What Really Happens Before a Viewing

Episode Description:

Episode Highlights:



• [1:00] Why people say “they look great” at viewings
• [2:00] Cleaning nails and grooming the body
• [4:45] Why every detail matters to families
• [7:10] Preparing someone who passed unexpectedly
• [10:20] Clothing, hair, and making someone “look like themselves”
• [14:30] What families need to provide (and what they don’t)
• [20:45] Why transparency matters in funeral prep

Memorable Quotes

Michael O’Connell:

• “We prepare people the way we’d want our own family cared for.”
  
• “Even if no one will see it, we still trim nails and clean behind them.”
  
• “Sometimes, it’s the smallest details that bring the most peace.”
  
• “We don’t take shortcuts—because families notice everything.

Pete Waggoner (Host):

• “You never think about things like fingernails—but you notice them.”
• “There’s a lot of dignity in what happens behind the scenes.”
• “That’s why people say, ‘They look like themselves.’ It’s not by accident.”

Transcript Disclaimer:

Our episodes of the Good Grief Podcast include a transcript of the episode’s audio for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, if you’d like to scan the material, or have low bandwidth. The text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record.

[00:00:00] Pete Waggoner (Host): Welcome once again to the Good Grief Podcast along with Michael O'Connell. I'm Pete Wagner. And we have a topic, Michael, that we have never covered, and I've got about a thousand questions. You ready for him? Sure. Thanks a lot for joining us here today as we record another podcast and we are at the O'Connell Family Funeral Homes here in Hudson, Wisconsin.

[00:00:22] Pete Waggoner (Host): You can find everything you need to know at the O'Connell funeral homes.com. Once again, Michael Topic is

[00:00:32] Mike O'Connell: how do we prepare for a viewing, which is so fascinating because when you do go to a viewing, I think the first thing people think is, wow. They look great, or how did they do that?

[00:00:47] Mike O'Connell: What are the details that go into it? So I think there's gonna be plenty for us to go through and cover here, and I look forward to seeing where this one is going to go. So I, I once 

[00:00:57] Mike O'Connell: heard somebody come up and said, oh, [00:01:00] they look so good. And somebody next to me said, well, they should, they just go to the hospital.

[00:01:05] Mike O'Connell: And I'm like, oh, wow, that was fair enough. That's some dark humor that that's, that's fair enough. 

[00:01:10] Pete Waggoner (Host): Funeral directors, we laugh, but probably the person will like, wait, what? Whoa, , whoa. So, okay, so first of all, what happens with the bodies and what are some of the things that you have to deal with to get to this 

[00:01:24] Mike O'Connell: stage?

[00:01:24] Mike O'Connell: Well, I think for, for today, I think we could talk about the embalming process on a just its own. It's own merits, it's own podcast. So let's, let's assume that that part is done right. Okay. So a lot of things go into preparing for a viewing, be it after the embalming or without embalming. Mm-hmm. You don't have to be embalmed Pete to have a, what we call a private viewing.

[00:01:54] Mike O'Connell: And so there is a litany of things that we do. [00:02:00] From trim their nails. I mean, did you ever, I mean, honestly, did you ever think that we trim nails or we clean. You know, the, the cuticles or the dirt behind the nails. 

[00:02:10] Pete Waggoner (Host): Honestly, I've wondered, and my assumption was, I kind of figured, but really? Oh, wow. Well, yeah, because, you know, I, I look, I've, you know, obviously Catholic, very Catholic, and you see a lot of rosaries and things in hands.

[00:02:24] Pete Waggoner (Host): Mm-hmm. Like that. And so you notice it and you, and you say, oh, their hands are in good shape. And then my mind goes, I wonder if they were, when they passed away. And so you'll actually work on the nails. Absolutely. 

[00:02:38] Mike O'Connell: So we will take, you know, your nail cutter, which has that one end, I don't know what it's called, but we'll clean behind the nails.

[00:02:45] Mike O'Connell: We'll trim them and we'll take a brush and brush 'em. Wow. And then for, for males, if you know, sometimes your hands. Tell a story, right? If you're a [00:03:00] construction guy that just is working with your hands, like I've got calluses on my hands. I don't think you do because you probably don't work very hard.

[00:03:09] Mike O'Connell: But, you know, that's neither here nor there. But right on, right on you. You don't wanna change the integrity of somebody because of your how do I say this? Your, envision of what they should look like. Another words, let's say that somebody has, you know them because they have a bushy mustache that goes over the lips and with some nose hairs, okay?

[00:03:40] Mike O'Connell: Right. Now we may trim that, but if we completely cut it up because we think it needs to look more more. Tidy or more, you know, precise, well, that's not them, right? Right on. Now we can wash it and comb [00:04:00] it and brush it and put beard, you know, sa in there and treat it that way. But it's not what we think they should look like.

[00:04:10] Mike O'Connell: If that's who they are, that's who they are. 

[00:04:13] Pete Waggoner (Host): Do you ever have conversations with people who may say, yeah, you know, he or she kind of lost track of their hygiene and let things go? This is how they look now. Mm-hmm. But can you clean that up a little bit? Do you ever run into that? Oh, absolutely. 

[00:04:33] Mike O'Connell: I can't tell you.

[00:04:34] Mike O'Connell: It's, it's in the hundreds Really? How many times people come up and they say they haven't looked this good in years, and they're relieved. Wow. Because they haven't they haven't maybe taken care of their hair as much or something. And it's not, that's not a negative dig on the person. No, no, no. It just may be because of their health and different things.

[00:04:54] Mike O'Connell: So, and again, we'll talk about embalming at a different time, but what we do in that [00:05:00] process makes the next step of preparing so much easier. The tint, the texture. Embalming, you know, we're here at a wood table. You can make somebody very, very rigid or you can give 'em pliability, so we never know that.

[00:05:22] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. And so it's, it's the preparations before that really make the next step that much more difficult. Or that much more easy. And that just speaks to the experience, the professionalism, the reputation of, you know, some places that you go to and, and they look good, or other ones you don't like. 'cause I've never been there and I didn't see anybody I liked.

[00:05:51] Mike O'Connell: Now that's not to say that everybody's gonna be looking like a million bucks, it just. Isn't possible. Right? It [00:06:00] depends on a lot of different things, whether they're medications, if somebody's on different medications that responds to our preparations of e embalming differently, sometimes that goes negative.

[00:06:13] Pete Waggoner (Host): Do you ever do you have like a listing of those so you know, I mean, can you change a, if there's a form we're getting in the, yeah, but, but I mean, do, do you, long story 

[00:06:22] Mike O'Connell: short is Yeah. I, it's the experience that goes along with it Right on. And so that sets up a person to succeed when the time is taken, when the little details are appreciated at the time.

[00:06:36] Mike O'Connell: So then after that, we then will put you know, what we call massage cream or a lotion on them, on their hands and their arms and their, and their face. Because you and I sitting here, Pete. We're alive and our body is working to, for that homeostasis to keep everything working and, and just perfectly. And that means we don't [00:07:00] have dry skin.

[00:07:02] Mike O'Connell: When our bodies no longer ceased to work. They want to dry out. There's nothing that's keeping them, it's the moisture is, is bleeding them. Mm-hmm. So then we make sure, partially with embalming again, but we make sure that they're. Their tissues, their skin is moisturized, the best it can be. Right? Because once that tissue, how long does that last, do you think when that tissue dries though?

[00:07:28] Pete Waggoner (Host): Yeah. 

[00:07:28] Mike O'Connell: We're in trouble, right? We are in trouble. What happens? It will get almost a leathery appearance that doesn't want to adhere to anything. Oh yeah. And now that then speaks to how long it takes for us to get somebody, especially when it's trauma. Or there's in question when they do an autopsy, so there might be a delay from the time they were found.

[00:07:53] Mike O'Connell: And then another delay from the time that the autopsy occurred. And then another delay. By the time they call [00:08:00] us to say, you can take him into your care, that could be four days. Now we are behind the eight ball. 

[00:08:06] Pete Waggoner (Host): You're 

[00:08:07] Mike O'Connell: time is ticking and, and. You know, that's what's really difficult. And I remember we had a podcast before that we talked about being overwhelming and, and funeral directors were just always trying to be perfect.

[00:08:18] Mike O'Connell: And when you have someone that's been four days deceased and you're trying to make them look like the picture, that's really, really, really hard. And they're not going to be like the picture. Exactly. You can work things great, but you're not a miracle worker either. At the same time, I always say I'm a mortician, not a magician.

[00:08:35] Mike O'Connell: Exactly, 

[00:08:36] Pete Waggoner (Host): yes. So when you get into the the, the, the creams that you're talking about and, and, and the nails and, and, and, and everything, do you bring in professionals or is that pretty much on you and your staff? You're talking to 'em, you're the guy.

[00:08:52] Mike O'Connell: Yep. So, so I'm not just a pretty face Pete. I'm really not.

[00:08:57] Mike O'Connell: I mean, I am, but I'm not. Right. I actually, [00:09:00] I will do everything from start to finish Last night, that take last night I was on a call down past Winona, and so I'm on that call. Then we try to have follow through, meaning that you meet them for the arrangements. And then that person works the funeral.

[00:09:21] Mike O'Connell: So there's follow through. Bigger corporations just have one person that do removals. They have one person that just does the arrangements and another team that does the funerals. But we feel it's important to have that continuity of 

[00:09:35] Pete Waggoner (Host): continual of care. So the process of preparing for viewing, how long does it, I know it depends, but average.

[00:09:46] Pete Waggoner (Host): Is that like a half a day process? How long does it take? And, and that pulls you away from your other work too.

[00:09:53] Mike O'Connell: It, you know, it's a process. It's not, usually you start and finish. You might do a little [00:10:00] bit here and come back to it. 'cause some things need to kind of gel a little bit. Mm-hmm. And, and my dad always said one thing too, is sometimes, you know, you just want just write, just write.

[00:10:14] Mike O'Connell: And he would say, you got, you gotta walk away. You gotta walk away and get some fresh air and come back. It'll look different than it'll be different, but if you keep looking, it just isn't, it's just not gonna bode well for you. So 

[00:10:27] Pete Waggoner (Host): in a way, it's almost like doing something creative, you know, if you're doing that painting over there and it's not going where you, you want it, so you need to walk away from it.

[00:10:35] Pete Waggoner (Host): Yep. Clear your mind. I mean, compare this to that, but 

[00:10:38] Mike O'Connell: Yep. 

[00:10:38] Pete Waggoner (Host): It's that clear the mind process. 

[00:10:40] Mike O'Connell: Exactly. That is necessary. You don't need to answer this question if you don't want to, but I'll ask it. Okay. Is it tough when you're doing that with someone you may know? Yeah. Yes. 

[00:10:51] Mike O'Connell: It, I mean, yeah.

[00:10:52] Mike O'Connell: Okay. So the answer, the short answer to that is yes. Right now there's certain things I can and I [00:11:00] can't do. I will not embalm someone close to me. 

[00:11:04] Pete Waggoner (Host): Right. 

[00:11:04] Mike O'Connell: I just, that to me now, other directors have. 

[00:11:07] Pete Waggoner (Host): Ooh. 

[00:11:07] Mike O'Connell: Whether it's their parents, whether it's their, and I just think, I don't know how you could do that. Yeah.

[00:11:12] Mike O'Connell: That to me is just a little too barbaric for me Now, cosmetics I've been blessed to have a good team here and so I have them help with very close loved ones like my brother and my parents. But I'm part of that process because I know how they looked and what I want, and I can either help or empower them too.

[00:11:36] Mike O'Connell: But yes. That's extremely difficult. You know, there's been, you know, we talked to the deceased. It's not like, what was that? HBO show? Seven, six feet under. Yeah. You know, they were talking to the deceased and, and that show, the deceased talked back. But I've talked to people. I have, I'll be honest, and I'll be like, I cannot believe you are here.

[00:11:55] Mike O'Connell: This is crazy. I don't know what, this is nuts and I'm. [00:12:00] I'm intimidated. I'm, I'm, I just want this right for you 

[00:12:04] Pete Waggoner (Host): and your family. I'm such a, I'm such a believer that they can hear you, whether you're saying it out loud or I, I believe there's that connection that that's occurring, which is really interesting.

[00:12:13] Pete Waggoner (Host): Like, I believe that, and I, I'm sure you probably feel that. 

[00:12:17] Mike O'Connell: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:18] Pete Waggoner (Host): That's really, okay. So I, I've apologized 

[00:12:22] Mike O'Connell: have you to the deceased when I remember a young girl that was killed and it was just. There was a lot of trauma and I'm just like, I'm so sorry. And I felt really, mm-hmm. I felt a lot of compassion for her and then trying to put the pieces back together again for her family.

[00:12:38] Mike O'Connell: And I just remember having that conversation with her. Now, if somebody walked in and saw me, they probably think I'm cocoa for Cocoa Puffs. Said, maybe I am. But I think it's part of our processing that we're, we're trying to process this really difficult traumatic situation, right. We're talking to them.

[00:12:55] Mike O'Connell: Because that gets an out. That that's, I think that makes perfect sense to [00:13:00] me because when you're by yourself, if you were with me, we're working on, I could say, God, Pete, I just can't believe this, but wait, we're we, you and I 

[00:13:06] Pete Waggoner (Host): would be conversing and doing it together. That's one thing. But when you're by yourself at two in the morning, you've gotta get it out.

[00:13:11] Pete Waggoner (Host): Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. Mm-hmm. Okay. Wow, that's, thanks for taking on that question. Yeah. Okay. So, one thing you told me is that the only thing you don't do is hair. 

[00:13:21] Mike O'Connell: Well, for good reason, right? I mean, I don't have any no I, it's called a serologist, that's a technical term. And so we have people that have agreed to come in and do women's hair or men's hair for that matter, or cut them or what have you.

[00:13:40] Mike O'Connell: But as a general rule, funeral directors don't do hair. Mm-hmm. Now, I have seen some women do some touchups. Right. Because they know how to guys don't Yeah. We get up, we comb it if we're lucky right. And move on our day. But but I've seen some female directors that are able to do some light [00:14:00] hair, but even they know that it would be time well spent to have someone come in that does that, that's comfortable with that, that can do the hair itself.

[00:14:09] Mike O'Connell: Wow. Okay. And, and we do, you know, we'll rinse. And dye it, the hair, we'll cut it and style it. You know, with our beauticians that come 

[00:14:19] Pete Waggoner (Host): in. That's incredible. Okay, so then that comes back to the clothes next step. Is this true that you cut clothes to put 'em on? Or how does that work? How do you get the clothes on?

[00:14:32] Pete Waggoner (Host): That's 

[00:14:32] Mike O'Connell: one of the myths that I can't stand. And I find it very disrespectful. When a funeral home arbitrarily cuts clothes, you're being lazy. It's unprofessional, I feel, and so I will do everything in my power to dress them. Now, let's say I had your clothes. Mm-hmm. I could have you dressed in five minutes without altering anything.

[00:14:56] Mike O'Connell: Right on. Now, some families will say, oh my [00:15:00] gosh, he hasn't been in this suit since he graduated, or the wedding or what have you, and it's been 20 years. And so they, they want you to cut it. And I will tell them we can alter it if we have to, but we don't want to. 

[00:15:18] Pete Waggoner (Host): She wanted as intact as possible. 

[00:15:20] Mike O'Connell: Abso And that's only because outta respect 

[00:15:22] Pete Waggoner (Host): Right on.

[00:15:24] Mike O'Connell: If you're just gonna cut it to throw it on somebody just put a blanket over 'em. Yeah. And I just, I, that's one of my biggest pet peeves. I've seen that when I was back in school doing practicums. Oh, really? And seeing people do that, it's like. And I remember somebody telling me, yeah, you're not at O'Connell's.

[00:15:40] Mike O'Connell: And I said, you're damn right you're not. No, because I just wouldn't be allowed, I never saw my dad do that, or my brother. And we just, that's a, a, a non-starter 

[00:15:50] Pete Waggoner (Host): for me. That that's a hard now. Okay, so how about in terms of the clothes or how people wanna look? Do they put that into pre-planning at all?

[00:15:59] Pete Waggoner (Host): Say, [00:16:00] Hey, you know, I wanna, I want this on me.

[00:16:02] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. Okay. So to answer the question in general is we always tell people a full set of clothing, okay? Mm-hmm. People say Underwear. Yeah. Do you need pants? I'm like, yes. Oh, you do? I'm like, yeah, well, yeah, it's open. I always joking. I say, well, that's not the last thing I want to see when I'm closing the casket.

[00:16:20] Mike O'Connell: So yes, I want underwear just to joke them a little bit. But yeah. I always say I want them dressed as if they were gonna walk into their own funeral. 

[00:16:28] Pete Waggoner (Host): Right on. That's 

[00:16:28] Mike O'Connell: outta respect again. 

[00:16:29] Pete Waggoner (Host): Yeah. 

[00:16:30] Mike O'Connell: Now somebody will say, well, they never wore shoes. They were slippers. Okay. Bring 'em. Whatever they were. Yep.

[00:16:38] Mike O'Connell: And so that's what we tell 'em about clothes. Now some people do when they are pre-planning, as you said, they know what they wanna wear. Mm-hmm. And they all, maybe it's the same dress they wore at grandson's wedding. Or something. And it's been hundreds of times too, that I'll, we'll go on a call and they'll say, well, mother had her dress.

[00:16:59] Mike O'Connell: [00:17:00] It's right here. She had it labeled my funeral. And so it's all set, right? That's par for the course. Let's go. Let's go. And so that's fantastic because it tells me that they gave it some thought, 

[00:17:11] Pete Waggoner (Host): right? 

[00:17:13] Mike O'Connell: And so I love when somebody gives it thought. And so I'll also tell people that you don't need to go out and buy clothes.

[00:17:22] Mike O'Connell: Especially when families are already struggling. Right on. You don't need to buy clothes to make them appear to be someone they're not. Right. If it's a sweatshirt I've given some of my clothes to some people. They didn't have any and they didn't have the funds, and so I've said, you know what? It looks like my size.

[00:17:41] Mike O'Connell: Can I give you a shirt or a pair of pants or something? And they're like, sure. Yeah, that'd be great. And so we've done that too. Wow. Back in the old days, Pete funeral homes had a tire as if it was something to buy, like a casket or flowers or different things, and you'd [00:18:00] actually buy an outfit. You could pick out a suit or whatever.

[00:18:02] Mike O'Connell: That's 

[00:18:03] Pete Waggoner (Host): crazy. I just, I, can you imagine that? No, no. I can. Wow, that's crazy. So these are all little details you really don't think about. No. And if somebody brings in a tattered shirt, we're

[00:18:15] Mike O'Connell: gonna wash it and we're gonna iron it. Right on. That's just what we do. The little details that, you know, like having a casket on a church truck and it's, we gotta move it a half a centimeter to the right because it just doesn't look right.

[00:18:29] Mike O'Connell: Mm-hmm. You know, that's what we're doing. Right. For the most part, all funeral doctors are detail oriented and we just want to make sure it's done right. Right. And we're a little anal 

[00:18:40] Pete Waggoner (Host): retentive too. Well, that sounds important. It is. How many people comment to the appearance? I'm sure you hear plenty of great things or, you know, however.

[00:18:52] Pete Waggoner (Host): You know, as the process is finishing out and maybe you're going to a cemetery, how many people comment on the [00:19:00] appearance part? Is that very little or does that happen? 

[00:19:02] Mike O'Connell: Hmm, 

[00:19:03] Pete Waggoner (Host): that's a great question. 

[00:19:04] Mike O'Connell: I guess I've never given it a mo a lot of thought, but it would, when a family says it doesn't, they look good, but it doesn't just look like mom or dad.

[00:19:16] Mike O'Connell: The two things that they're gonna gravitate back to are their hair. Maybe not just part of the right way, if it's their dad or their smile or their facial feature, that those are the two things that make or break. Mm-hmm. For the most part. And you and I are standing here and we have muscles that are working right now as we speak right on to keep us upright, to keep us, and to keep my jaws where they're at.

[00:19:46] Mike O'Connell: And so when somebody dies, all that goes back. And you can't pull it out, it's gravity. Now you can hold certain parts of the body together, like their lips, like [00:20:00] their eyes. And when you embalm, they stay in that, that that location of where you put them.

[00:20:06] Pete Waggoner (Host): Right. 

[00:20:06] Mike O'Connell: So they can serve as the muscle, so to speak, 

[00:20:09] Pete Waggoner (Host): after you place 

[00:20:10] Mike O'Connell: it.

[00:20:11] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. Like if you're gonna, if you want the, the mouth to have just a little bit of a grin maybe, and not so flat. You can kind of just hold their lip up. Mm-hmm. As in to make 'em smile while you're embalming to help set that. Yeah. Especially when you know him. Right on. Wow. Now, some people you think, well, I don't think I've ever seen him smile.

[00:20:33] Mike O'Connell: Right. This guy's perpetually upset. Right. You okay? That goes back to what I said in the beginning is then you don't want them to look like what you think they should look like. That's not them. 

[00:20:44] Pete Waggoner (Host): You mentioned that you do a little bit of your own AI in mm-hmm. Piecing this all together. What does that look 

[00:20:53] Mike O'Connell: like?

[00:20:54] Mike O'Connell: Well, if someone is, and you don't know them and you don't have a picture, yeah. You know, sometimes we'll [00:21:00] even, we'll even creep on Facebook for sure. To see if we can find a picture. Yeah. If the family doesn't have one right off hand, but you'll look at them and you'll say, okay. And they'll tell you, well, they've lost 50 pounds in the last year, or they've lost, you know, X amount.

[00:21:15] Mike O'Connell: And so you have to kind of visualize what they would have looked like when you embalm or prep them. And so the different fluids that we'll get into another one that, but some are more lotion like that, try to fill that out subtly. Mm-hmm. And so yeah. It's, you have to use kind of your own internal AI to think what would they look like with that pounds back on right.

[00:21:44] Mike O'Connell: When they were standing and talking and smiling. So are you 

[00:21:47] Pete Waggoner (Host): saying, if I'm hearing this correctly, through embalming, you can kind of add a little bit more weight, I don't wanna say weight, but more of a Yeah, yeah. You know, like [00:22:00] in the face more filled out, just a little bit. It, so it's not as like a little bit,

[00:22:02] Mike O'Connell: there's some, there's some, procedures and experience that you can use to do that subtly without, wow. That'd be hard. I think it's not easy. Yeah. But you got directors that are very good at it and some that aren't. 

[00:22:17] Pete Waggoner (Host): Does that reputation get out to the public or is that more of an internal thing where you got, you guys know who's good and not so good?

[00:22:27] Pete Waggoner (Host): It's 

[00:22:27] Mike O'Connell: more reputation is from facility to facility. Okay. Internally, you know, you know who is, you know, with everyone, whether it's arrangements or whether it's the, the bodies or the cosmetics or lips or different things like that. But you know, the strengths of everyone. Mm-hmm. And I've stepped back on, you know, several occasions too, to have someone come and help me because I knew I needed a different perspective, a different look, a different set of hands on this.

[00:22:57] Mike O'Connell: 'cause I was struggling. [00:23:00] Wow. 

[00:23:00] Pete Waggoner (Host): Stuff you would never, ever think about. 

[00:23:03] Mike O'Connell: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:04] Pete Waggoner (Host): This is very fascinating for me. Is there a certain timeframe, and we kind of mentioned on that, you know, you said like it takes time to get there, but what is the ideal timeframe as far as viewing a body? 

[00:23:20] Mike O'Connell: It comes from when we make the first removal and we ask a family that, have you thought about seeing them again?

[00:23:28] Mike O'Connell: And if they say, we're not quite sure yet, if we're gonna do the preparation time is of essence, and that's why we're trying to get an answer. Because the best situation is as soon as we can start. That's why it's tough when we don't get a call for four days from the medical examiner because. They're doing tests or whatever.

[00:23:48] Mike O'Connell: Now we are really fighting going upstream. Right? And so that is key to it. So if, if someone is embalmed, we've had, I remember my dad and I [00:24:00] had a, a situation where there was a car accident and the wife was killed and the husband was still alive, but it was in hospital for four months. Mm. It was horrible.

[00:24:12] Mike O'Connell: We were able to have a viewing for her. Four months later. Legit. Yep. Now, that went with a lot of preparations and work to keep that happening, even because of the, like we talked about earlier, the dehydration and the changes that can occur. You 

[00:24:31] Pete Waggoner (Host): know, do you get yourself in a position then for something drawn out like that?

[00:24:36] Pete Waggoner (Host): Where do you have to say. We have to go back in and keep doing a process. Mm-hmm. And how long is it for you to keep that up over that four month period of time? Well, it w 

[00:24:45] Mike O'Connell: constant. It wasn't that you could come back and a month later and check No, it was constant. Oh yeah. Constant, constant. But we, we knew that we needed to do that for him.

[00:24:58] Mike O'Connell: That's amazing. 'cause he had no recollection [00:25:00] of the accident and just it was something he needed to. Process. What was the result 

[00:25:05] Pete Waggoner (Host): after he is able to view her? Was, was it well worth it? Absolutely not. You know, I can't, it probably saved Life was emotional for everybody. It probably saved him. 

[00:25:16] Mike O'Connell: It was emotional for everybody.

[00:25:17] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. That's crazy. Now, the one thing about viewing when we don't do an embalming and what, we have what's called a private view. And a private view, it does not have an embalming does not have a casket. It's a, for a family to simply say goodbye. They weren't able to get to the hospital or the nursing home, or when somebody dies and the medical examiner's involved, and there's an autopsy that is, it's not that it's criminal, but they have their procedurals that they have to take that body as soon as possible out of that scene.

[00:25:48] Mike O'Connell: So sometimes they'll say, well, no, you we're not having a viewing right now. We need to take him to the medical examiner. And so families don't get a chance to say goodbye. Yeah, and especially when it's traumatic like [00:26:00] that, they need to have some sort of finality. There's no closure. We've talked about that.

[00:26:05] Mike O'Connell: I know. Mm-hmm. But there's gotta be some finality. And so we'll have what we call a private view. Now there's steps in that, and in that situation where there's an autopsy, we do have to do invasive things to, you know, when they're done with the autopsy, we have to sew them back up. I was gonna ask about that.

[00:26:22] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. And that takes a lot of time. I say, is that tricky? Because the, there's no life in the skin. No, it's not tricky that way. Okay. But you're not embalming. There's not the same texture of the skin. And so time is of essence there. What I mean by that is changes are current. Wow. Rapidly at some times, if it's four days, it's rapidly.

[00:26:45] Mike O'Connell: If it's four hours, not as much. Right? And so you only have a certain window to have what we call that private view because changes can occur. It's pretty stunning how fast that goes. And the biggest thing that would deter a private [00:27:00] viewing is gas. To be honest, and the gases that when cells break down, one of their byproducts is, is like carbon dioxide and Oh geez.

[00:27:10] Mike O'Connell: And different things. And that's why when people drowned and they find 'em three days later, it's because of the gases they accumulated and that's what brought 'em to the surface. Yeah. So when that happens to a body that can make somebody either swell or. Make changes with their internal organs that, that make the viewing, I'll just leave it that way.

[00:27:35] Mike O'Connell: That makes it very it can't happen. Right. Because of the changes that occur and the, and the release of body fluids, we'll call it. That's crazy. What else do you wanna cover with us? Did I miss anything? No, I just, that really, so society has been on. You know, they, they don't wanna say, I've have heard this a [00:28:00] million times.

[00:28:00] Mike O'Connell: I, you know, I'd rather just remember them. Mm-hmm. We all would. Right. For some people seeing the body is paramount for their, for their healing and the foundation from them, which they work off of, and so we, it's rare that we would tell a family that we don't think you should be them, because it just is, is super healing.

[00:28:19] Mike O'Connell: Is it difficult? Hell yeah. 

[00:28:21] Pete Waggoner (Host): Yeah. 

[00:28:21] Mike O'Connell: What isn't. But the problem is, is you don't see the, the negative effects of not saying goodbye until months or years later and you don't put the two and two together that it's because you didn't 

[00:28:33] Pete Waggoner (Host): say goodbye. In the moment, you don't know. It sounds like in the moment you don't know, you didn't say goodbye until later.

[00:28:40] Pete Waggoner (Host): It'll, there's 

[00:28:41] Mike O'Connell: a book called The Body Keeps the Score. And it remembers and it comes back in the most inopportune times. And when grief goes sideways, it affects those that are closest to us for sure. And 

[00:28:53] Pete Waggoner (Host): that's our relationships. Well, and that's the one thing that you talk about here at O'Connell Funeral Homes.



[00:28:59] Pete Waggoner (Host): Be sure to [00:29:00] check us out at O'Connell funeral homes.com. You say our service, honor, love, loyalty, and friendship, which is relationship, which is really fantastic. So. I don't know, Michael. I found this very interesting. We've never covered this topic before. This is new. 

[00:29:17] Mike O'Connell: Well, we'll delve into embalming and cremation by itself and its own podcasts.

[00:29:23] Pete Waggoner (Host): I've got, that's gonna be an hour long podcast. I, it's gonna be, yeah. I'll have a million questions. I promise I have a million answers. That's the way it should be. Hey, thanks for joining us here today. Thank you, Pete.

[00:29:37] Pete Waggoner (Host): Okay, perfect, because I probably hurt right there. I bet. Is that her? No. I, well, maybe 

[00:29:47] Mike O'Connell: Yeah. Would be ten two.