zero platform fees, it allows families to create meaningful memorial and support funds without added financial burden. Funeral directors stay at the center of the process — offering help, dignity, and guidance when it matters most.
Picture healing
There’s a brand new exhibit at a community college in New Hampshire that features photos of people of all ages holding random items — golf clubs, clothing, paintings, and stuffed animals, for example. These items weren’t theirs, though; they belonged to their deceased loved ones. The exhibit is called “Faces of Grief” and it aims to “destigmatize” the grieving process. College students photographed the participants, who were all involved in local grief programs. The hope is that the images will give these participants the opportunity to explain what the items they’re holding mean to them, which is also the opportunity to talk about their loved one who has passed away.
From Ireland to Washington to Texas
Deathcare will officially make its debut at this year’s South by Southwest cultural festival, which will take place in March in Austin, Texas. “The Life We Leave,” a documentary produced by an Irish film company, has secured a world premiere and official competition selection at SXSW. The film follows our friend Micah Truman “as he stakes everything on a radical new vision for deathcare” — natural organic reduction. We know how the story ends, as Truman’s Auburn, Washington-based Return Home team has garnered tons of industry awards, built a 7-figure following on social media, and hosted the world’s first and only NOR convention as it continues to grow. A documentary at SXSW is one more very cool achievement to add to the list!
Detecting a pattern?
When Colorado authorities uncovered the travesties at Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose in late 2024, they implemented guidelines for regular state inspections — which led them to a hidden room at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo where 24 decomposed bodies had been stored for more than 12 years. Similarly, the 2025 discovery of inoperable retorts and three improperly stored bodies at Heaven Bound Cremation Services in Maryland has led that state to overhaul its funeral board and add staff to strictly enforce its updated inspection policies. In Maryland’s case, though, the new rules and employees have allowed the state to clear up a backlog of 300 overdue inspections — thankfully, with no more horrific discoveries.
