“Dead people? Blood?” More from my niece, the future mortician & how you can help
In this post, I introduced you to my niece who aspires to be a mortician and to pursue an undergraduate degree at an HBCU. Next spring, she hopes to take a multi-state tour of several HBCU campuses. She has the support of our family, and she has a part-time job, however, the cost of this tour is quite steep. I’m so proud of her, and I want to help her along the path toward the future she envisions for herself. I asked her to write a little bit about why she’s interested in mortuary science:
An HBCU would be a great place for me to begin my higher learning. I plan to study biology or anthropology. I would like to ultimately like to go to mortuary science school, and after I graduate from there, in my apprenticeship, work at the city morgue. The field of biology offers many research positions, just in case the second step of my plan, funeral Services, doesn’t pan out–although I see no reason why it shouldn’t, with a lot of hard work and ambition. After my apprenticeship, I hope to work with someone before I go on to own a funeral home.
Puzzled faces and wrinkled foreheads are usually the first things that I see when I tell someone that I want to go into the funeral business. “Dead people? Blood?” are usually the words that follow. I visit funeral homes a lot with my mother, who is a nurse here in Jacksonville, who sometimes gets attached to her patients. We’ve been taking our weekly funeral home visits for as long as I can remember. In a way she feels like she contributed a lot to my career path, and I guess she’s right. In the year 2007 and 2008 I lost a lot of family members and attended a lot of funerals. I can’t say that I like losing family member, but I do like seeing how they make them look so peaceful no matter how they passed away. I know how it made me feel to see my family members in such good conditions, and I want more people who lose loved ones to feel that way, thanks to my services.
I also know in this field of work as many people tell me, “I’ll always have a job, people always die’’ so that’s a plus. I also am a good person to talk to and a good listener which is also a good trait for this field because I have to listen to how people’s lives were and let their families know that everything will be okay. I know there is a lot more to this job than just making people look nice and talking to their families, like the actual cutting and all the bloody stuff, but I would just anticipate the faces of the families of the deceased when they see their family member for the last time in such good condition. That would be my motivation everyday.
We welcome your well wishes, prayers, and encouragement for Dontavia. If you are moved to make a monetary contribution toward her tour fees, you may do so via my PayPal account (deesha AT deeshaphilyaw DOT com), or contact me if you prefer a different method. On her behalf, I appreciate your consideration.
Here is a link to the tour: http://www.hbcucampustours.com/home.asp (She’s interested in Tour A).