This week's podcast, gets really personal. Allison asks three questions:

1. Do you remember every individual you’ve embalmed, or do they sometimes blur together over time?
2. How do you balance the emotional and physical demands of funeral work with maintaining time and space for yourself?
3. Being surrounded by grief and sadness regularly must be heavy—how do you personally cope or find peace amidst it all?

Trigger warning: I discuss the cases that broke me in this episode and they can be very emotional and hard to listen to. This is one of the heaviest episodes to date and I do not recommend listening to it if you have lost children or young adults.

Link to the book referenced in this episode: Imagine Heaven.

What was it like to work in a funeral home during the pandemic?

This week's episode takes a heart breaking look into what it was like to serve families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trigger warning.

It is a 100% honest take on some of the horrors our families faced and is not up for political debate or speculation.

For some this episode will particularly challenging to listen to.

Discretion is advised.

Trigger Warning

Our Tenth Episode is all about embalming.

Why do we do it?

What is it for?

What does it actually do to the body?

How do you do it?

And is it required?

This episode goes into detail about the process and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

Are you superstitious?

Do deaths come in threes?

Are full moons a bad omen?

This week, we talk about all of the funeral home superstitions, some of the most well-known, and some you may have never heard about. Like do bodies "Sit Up" in their caskets?

Apparently last week I ruffled some feathers when I mentioned the struggles we have as women in the funeral industry.

Lynn asks the question: “What is it like to be a woman working in what seems to be a man’s field, and what advice do you have for other women who might be interested in working in the funeral industry?”

This week, we have the pleasure of hosting Amanda James Shropshire from Kermit Funeral Home as our first guest interview. Her insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by women in the funeral industry will undoubtedly be enlightening.

This week's episode is a question from Tim!

Tim asks what all goes into a first call and what should families expect?

If you've never been present when a funeral home arrives to bring someone into our care, this episode is sure to help you understand the process and everything it entails.

What's the fuss about Green Burials? Ever been interested in a Tibetan Sky Burial? You might change your mind after listening to this episode.

Janie asks “Mark and I go back and forth about our final wishes...Buried with family at a local cemetery or buried/ cremated with family at Veteran’s Cemetery. And then my daughter comes up with “natural burial”. What exactly is it and do any cemeteries around here allow it?

Learn about green burials and more on this week's episode.

We need questions! Send us your best or worst at finaltouchpodcast@gmail.com

Warning: this episode talks about decomposition and dismemberment. Discretion is advised.

In this week's episode, we take a look at some of the recent funeral home issues making national headlines. This includes the widely shared video of pallbearers tumbling into a grave and the funeral home in Houston, Tx that was improperly storing bodies.

We also share some of our own funeral flops as well!

Link for pallbearer video here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/video/pallbearers-fall-into-grave-philadelphia-contd-digvid

Link for the Houston Funeral Home:

https://nypost.com/2025/04/14/us-news/stabbing-at-texas-funeral-home-leads-to-discovery-of-10-decaying-smells-like-rotten-blood/