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Erica Hill: Planning Your Own Funeral
7 Plays3 years ago
They say that you can't always get what we want in life. But sometimes, what’s even worse than that is we can’t always get what we want afterlife, as well. How many funerals have you been at where you have questioned the lack of ‘personality of the deceased’ in the service? It is a serious thing. And a serious problem in the funeral business.
So should you be spending time planning your funeral now, even at an early age? In this episode of the Glam Reaper Podcast, Jennifer has an enlightening conversation with Erica Hill about how she created Sparrow, a contemporary funeral home in Brooklyn. Erica feels that people are looking for something different in their final story, funeral/memorial, which is why she continues to try and make sure it is a story being told from the heart.
LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD:
- What makes Erica think that Sparrow’s service is different in comparison with the rest?
- Why did Erica venture into the founding of Sparrow Funeral Home?
- What was wrong with most funeral services in failing to properly represent the deceased
- Why is pre-planning of your funeral important?
- What is the plan for the future for Sparrow?
- Erica shares one of her unforgettable recollections of a funeral service that Sparrow did
Connect with Erica Hill:
Website - https://sparrowny.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sparrowfunerals/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Sparrow-A-Contemporary-Funeral-Home-100442189133790/
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram - @muldowneymemorials & @jennifermuldowney
Twitter - @TheGlamReaper
Email us here: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction: Jennifer and Erica in the Funeral Industry
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
I'm your host Jennifer Muldeny aka the Glam Reaper herself.
00:00:07
Speaker
On today's episode we are meeting with another fellow female like-minded girl lady that's working in the funeral industry right here in New York City.
00:00:16
Speaker
She's based in Brooklyn and I'm going to let her tell her side of the story.
00:00:19
Speaker
Let's take it away.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm your host Jennifer Muldenny aka the Glam Reaper herself and today's guest is a New York native.
00:00:43
Speaker
Well as in she's here in New York she's wreaking havoc on the funeral scene in a funeral home called Sparrow and I'm super excited to talk to my new guest Erica.
00:00:53
Speaker
So Erica welcome to the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:57
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:57
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm doing well.
Sparrow's Unique Approach
00:01:00
Speaker
Good.
00:01:00
Speaker
So I want to hear all about Sparrow.
00:01:03
Speaker
We are going to take a little trip to it either this week or next to investigate and get some nice pictures and footage.
00:01:09
Speaker
But tell me what's so different about your funeral home in comparison to any other funeral home?
00:01:14
Speaker
I think the first thing is the space and what the space looks like.
00:01:20
Speaker
From the outside, it doesn't look like a funeral home.
00:01:24
Speaker
I made a conscious effort to update it in a way that feels warm and cozy and inviting.
00:01:33
Speaker
So there's no carpeting.
00:01:34
Speaker
It's hardwood floors.
00:01:35
Speaker
We have a lot of light in, we have two celebration rooms and one of the rooms we put in windows that had actually been there before.
00:01:42
Speaker
We just put them back in.
00:01:44
Speaker
And then the other room we put in skylight so that there's natural light coming in.
00:01:49
Speaker
And then the way that we deal with our clients is very, if you are a family working with us, you can
00:01:59
Speaker
The funeral director for Sparrow is one of the most empathetic humans I've ever met in my whole life.
00:02:05
Speaker
So we really are full service and you feel seen and heard and...
00:02:11
Speaker
You know, at Sparrow, we believe our doors are open for everybody.
00:02:15
Speaker
And it's not one size fits all.
00:02:18
Speaker
It's what's comfortable for you and your family and your traditions and your rituals, whatever that means, whether from the traditional to the unique.
00:02:26
Speaker
And then we also have a street facing retail shop, which is filled with all sorts of things from urns, vessels to blankets.
00:02:36
Speaker
So it's really a shop that sells things that are comforting.
00:02:40
Speaker
For those grieving and then just for the rest of people who are not grieving, but want some comforting for themselves.
00:02:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:48
Speaker
And what initiated this for you?
Personalizing Funeral Experiences
00:02:51
Speaker
So through the years, I've had a lot of my peers die starting when I was in high school.
00:02:58
Speaker
So my first experience with death was not a grandparent, which I think is usually the case for most people, but it was my friends.
00:03:08
Speaker
And it wasn't until I was a little bit older out of high school that I'm still having, unfortunately, friends die and going to these funerals that were in, that just didn't feel like they truly celebrated the person who had died.
00:03:25
Speaker
And I've been through the years I've been apologized to by several families that they knew that this wasn't what so-and-so would have wanted, but they didn't know what else to do by three families, actually.
00:03:36
Speaker
And I just always felt like, why?
00:03:37
Speaker
Like, why does it have to be like that?
00:03:39
Speaker
Why can't it be different?
00:03:42
Speaker
Can I ask, because it's a similar trajectory for myself, can I ask for you, what was so wrong or didn't represent the person for you?
00:03:52
Speaker
Everything felt very rote, right?
00:03:56
Speaker
So very steeped in traditions that aren't mine, certainly.
00:04:00
Speaker
But like, it wasn't even that they were religious, because I have no issue with that.
00:04:05
Speaker
It's that there was no place, it felt like there was no place to even insert
00:04:10
Speaker
part of who this person really was, right?
00:04:13
Speaker
So you would go into a funeral home that had bad carpeting and it smelled weird and kind of strange people working there.
00:04:21
Speaker
And we're already... The Igors of the world.
00:04:25
Speaker
I did an interest post on Instagram where I took Igor from the Addams family and put a picture of him and then a picture of me from a photo shoot I'd done, which I was in like a red dress, you know, a little bit of cleavage showing, leg showing, and I was roaring, laughing.
00:04:39
Speaker
And it was like,
00:04:40
Speaker
you know, old funeral versus new.
00:04:43
Speaker
And it was like, what's wrong with the right, which was me.
00:04:46
Speaker
What was wrong with that right picture?
00:04:48
Speaker
Like, wouldn't you prefer to meet that when, you know?
00:04:52
Speaker
And the interesting thing is, is that with Sparrow, you know, we've been open now for, I guess, almost four months and we've done everything.
00:05:00
Speaker
We've done a lot of traditional viewings and funerals and every single family has,
00:05:06
Speaker
has said to us how happy they are to be in our space, that they're in the middle of grieving.
00:05:12
Speaker
And as you know, like grieving takes all sorts of forms.
00:05:15
Speaker
Like you can be crying one minute and laughing hysterically the next, but they're doing all of it in a space that's beautiful and makes them feel good.
00:05:24
Speaker
So like it doesn't, it's not this other layer of
00:05:27
Speaker
Sadness isn't the right word, but sort of depressing, like a depressing environment on top of a situation that's already incredibly difficult for families.
00:05:36
Speaker
But so for me, you know, I have a friend who died a few years ago and she'd been sick for a long time.
00:05:43
Speaker
And I use her funeral as a positive example.
00:05:47
Speaker
She participated in planning it and it was religious.
00:05:51
Speaker
It was in a church with a priest who she happened to know.
00:05:55
Speaker
But I sat in that funeral and I felt like she was with us because every single poem that was read, passage from the Bible that was read, every hymn felt like her.
00:06:09
Speaker
And so to me that was, and then it was over.
00:06:11
Speaker
We had like a New Orleans brass band led us to Speedy Romeo Pizza in Brooklyn.
00:06:18
Speaker
And that's where we all gathered afterwards.
00:06:20
Speaker
But it really, even though, you know, it was in a traditional setting, she was able to, you know, direct it in a way that you really felt like she was present.
00:06:31
Speaker
So like, that's kind of what I'm talking about.
00:06:33
Speaker
Like, it doesn't have to be something that's so untraditional or so unique, but it's like, you know, being thoughtful about what people are reading.
00:06:44
Speaker
So you feel like that it's representing them.
00:06:46
Speaker
And then
00:06:47
Speaker
You know, her husband is in the music industry and she loved music.
00:06:52
Speaker
So there was someone there singing songs that weren't traditional church songs on top of the other stuff that was happening.
00:06:58
Speaker
But again, it's just like sort of infusing a personality into what's going
The Importance of Pre-Planning and 'D Parties'
00:07:03
Speaker
on.
00:07:03
Speaker
So you're a big fan of pre-planning like myself.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yes, I think it's incredibly important.
00:07:09
Speaker
And again, from my experience, and I've now seen it at Sparrow, because unfortunately we've had a few cases where people have died sooner than we would like.
00:07:18
Speaker
And what in my personal life and then now my professional life, what I see is when somebody is young and at an age where you don't expect them to go, and especially if it's suddenly gone,
00:07:29
Speaker
the family has no idea what to do, like none.
00:07:32
Speaker
And you watch the pressure that they feel to get it right, to do the right thing, you know, arguing over cremation versus burial versus whatever.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I just feel like, you know, part of what we're working on at Sparrow is some planning tools that are much more superficial that just sort of leave a roadmap of like, God forbid something happened to me before I'm 90.
00:07:58
Speaker
you know, I would like to be cremated or I'd like, you know, these 20 people to definitely be there or I don't want anything or, you know, whatever it is, because I feel like even, again, in my personal experience with the families who apologized to me saying they knew that that wasn't what their loved one would have wanted, they didn't do anything wrong, right?
00:08:19
Speaker
And just imagine that on top of the grief, the feeling in the moment, the guilt or the pressure or whatever they feel,
00:08:27
Speaker
that are they getting it right?
00:08:29
Speaker
And like, so I think if we can get younger people to start thinking about stuff like that and talking about it and planning a little bit, we started, we've only had one, but we're going to plan another one for April.
00:08:42
Speaker
We call them the D parties and it's like death, dying and dessert.
00:08:46
Speaker
And we had a group of, a small group of people who were like 21 to 30 ish, 32.
00:08:54
Speaker
come and do almost mood boards for what they wanted and a little slide show.
00:09:01
Speaker
And they were all apprehensive to come because they don't want to think, you know, they're in the prime of it, right?
00:09:06
Speaker
They don't want to think about death and dying.
00:09:08
Speaker
And it was fantastic.
00:09:11
Speaker
They were so engaged.
00:09:12
Speaker
They were so excited.
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, one woman who's about 26 left and she's like, now I know what I want, a cardboard box and tons of flowers.
00:09:22
Speaker
And like, you know, her sister was there too.
00:09:24
Speaker
So like, it just opened up that conversation.
00:09:27
Speaker
Another woman was like, I'm going to be a diamond.
00:09:29
Speaker
That's it.
00:09:30
Speaker
Like, she was so excited to be, see, she could be a diamond.
00:09:33
Speaker
Another guy was like, wow, like I really, I didn't understand why we were coming here.
00:09:38
Speaker
His girlfriend dragged him and he goes, this has been amazing.
00:09:42
Speaker
Now I know I need to change stuff.
00:09:44
Speaker
some of the conversations I'm having with my father.
00:09:47
Speaker
Like it just, once you get people in a setting and they see it's not so scary, it almost becomes fun because it's, I don't want to equate the two, but it's almost like planning a wedding in a way.
00:10:00
Speaker
It absolutely is.
00:10:02
Speaker
And it's actually one of the concepts I've tried to sort of spin in terms of pre-planning and pre-need and
00:10:08
Speaker
you know, all these terms that are thrown around the funeral industry.
00:10:12
Speaker
It's like, to me, you know, I know as a nearly 40 year old woman, I would much rather plan a party than I would plan my funeral.
00:10:21
Speaker
Like it just sounds terrible.
00:10:23
Speaker
So that's the way I'm like, well, if you just spin it like that, like, so the appendices of my first book, it's like, yeah, fill out all this information.
00:10:30
Speaker
You don't have to hand any money to anybody.
00:10:33
Speaker
You just have to fill out all this information, all your digital stuff, you know,
00:10:36
Speaker
put it in a secure place if you've got a safe or something like that or leave it with you know your solicitor or your lawyer or whatever that might be over here and just make sure that it's it's somewhere safe or leave it with an extra kin but have that information and just make even if you just make a simple decision as burial cremation or as I like to say because there's so many you know options out there now is burial cremation or in my case I have ticked the third box which is the most environmentally friendly option available at the time
00:11:06
Speaker
because that's just evolving right that's the way of putting it yes yes yes for sure because that could be anything and it depends on what state you live in right exactly exactly so you know but it's you'll have to what's the date of the next d party i will tell you soon it's going to be in april we have not set the date
00:11:25
Speaker
Okay, perfect.
Expansion Plans and Community Impact
00:11:26
Speaker
Well, when you have the date set, let me know.
00:11:28
Speaker
I will attend if I'm in the country or in the state, which with me, I don't ever know.
00:11:33
Speaker
And equally, we will put the dates out for all of our fans and followers to maybe join you in Brooklyn.
00:11:39
Speaker
In Brooklyn, yeah.
00:11:40
Speaker
Very good.
00:11:41
Speaker
So what is the plans for the future, Erica?
00:11:44
Speaker
Is it to have a Sparrow number two?
00:11:46
Speaker
Is it to expand the current location, multiple locations, different states maybe?
00:11:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:51
Speaker
So the plan for sparrow is 15 sparrows in five years, but across the country.
00:11:59
Speaker
So we're looking, we're starting to look in Florida now.
00:12:03
Speaker
The third one is might be closer to home and then definitely then Los Angeles.
00:12:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:09
Speaker
You know, but most like kind of major to mid-sized cities is sort of what we're looking at.
00:12:16
Speaker
And is it copying the exact Sparrow or will you change it slightly for each city?
00:12:23
Speaker
I mean, I think that we're not a chain, right?
00:12:25
Speaker
So I think that it will evolve depending on where we are.
00:12:29
Speaker
But I think that the root and the core of what Sparrow is will remain and sort of the look and the brand.
00:12:36
Speaker
I mean, I hate to say branding.
00:12:37
Speaker
So just the overall feel of it will be the same.
00:12:41
Speaker
But, you know, just like our color scheme might be a little different in Florida than it would be in New York City, than it would be in L.A.
00:12:47
Speaker
But I think.
00:12:48
Speaker
kind of at the heart of what Sparrow represents and how we're structured as a company will be the same wherever we are.
00:12:57
Speaker
And lastly, you've only been open four months, so you're only babies still, but do you have a favourite or some service that sticks out the most to you, even within those four months that you can share with the listeners?
00:13:11
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:13:15
Speaker
one or could be one that something went a bit crazy with and you were like oh what do we do just we haven't had any anything's gone crazy no dramas no dramas thank god I mean there's plenty of drama within the moment but no like big drama yeah I think that I'm gonna say favorites probably not quite the right word but gratitude that we were able to work with this family I'll use that term
00:13:40
Speaker
It's a family who lost a son to suicide that we had at the beginning of the year.
00:13:46
Speaker
And there were two boys.
00:13:48
Speaker
So the brother who is still alive, it turns out that he is an old friend of a good friend of mine.
00:13:55
Speaker
They were roommates and he and I have a lot of people in common.
00:13:59
Speaker
And I don't, I didn't know anybody, you know, I didn't know the brother that whatever, but I feel like being able to help a family that is very closely associated with my circle felt really, really positive and good.
00:14:14
Speaker
And so I'll say that, but I've so far, I've loved every family that we've worked with, to be honest.
00:14:20
Speaker
It's been an amazing, you know, I don't work directly with the families.
00:14:24
Speaker
I have to be really clear about that because I'm not a licensed funeral director.
00:14:28
Speaker
Lily and Tiffany, who are funeral directors, do.
00:14:31
Speaker
But I still get to meet them and, you know, obviously interact with them a little bit.
00:14:36
Speaker
But we've just had really lovely families and they run the gamut, which has been exciting also.
00:14:43
Speaker
Like we're not servicing just one sort of family.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's really exciting.
00:14:48
Speaker
everything.
00:14:48
Speaker
We're diverse in every sense of that word.
00:14:51
Speaker
So that feels good.
00:14:52
Speaker
We've had, you know, we're also really trying to work with families who maybe can't afford our service or what our services normally would be.
00:15:01
Speaker
And that feels really good to be able to support families in a time of need like that.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:07
Speaker
I just, so far I'm,
Reflections and Future Excitement
00:15:08
Speaker
I'm thrilled.
00:15:08
Speaker
Like I'm really, it's everything and more, way more than I had imagined, but all positive, like really positive.
00:15:17
Speaker
Well, that's amazing.
00:15:19
Speaker
And it's an amazing note to end on.
00:15:21
Speaker
I think everybody should check out your website and everybody should check out the space if they can.
00:15:26
Speaker
I love this.
00:15:27
Speaker
I am here for it.
00:15:28
Speaker
Women-driven businesses in general, but, you know, just innovation in this space.
00:15:33
Speaker
is just desperately needed.
00:15:35
Speaker
It's such an antiquated industry.
00:15:37
Speaker
It's, you know, it's bonkers.
00:15:39
Speaker
And there are just so many exciting things happening.
00:15:42
Speaker
So I'm really excited for you.
00:15:43
Speaker
And we'll check in and maybe towards the end of the year and have you back on again, Erica, and see how you're getting on and how world domination is working out for you, or at least US domination for the next five years.
00:15:55
Speaker
I would love that.
00:15:56
Speaker
I would love that.
00:15:56
Speaker
Thank you.
00:15:57
Speaker
Perfect.
00:15:58
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming on the Glam Reaper.
00:16:00
Speaker
And we will talk to you again soon.
00:16:02
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:16:14
Speaker
So that was this week's episode.
00:16:17
Speaker
That is Sparrow, the funeral home.
00:16:19
Speaker
And we are off to Vegas shortly.
00:16:22
Speaker
So hopefully film some content there for you.
00:16:24
Speaker
We're at a funeral convention, as is the norm.
00:16:27
Speaker
I know people find that a little odd.
00:16:30
Speaker
But yeah, hopefully we will get you to tune in to another episode of the Glamour Podcast.
00:16:34
Speaker
We'll talk to you soon.
00:16:35
Speaker
Bye bye.