50+ Lifestyles

Do What You Like, Like What You Do

By David W. Deuth, CFSP
President, Weerts Funeral Home

Over the past nearly three decades, I’ve had my share of plentiful and curious questions about my life’s work. Some questions pertain to legalities and protocols. Some pertain to the technical aspects of embalming and, more recently, cremation and pet cremation. Still others pertain to whether something they saw in a movie or television show is “really the way it is”.

And, as you’d probably expect, there are more than few jokes and one-liners, too; I’m pretty sure I’ve heard most of them.

One particular question, however, is asked of me more than any other: Why?? Why in the world do you do this? Isn’t is depressing?

Let me say that I do enjoy my work. It’s an honor and privilege to assist people on some of the most challenging days in their lives. I also enjoy all the questions and the varied perspectives. The opportunity to educate people about something so vitally important – and something most people know little about – is something else I sincerely appreciate.

And I really enjoy the question of “why” because I typically have three parts to my response:
First, I respond with gratitude for a hometown funeral director who not only inspired me to do this work but also inspired me to make funeral service a ministry to others. Thank you, Pete Lindquist. Rest in peace.

Second, I like to let people know that there are three things upon which I predicate my work that makes it meaningful to me: 1). To honor the one who has died; 2). To honor God; and 3). To create a meaningful experience for the family.

And third, I tell people that there is one other very important reason that I do what I do – and that is because my wife, Linda, is a first grade teacher. And there is NO WAY that I can do that. Most chuckle when they hear this last part of my response – it’s tongue-in-cheek to be sure – but in many respects I couldn’t be more serious.

Have you ever thought about how we all have different talents, gifts, bends and abilities? And isn’t a great thing? Linda was the oldest child in her family, I was the youngest in mine. As she got older and their family grew, she, like many first-borns, helped her parents with certain aspects of raising the younger ones – seed-planting, if you will, for a potential future bend toward teaching. Unless I’d count our dogs, I didn’t have that responsibility – or opportunity – as the youngest.

Linda has little interest – OK, no interest – in being a funeral director. And that’s good, because she’s truly gifted at teaching little people. Our daughter, Maddy, and our daughter-in-law, Raven, are both teachers now as well. They’re gifted this way, too. I am not. And that’s OK. Likewise, it’s probably safe to say that most people have no interest in doing everything we do here at the funeral home. And that’s OK, too – we’ve got this.

Someone once wisely stated, “Do what you like…and like what you do.” Perhaps a good second stanza might be “Do what you’re good at…and be good at what you do.”
Whatever it is. – Remember Well.

David W. Deuth, CFSP, is the owner of Weerts Funeral Home in Davenport and RiverBend Cremation and Quad Cities Pet Cremation in Bettendorf. He can be reached at 563.424.7055 or by email at Dave@WeertsFH.com