Lauren Carroll is one-half of the death wives. As a green funeral director and death educator, Lauren is often steeped in death culture. Lauren was 14 when she lost her 27-year-old uncle in a drunk-driving accident. In this episode, we dive into the initial loss that catalyzed and shaped her career and the lessons she learned along the way. Check out our bonus episode where Lauren discusses human composting, water cremation, home funerals, and various other topics.
For more information on Voicemails for the Dead please visit: www.voicemailsforthedead.com
Leave a Voicemail: 720-828-2023
Lauren Carroll is one-half of the death wives. As a green funeral director and death educator, Lauren is often steeped in death culture. Lauren was 14 when she lost her 27-year-old uncle in a drunk-driving accident. In this episode, we dive into the initial loss that catalyzed and shaped her career and the lessons she learned along the way. Check out our bonus episode where Lauren discusses human composting, water cremation, home funerals, and various other topics.
For more information on Voicemails for the Dead please visit: www.voicemailsforthedead.com
Leave a Voicemail: 720-828-2023
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- Hello friend, you've reached Voicemails for the Dead. Please leave your message after the tone.
(beep)
- Welcome back to another episode of Voicemails for the Dead. This episode we are joined by a very special guest, Lauren Carroll, who is on half of the Death Wives. We'll be airing a bonus episode where Lauren and I dive into green funerals, human body composting, and a variety of other really interesting topics. So definitely stay tuned for that.
Lauren, we'll be listening to your voicemail in just a minute, but first I wanted to know... you are a green funeral director, and I have to assume that that's not something you knew you wanted to do from a very young age. So how did you get into this world?
- Oh boy. So I was definitely like a spooky kid. That's what my mom always told me. My favorite movie in third grade was Pet Sematary. I loved all the spooky stories. I would record myself singing songs about hearses. So I always liked death and dark things. But then when I was 13, as you're gonna hear in the recording, my uncle was killed in a car accident. And I took a giant, just, what do they call it, 180? And I don't think our family had a healthy space to grieve. And so my grief turned into fear. And so all of a sudden now death scared me. Hated hearses. If a hearse went by, if I drove past a cemetery, I'd have to hold my breath. I was like the gothic girl at school who would absolutely never step foot in a cemetery. And I always loved telling people this story because they're like, wait, what? Like, how is this possible?
And I think that that's really a testimony to grief and how much it took me away from what I kind of was always interested in and now turned into a fear.
So my senior year of high school, I had a boyfriend who, of course, I told you, I was like the gothic girl. So my boyfriend is gonna be the cool gothic guy. And he worked at this local funeral home and pretty much was like, " "Hey, will you come help?" And I was like, "No. Like, you know that I can't." I actually worked at a florist my senior year and had to deliver flowers to a funeral and it was an open casket. And I put the flowers next to the casket, ran out, and then just sobbed in the van. Like, that's how terrified I was of anything to do with death. And so at first, I said no. And then he said, well, you could just type death certificates. This is how old I am. Back then we typed our death certificates on a typewriter, which was so annoying.
So I never saw bodies, never dealt with families, nothing. One day everyone was gone at a funeral. We got a first call, meaning somebody had died. And it was a full-term, stillborn baby. And they said, hey, this is an easy call. Can you just run and get this baby really quick? And I'm like, "What? No, what are you talking about?"
"Like, it's easy. We have a big box in the back room. Just grab it. You'll drive to the hospital, tell them that you're here, and bring them back."
And I was like, okay, I'm going to do this because I have to, I'm going to do it. And I'm like pumping myself up. I went into the back room and I was like, I'm not gonna put a baby in a box. I was only 19 at the time, but still, that didn't feel right to me. So I grabbed a blanket that we had and brought that. And I got to the hospital, went up to the front, told them who I was. And then the nurse was like, okay, what did you bring for him? And I gave her just a blanket. And she kind of looked at me like, huh. And then she said, that's really sweet. And in my head, I'm like, why is that so sweet? Like what do other people do? And so she brought out this full-term baby, completely swaddled. Their face was completely swaddled too, but I mean, it just looked like a baby. So I, she put him in my arms and I quickly ran out of the hospital because I was so scared that somebody would realize the whole thing. When I think back, it was so surreal. How did I do that? What was I thinking?
But then I got into my car and I put the baby in the seat right next to me and I buckled it in because I didn't know what else to do. And then I was like, okay, let's like put on a lullaby or something. So I put on Frank Sinatra's, "Would You Like to Swing on a Star?" And then I just kind of sat there, terrified and shaking. And then all of a sudden the whole energy changed. It was like, I could feel all the love that the parents had been putting into this baby. It filled my car. I was like, oh my gosh. And then all of a sudden it was like when my uncle died, I was like terrified. And then all of a sudden I was like, this is it. These people loved this child so much. And now they're trusting me to take care of it. Like, oh my God. Like it just, all of a sudden it was, it changed my life. And so I brought him back. I met with the family just, you know, to say hi and let them know I was the one who came and got him. And I don't know, it was just, that was it for me. I was like, I want to help people because they don't know what else to do. And at the time I didn't realize families could do it themselves. Cause that's the ultimate good. Like that's the ultimate number one is to have the family be able to step forward and say, we're going to bring our baby home. We're going to keep him at home for a few days so we can spend time with him and dress him and put him in his nursery that he was supposed to be going into. You can do that, but a lot of people don't know that they can. Just knowing how loved somebody is and that I get to now carry that love over was really powerful for me. I started working at the funeral home, doing the services and interacting more with the bodies and the families.
And then I moved to Colorado and was immediately hired as a funeral director for SCI, which is a corporation. And that also boggled my mind. Cause I hadn't gone to mortuary school yet, nothing. They were just like, oh yeah, we'll hire you. So those are my three majors: my uncle dying, the baby, and then working for a corporate funeral home because everything was packages and everything costs so much money and people would have to separate their credit cards to try and pay this bill. And then I just saw them grieve in such a packaged way almost too of not knowing what to do, having no participation or part of it, and paying way too much money. But I loved it. I loved meeting the families, but I hated working for a corporation.
So that's how I got here.
- I know you just left this voicemail the other day, so it's probably still fresh on your mind, but let's take a listen.
(gentle music)
(gentle music)
- It's been 27 years and it's still surreal. And that's what we tell people all the time in grief. It's like, there's no timeline. Don't be hard on yourself. Like here I am.
I think about him when I teach because I share his story sometimes of like, this is how I got here. I was the girl who was scared of death. But honestly, like we haven't done anything for him. I usually call my grandma on his birthday and this is gonna send a little woo-woo, but like when my grandma died, when my great grandpa died, they would visit me in my dreams. And my grandma had lots of experiences with her dead loved ones, but he's never showed up for any of us. And that has also been weird and hard.
And yeah, it's just wild that he was only 27 and that this year marks 27 years that he's been gone. Like his whole life again. Like I said in the voicemail, he was the fun, funny uncle. You know, everyone in the family has like the really funny one. So losing that just also took like sparkle away. It's like, well, who's gonna entertain us at Christmas?
All that kind of stuff. So yeah, I didn't have my kids until 14 years ago. So it's not like he was ever around or anything like that, but they've met all of their family and it just still always feels like, but you're missing that one piece.
- Well, and you guys' age gap wouldn't have been that different. It would have been 14 years, which is kind of rare to have with an uncle. I'd imagine he held an interesting space for you.
- Yeah, he was the one who introduced me to X-Files, which is still my favorite show to this day. I mean, it's really, I feel really lucky to have had like, yeah, an uncle that was kind of close to me in age. And also when I would stay at my grandparents' house, he would always come home super late because he was a bartender and he would be like, hey, wanna watch X-Files? And it'd be like one o'clock in the morning. I'd be like, yeah, like it was just cool, you know? And his, my other uncle was his best friend. And so they worked at the bar together and they did everything together. So it was always just really fun, to go out with them and just be treated like you're cool. You know?
(laughs)
So I missed out on that. And then my little sister, she's 10 years younger than me, but he treated her almost like his baby. And they probably have more pictures together than me and him because they just had so much fun. And it makes me sad because my sister has all those pictures, but she hardly remembers him because she was four when he died. I guess I haven't really talked to her about her grief. Maybe that's something we should do.
It's just one of those things, I think, my fear of death came from the fact that it was a shock. Like I, I'll never forget hearing my grandma's voice. Like I could hear her heartbroken and she was trying to sound normal and say, can I talk to your mom? And I knew that something horrible had happened. Like that's all she said, but I could hear in her voice. And so I went in our family, Minivan in the garage, and I just sat there waiting because I just could feel that, you know, my mom came out crying and said, there's been an accident and Uncle Steven was dead. And I didn't cry. I totally just like shut down.
I went to my friend's house. We were doing hand carving soap. And I was really into Smashing Pumpkins at the time. So I made a heart with the smashing pumpkin's logo inside of it. And I still have it to this day because I made it the day my uncle died. But then even at the funeral, everything just felt so unlike him. It was a Catholic mass. So not him. We joked, like even his dad joked when they were doing the incense, like, oh God, he would hate this so much. He hates incense, but it was a closed casket. Both of my grandparents didn't get to see him, which is one of those things. I think viewings are really important for the grieving process. Even when somebody's been in a horrific accident, you still know them. You still know what their hand looks like. You still know what the shape of their body looks like, even if you can't see their face. And they didn't get that. And then his body was sent to Louisiana where he's buried and I've never been there. And I think his parents have probably only been there like a handful of times too. One thing after the other of just not really grieving and feeling like I was just in shock. And then probably six months after that is when I started really just having these deep fears around death and dying and like, oh my God, it could happen anytime, anywhere to anyone. And we have no control over it. Now I have comfort in that, which is really strange because I live life fully and happily, but back then, it sucks to be 14 anyways. Like you're confused about life and you're already really emotional. And so I think I just didn't know how to process it. So I never did. And didn't until I was an adult.
- I am curious, why have you never visited?
- We went to Louisiana for his sister's wedding and I don't know why we didn't go. And it's one of those things that I always wonder. I do wanna go out next year to New Orleans just cause there's so much death-y stuff out there. So he's not, he's in a different parish, but I wanna go. I'm gonna just see him. My mom knows that that's like on my bucket list.
- What were your models for grief? So, it sounds like your grandmother obviously was trying to keep it from you in that initial phone call a little bit, but did you see different things between your parents. It sounds like you had a decent amount of extended family that was around.
- Yeah, so they lived about three hours away from us and my mom left almost immediately. She didn't really say anything other than like, I'm gonna go up there and we'll see what happens. And so she stayed up, they helped do all the funeral arrangements and then my dad brought me and my brother and sister up later. I wasn't there to see their active grief. I wasn't there to see my grandma cry. And again, I think they both kept it together. And I hate that now as an adult of like, we should have been like ugly sobbing on the ground together, but we didn't. It's weird because like my mom's a hospice chaplain now. My grandma does Holy Communion in the hospitals for people. So we've been around lots of death. We've been around lots of grief, but I think when it comes to your own, especially like this, when it was so unexpected, that it was just, well, now what?
Like, what are we supposed to do with all these feelings? And for me, a 14-year-old, it's a lot easier just be like, (gulp) there they went, bye, I'll never feel this sad again. I'm just gonna keep moving on with my life; this doesn't make any impact. Obviously, it made a huge impact on me, but I didn't really realize that it was his death that had put all this fear in me until I was an adult and I was starting to grieve it. And then when I turned 27, that was like, whoa, I'm as old as he was. I can't believe it. And then as I've gotten older, I always think, well, what would he have done? Would he have had kids? You know, all these things as you outlive your person.
- What was the big catalyst to you finally grieving this?
- Funeral home.
- Okay.
(laughing)
- Yeah, working in the funeral home and just realizing that like grief is love, it's not fear.
- You mentioned in your voicemail, what if he had survived? Was there any opportunity for survival?
- No, it was instant. He went through the windshield and there's a nice little plaque for him and it was a runner who found his body. Again, it was just everything about it. It was just so surreal, you know? The fact that he was at a party where he could have just stayed is still one of those things that'll always, you know, it's like, why? But you just never know. And it had to happen this way, I guess, which is always also hard to say out loud, like, oh, everything happens for a reason. But his death did lead me into this work and I get to help hopefully other families not go through what we went through.
- When did you find out some of those details of what had happened?
- I asked my mom and she was straightforward with me. Again my grandpa is a cardiologist. We have the grossest conversations at the dinner table at Christmas time, like talking about body parts and all that kind of stuff. Death, bodies, blood, all of that is just, it's fine. But when it came to like opening our hearts and being sad, it was really, really hard for all of us to do in front of each other, really. And I mean, maybe my mom tried to make me open up some, but I don't remember.
- It sounds like this was kind of, obviously not your first time talking about death in general with your family, but was that your first kind of intimate instance with it?
- Mm-hmm, yeah. It was our first major, where they weren't elderly, you know, it was our first unnatural death. To this day, on my mom's side, the family is the only one, luckily, so.
- Have there been any other deaths that have happened in the family that have made you kind of revisit how this one happened?
- No, I think I'm lucky that the other deaths that have been in my life have been people who have lived very long, well-lived lives. And so we got to grieve all the memories that we have. I think a lot of grief with my uncle was still like what he didn't get to do and what he missed out on. And so I haven't really had anything to compare it to, other than like in my own personal life, I've had three friends die all unexpectedly. And now as an adult, these were all in the last three to five years, I grieved very well. I cried a lot. We had a going away party for my one friend who was dying of breast cancer. So she was still alive. She was in her hospital bed in the living room, and she just had a big party. We each got in bed with her one by one and told her how much we loved her. So it's like, this is beautiful.
And then same thing when my other friend died, all of our friends got together from all over the United States and went back to our hometown. And it was just really good because we all just cried and we sang songs and we had a band play. So it's like his death has taught me how to do death right and to really unbridle my grief because I held it in for so long and it was not good for me. And I don't think you know that either. If somebody doesn't tell you, "Hey, if you don't grieve right, it's gonna actually be bad for your physical and mental health." You might wanna look into that.
- So I'm curious about things that might have changed the grief process for you. And you mentioned specifically if he had had a room. Obviously, he had the opportunity to stay, it seems like. But if you have known for sure, do you think that would have changed your feelings or opinion or your grief process at all?
- It's hard to say because no matter what, just like any sort of grief, there was a period of time when I was really angry at the beginning because I was like, why didn't you? I don't know if that part will ever leave. Like in my voicemail, I said, I've put myself in that situation too, where he was much drunker than three drinks. What happened to him happens to so many people and that made me really angry too. Like, he should know better, everybody should know better at this point. When I became a funeral director, you would have thought that the drunk driving accidents would be a trigger for me, but they weren't because they were so often. A family of four would die because of one person. So I had a lot of anger around how he died and I still think I do. And I don't know if that has changed the way I grieved about him. I think that was part of what held off that grief for me at the beginning too, was just being like, what were you thinking? You weren't thinking obviously, and you can't help but try and get inside their head over and over again. Nothing's gonna change it. They're still gonna be gone. I think having that anger made me not so sad at the beginning. The anger is still there. I don't know if it'll ever truly go away, just because of how much we missed out on because of one decision.
As I got older too, I just have gotten softer and softer and understanding of this stuff happens and this is life. And he did live for 27 years and he did make us laugh and there was so much love and joy. So I try and focus on that. I think when I left the voicemail, I had totally forgot about all of his characters that he used to do. So that was kind of fun.
- I wonder if there's a part of you, as someone who has seen a lot of these different types of car accident deaths happen, you've heard a lot of those narratives, probably way more than any of the rest of us have, just because of the nature and exposure of your job. Was there a part of you that was like, at least he didn't also kill someone else?
- Yes, and that was something all of our family said over and over and over again. I think that would be really hard for our family to deal with. And so if that would have happened, I think that that would have broken us. So I'm glad it was just him going off a cliff.
(laughs)
I can make fun of it now. And sometime during his funeral, they played this song, which is if every Catholic will know it, it's "I Will Raise You Up On Eagle's Wings." I started giggling during his funeral. My mom was like, "What?" And I was like, "Imagine Uncle Steven right now, riding a giant Eagle, like through the sky." And we were both like, because that was, I mean, having humor would be the best representation of him. So that was my little thing I got to do during his funeral was make a tiny joke.
- In your voicemail, you mentioned, what maybe would have been different if someone had intervened earlier, I couldn't help but think about the fact that you were 13. If anyone was supposed to be intervening, it's not you. Do you think you were even aware of it at that point in time?
- No, of course not. I mean, I thought it was cool that he worked at a bar, like any teenage kid. His death rocked our world. Did he have a drinking problem? Yeah, I think so. When it's an adult, what can you do? Was he an addict? I don't know. I was too young to really see that kind of thing and to know if he was really an alcoholic or if he just liked to party and drink sometimes. But I'm always curious if the accident hadn't killed him. Would he have changed his life? Would he have stopped drinking? Would he have talked about not drinking and driving? You know, all of these, what could have happened?
- Have you told your kids about how he died?
- I've always been open about death and dying with the kids and all the different ways that you can die. And my daughter, she's always just like, "It'll happen, mom. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen in, you know, 50 years, but it's going to happen." I was like, "I know." We've had home funerals for all of our pets. They have a very healthy relationship. I'm very proud of that.
- That is a form of disenfranchised grief -- pet loss.
- That is most likely everybody's first real loss that they'll go through in life. I think it's a huge disservice when families are like, oh, we had to take them to a farm. Or they took them to the vet and they died. And then that's it. Sometimes people don't even cremate their pets. Those pets were so loved. And even if it just seems like, I just don't know what to do with this, it's like, we'll love them one more time and give the opportunity for the kids to say goodbye and to see that their dead animal isn't a scary zombie now. There's no fear over a dead body.
- Do you have any stories of your children responding to pet loss?
- He was a hairless cat. The next morning my son was like, "He's so cold, like ice cream." And I was like, "I know." And he was like, "He's a bird now." just like matter of fact. And I was like, "All right, that's cool Henry. He's a bird now, love it." I mean, I don't think that they know that they're different than most kids because it's just always been part of our lives. They would come to the funeral home with me. And I always joke like my kids have seen more dead bodies than probably all of my friends combined. And they've always been just very reverent. And my son, he prayed over this person once and we are not religious at all. Like I left the Catholic church, never went back, haven't raised my kids in any sort of religion. And so that was really interesting to see. But what I like to tell people is, they've never been scared.
Kids aren't afraid of death, adults are. Because they didn't have the right access to support. And so they kind of just continue this unhealthy relationship with grief instead of welcoming children in at an age where they do normalize it. And they understand that it's okay to sob just as much as it's okay to laugh hysterically.
- One of these days they'll realize that that's different, but I hope it's not too soon.
- They never tell their friends what I do, which is funny. I kind of am cool guys. And they're like, "No."
- I was curious what this process of recording a voicemail was like. You were maybe thinking about recording a voicemail for someone else.
- For my Bobby.
- Yeah, what made you decide?
- She's been gone 12 years. I agree for all the time. The things that I could think of that I could ask her, I feel like I already had all the answers to. And she's the one who has visited me in my dreams and I still smell her sometimes. And then all of a sudden I was like, Uncle Steven, cause it's that time getting close to Easter and April will be 27 years since he died. So it's been good. It's just such a weird grief. It's such a weird grief because it happens so quickly. And I think we all just didn't know what to do. I really wish there was some sort of like shrine or I just feel like we never really set aside anything special other than the Catholic mass. Never had like a celebration of his life or did anything that I think he would have really liked. It's been 27 weird years. And I feel like we're still just touching the tip of the iceberg of our grief.
- Do you think you might do something for him this year since it is 27 years?
- Yeah, I was talking to my mom about it. I'm going out to visit my grandparents in June. And I told my Grammy, "I want to do something for Uncle Steven too." And she's like, okay. I think it'd be fun for us to visit his death site. Maybe fun wasn't the right word. I think it would be healing for us. I've never gotten out of the car. I've only looked at it. And again, that was when I was still younger and I go to visit them in California two or three times a year. And I've never gone back to that site. And I think that I'm ready to again. - And I'm just realizing now, as you're talking about geography, why did he end up in Louisiana?
- That's where they're from originally.
- And was that something that you all knew that he wanted?
- No, no. I was surprised and I was kind of mad too. Like, but we're all out here. Like who cares about family cemeteries? His dad and mom aren't even going to be buried out there. They bought plots in California. So...
- So he's going to be a bit alone.
- I think when his other sister dies that she'll probably be buried there because she's still in Louisiana. So he won't be alone alone. It's just a bummer. I wish I could have a place to go. Just like, you know, sit and have a little chat with him and not leave a voicemail.
But leaving that voicemail was really good because it just, it gave me a little tiny space to be like, what would I say to you right now? I think we forget to give ourselves breathing room to think about the person more than every year or every few months or something like that. Again, it's been 27 years and I still feel like the grief is all over the place.
- On your website, you define grief as love without a home. When we do talk about death and when it is allowed to talk about, it's so often this idea of grief is love. Like these two things are exactly the same or just different manifestations. But I also want to create space for that anger feeling that you were referring to.
- Grief is a giant ball of everything. Some days it is love, some days it's anger, some days it's straight-up hate because all we have now are our memories of this person. We don't have the physical person to put those emotions on anymore. We say grief is love without a place to go and it just means that you have all these emotions but there's no one to give them to anymore. So you grieve it. And does it mean it's all love? No, but even in abusive relationships, there are times of joy that you'll grieve. There are times of love. And then there's deep grief of a future that will never be for no healing to take place. And that still is grieving love.
Grief needs to be physical. And I think another thing people don't realize is you can't just sit there and feel all of it. It gets stagnant in your body. So even if it's angry grief, even if it's happy grief, whatever grief it is, express it, move it, do whatever you need to with it but there's nobody to give it to. So you have to put it somewhere else.
- How I'm interpreting what you're saying right now is we just need to widen our definition of love. Love as caring enough to have an emotion about someone. Not necessarily love as positive emotion.
- You know, grief is grief. It's just gonna show up in different ways for different people. But at the core of it, we're grieving because there's a relationship that's been lost. Whether it was always a healthy one or not, whether it was a good one or not, that person's still not here. And we don't have anywhere to put those feelings.
(gentle music)
- Special thanks to this episode to Lauren Carroll from the Death Wives. If you're interested in learning more about her work, please check out deathwives.org and stay tuned for a special bonus episode. Our music is provided by Suboctave out of North Carolina. Voicemails for the Dead is entirely listener-funded. So if you would like to support this work, please consider donating on our website, voicemailsforthedead.com. I'm Hailey Taymore-Brown and thank you for listening.