FINAL THINGS: What to Do

In this episode of the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast, Ric Shields interviews Jack Hayhurst, owner and director of Hayhurst Funeral Home. They discuss the importance of advanced planning for end-of-life arrangements, including the benefits of discussing wishes with family members ahead of time. Hayhurst shares his personal experience growing up in a funeral home and his belief that his work is a calling. He also explains the process of handling a deceased person's remains, the rise in popularity of cremation, and the concept of green burials. Hayhurst emphasizes the importance of having a will and pre-planning funeral arrangements to ease the burden on loved ones.

Transcript

FINAL THINGS: What to Do
GUEST: Jack Hayhurst
S3, E 31


Ric Shields (00:00):

Today I am speaking with my friend Jack Hayhurst. Jack is the owner and director of Hayhurst Funeral Home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He's been in the business of caring for deceased loved ones and their families for over 40 years. We're talking about some important things, but we'll focus on how to plan and what to do. I'm Ric Shields, you're listening to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast.

(00:31):

Jack, I know you're a busy guy and I really do appreciate you taking time to join us today,

Jack Hayhurst (00:36):

My honor to be here. Always appreciate what you do.

Ric Shields (00:40):

Hey, let's get a little background for our listeners. You graduated in 1979, I think, with a degree in mortuary science and funeral service management. So, you must have been, what, 21 years old? 22 years old.

Jack Hayhurst (00:51):

I was 20, turned 21 later that year.

Ric Shields (00:55):

How does a 20-year-old decide to enter that profession?

Jack Hayhurst (00:59):

Well, I grew up in the business. My father had a funeral home in Henrietta, which is where I graduated high school. Yes, the home of Troy Aikman, graduated high school there. And we actually lived in the funeral home from the time I was five until I graduated high school. So, I never lived anywhere outside of the funeral home up until I went to college.

Ric Shields (01:21):

That's obviously a pretty strong thing. It says, I see what dad's doing. This is something I can help dad. Or that you thought, wow, that really does do ministry.

Jack Hayhurst (01:31):

You know, my, my father got into this. He was an ordained pastor. He got into funeral service as a chaplain at a funeral home and decided to go to mortuary school. Then God directed him to the Ministry of Funeral Service. Anybody can tell you; they hear me say this all the time. I'm called to do what I do just as a minister is called to preach the word I'm called to funeral service and to help families deal with a very difficult time.

Ric Shields (02:02):

Now, it seems to me that your profession is actually a difficult one. Your clients are grieving the loss of a loved one. You don't typically get advanced notice when someone's going to die, so it's got to be challenging to arrange a day off or a vacation. How do you balance your life when you're always available to meet the needs of others?

Jack Hayhurst (02:20):

Well, it's much easier now than it was you know, back in the day when I started, there were no pagers. There were no cell phones. And so, we had to have somebody buy the phones 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And, you know, when we didn't have the help because we weren't large enough to hire people, we did everything. And so, I've canceled vacations.

(02:46):

Unfortunately, you know, when my kids were younger, my wife had to take them to some of their events because I was not available to do it because I was dealing with a family who, who had a loss. And you, you pretty much have to drop what you're doing and take care of that.

(03:01):

It's definitely a 24 hour a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Doesn't matter what holiday it is, people still pass away on those days. Granted, we don't have funerals on holidays very often, but we still do have to take care of picking the, the person up and getting them into our care when that death occurs. And so that takes a little bit of time.

Ric Shields (03:26):

Well, you know, until the Lord returns, all of us one day are going to need the assistance of a funeral home. So, what are some of the important things a person needs to consider when they choose a funeral home?

Jack Hayhurst (03:38):

First thing I always do is look for recommendations. I mean, go to friends, go to your pastor, get a recommendation for somebody who they trust, somebody that is reputable. We have a lot of good funeral homes all over the country, and especially in the Tulsa area. There are a lot of good funeral homes here, but we're not all created equal. And some do things a little better than others, just like in any, any kind of work. So that's the first thing I would do.

(04:05):

I love recommendations from friends, especially, because you know, most everybody has somebody or knows someone who has had a loss in their life. And so, they can usually tell you, yeah, hey, I, I went here and they did a wonderful job. And so that's, that's the first thing I would do.

(04:22):

And also for me, it's very important to find an independent, somebody who owns and operates and lives in the community that's part of the community. And we're very fortunate in the Tulsa Broken Arrow area that the majority of our funeral homes here are independently owned. We only have a few that are not.

Ric Shields (04:44):

Jack, I've always been impressed with the presentation of the remains of a person that have been in your care. Then always a great job, I know with your services, and I'm appreciative of that. Let me follow up on, on the previous question. So, what are the things that a funeral director does that help me or my family when, when I, or when a loved one passes away?

Jack Hayhurst (05:08):

You know, the main thing that happens, and I'll just give you an instance of Oklahoma, is what would be considered a 24-hour state. What that means is within the first 24 hours, the body either has to be embalmed, cremated, buried, or held in cold storage. That's Oklahoma law. And so, what the funeral director does initially is goes to the place the death occurs, whether it be hospital at home a hospice house, whether it be an accident. Occasionally it can be at the medical examiner's office because the person died by a way that they became a medical examiner's case. So then as soon as we take care of their loved one, we bring them here to the funeral home and then we arrange a meeting time. So that's really the first thing we do for families.

(05:58):

And then after that, we try to schedule a time that's convenient for the family to come in, and then we go over everything with them. We give them all their choices. They have, typically when we make a removal, we try to find out if the person is going to have embalming as part of their disposition, because that's something, the sooner we can do that, the better job we can do on that. We, I'll say, make 99% of our own removals, and we also do roughly 95% of our own embalming here.

Ric Shields (06:32):

You're one of the few that are like that, I think.

Jack Hayhurst (06:34):

Very, very much so. And I've been very adamant about continuing that process. I think if we're going to have a viewing, it's a very important thing to be able to position the body and, and to have the body to give a, a good memory picture for the family. You know, the last memory picture they have of them may not be one that they want to keep in their mind. And so, if we can give them a good memory picture, you know, in a casket, then it's going to let us let us help them even more.

Ric Shields (07:02):

Do you think it's important for families to hold a funeral or, or a memorial service for a deceased loved one?

Jack Hayhurst (07:08):

Definitely. I mean, you know, that's how we show that a life was well lived by honoring that life. It can be done in numerous ways. So, when we're talking financial situations, you can have a memorial service and memorialize somebody at your house, in your backyard, at a park, at a favorite place you like to go. But it's important that we honor that person by having a time where we remember them and we talk about them.

(07:36):

You know, one of the things that causes a lot of grief issues with families is it hurts to talk about somebody maybe the first months after a death. But the more we talk about them and the more we spend time visiting about them with our friends and our family, the easier things get. We never get over the loss of a loved one.

(07:58):

In Matthew when the, when he talks about excuse me, not Matthew, but in John, the shortest verse in the Bible Jesus wept. Jesus wept because he loved and he loved Lazarus. So, he showed us how to grieve right there. That scripture could have said Jesus grieved, because he did. When Lazarus, his friend died, he, he actually showed us the first way that we can love and grieve. And so, if I can have a funeral and nobody's crying and nobody's grieving, they probably didn't like that person very well, <laugh>.

Ric Shields (08:33):

So, I've seen that as a pastor and as a hospice chaplain. There were times when there was no emotion, no shows of emotion. And that, that says a lot, doesn't it?

(08:46):

You're listening to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. My name is Ric Shields, and for the next few episodes we'll be addressing the topic of final things, how to plan and what to do. And I'm joined on this episode with my friend Jack Hayhurst, who with his wife Pam, has been the owner and director of Hayhurst Funeral Home, a broken arrow for 40 years since 1984.

(09:06):

Jack, do you have any idea how many families you've served through your funeral home in the past 40 years?

Jack Hayhurst (09:11):

I think about that often. So, you know, since I got in the business I worked in Amarillo, Texas for a couple of years prior to coming here to Broken Arrow. And, and the funeral home I worked for there, we did roughly 550 funerals a year. So, if we add those into the ones I've done here, we're probably over 10,000 funerals that I've had since I've been here.

(09:36):

The numbers now are, I won't say they're skewed a little bit, but with cremation becoming so popular, it's about 50% of our business now. And out of that 50%, about 75% of the cremation families, we still have a memorial service for them where we actually have it here at our, our facility or at a church. So, we still do a lot of services, even though there are some families, because if they use cremation as a form of disposition, they don't necessarily have to have a funeral director there to do a memorial service.

(10:11):

There are several churches here in town that are very adequate to handle a large memorial service for families. There are some churches who can't. And a lot of those will say, yeah, we would prefer you to have the funeral home to be able to be here to coordinate, you know, have people sign, help them get seated, just give directions and that sort of thing. So, we do that quite often.

Ric Shields (10:32):

What is it that's caused the upsurge in the number of cremations over the years? I think probably when you started 40 years ago, it might even have been considered rare 40 years ago, but now it's obviously, like you say, a large percentage of cremations over traditional burials.

Jack Hayhurst (10:48):

Yes, definitely. You know, 40 years ago, and I'm going back in the memory banks here, I'm going to, I'm going to say there were maybe two crematories in the entire Tulsa metropolitan area. And so now I will say the majority of your larger funeral homes have their own crematory. We have our own crematory here on site at the funeral home, and we've had it for six years now.

(11:12):

There are still a lot of smaller funeral homes that can't afford the cost to put one in. So, there are services that work for funeral homes that can do cremation, embalming removals, that sort of thing. Yes. In the last 20 years, it's become pretty popular. At one point it actually was a higher percentage than it is today. There are some families who have thought they wanted to cremate, decided they didn't want to. And you know, one, one of the big questions I get from a lot of people, what does the Bible say about cremation?

(11:44):

The thing I will say is the Bible really doesn't say one way or the other where it's right, wrong, and different. Basically, talks about earth burial because was, you know, Jesus Christ himself was in a tomb which would be considered earth burial. But there are a few instances where even people of the Bible, I, I forget, but I think it may have been Samuel was murdered. He, he was, his body was evidently dismembered and everything else, and they ended up cremating him. And so, there's a couple of instances in the Bible where cremation was used as the form of disposition for people. So when asked the question, I say, you know, if people are worried about when the rapture takes place, if we're cremated, if we're not going to be raptured, you can throw that away because what about the soldiers who died in the World War II and the oceans and their bodies were never found

Ric Shields (12:38):

Poor people who died in a fire?

Jack Hayhurst (12:40):

A fire. What about 9/11? Yeah, that happened in New York. There were some of those poor souls, they did not find their body. But I can assure you, the God who made this the first time can put it all back together.

Ric Shields (12:53):

He knows where we are.

Jack Hayhurst (12:54):

That's right. That's right.

Ric Shields (12:55):

That's right. My father died in Texas in 1996, and when the coroner's office informed me of his death, they asked if they should release his body to a local funeral home and not knowing any better, I agreed with him. His actual funeral was scheduled in Iowa the next week and was handled by a different funeral home there. And the sticker shock was pretty horrible. What did I do wrong when making those arrangements?

Jack Hayhurst (13:20):

So, you really didn't do anything wrong. What should have happened is the funeral home in Texas would've called you and said, we have your father in our care. What are your plans? And at that point, if you already had a contact with a funeral home in Iowa, you should have, you should contact that funeral home. And then from that point on, let them be the point with the funeral home in Texas and what they can do, they may decide to use somebody else.

(13:48):

In Texas, for instance, I have a friend in the Dallas area, and if I have any family members or you know, people who are calling on us to take care of them, I know him personally. I know his work. I know he does a good job. I call him and he takes care of it for me. And then we make arrangements to either go and of course in Dallas, we would drive to get the body because it's close enough. But if you're outside of 600 miles, it's possible we might fly the body home.

(14:18):

But what we do as the funeral home, who's going to handle the services and everything, it's our job to help you, number one financially, to be able to do something you're comfortable with and to make sure you don't get overcharged by somebody who you have no clue about their business. They may be friends with the coroner wherever your dad passed away, and that's why they got the call.

Ric Shields (14:40):

I think I ended up paying for two funerals, basically, is what happened.

Jack Hayhurst (14:43):

Yeah. And that should not happen.

Ric Shields (14:46):

And I didn't know. And, and I guess that's the point here. We should always have a contact where a person may wish to have their, their body disposed of. Burial or by cremation we should always have a contact. And if we do, then when something happens, we call that person rather than, than just letting things take place in another place. Because again, in your situation, someone dies in the Dallas area, you know, to go pick them up. You've got a friend that helps with this situation, you get it taken care of and it's all charges for you. In my case, not knowing what was happening in Texas, I paid for someone down there. I paid for an entire funeral in Texas. Wow. And I paid for another funeral in Iowa. Yeah, it was expensive.

Jack Hayhurst (15:31):

Yeah. That should not have happened. And you know, <crosstalk>.

Ric Shields (15:35):

Yeah, well it did.

Jack Hayhurst (15:36):

And the funeral home in Texas should not have <laugh>, they shouldn't have led you down that path.

Ric Shields (15:41):

Yeah, it was a $12,000 funeral back in 1996. That, that was crazy. Yeah. Speaking of expense, finances are a huge consideration for many families. So, are your services basically a one size fits all arrangement, or can you help families to find ways to have a meaningful service that's also more affordable?

Jack Hayhurst (15:59):

So once again, when we go back to that date, April 1st, 1984, which happens to be the date that we took over the funeral home here, that's the date that the Federal Trade Commission intervened in funeral service. And on that date, all funeral homes had to itemize all of their charges. Meaning that you have basically a list that you pick and choose what you want done by that funeral home.

(16:23):

So, when you do that, the funeral director can help guide you, if you will, to the type of service that's going to be beneficial to you and your family, but also that's going to be what you want cost-wise. Now, like with everything cost have gone up in every avenue of life, so it's still going to cost. But you know, there's many times that I've had a family that maybe they wanted this particular casket, but it was more expensive than what they really needed to spend.

(16:54):

And I will take them back in and I'll say, look, we can get the casket in the same color but in a less gauge metal, and it will, it will save you some money by doing that. You know?

(17:05):

And nowadays, obviously cremation is less expensive. So, if a family is comfortable with that, then we can set it up where they can. If they still wanted to have a viewing, wanted the body present for a service, we can do a rental casket body can be present for the funeral. And then after the funeral, rather than going to the cemetery, we go back to the funeral home. And the cremation takes place once we get a permit.

Ric Shields (17:28):

I've heard of a green burial. I think I'm using the right term and I think I know what it means, but maybe you could help us understand it better and also help us understand why we might choose that type of service.

Jack Hayhurst (17:40):

Green burial is where the body typically is not embalmed. It is taken to, there's a, I think there are two green burial cemeteries in Oklahoma right now. And that's all they have. There are just, they allow green burials. And so, the body can be wrapped in a blanket, a sheet taken to the cemetery. In some instances, they will even let the family, if they choose to, to dig the grave and to cover the grave. It's what each family wants to do. So, there's no embalming. The body basically goes back to dust quicker that away, where all you would have left would be bones. So that's basically what green burial is. Now in Oklahoma, if you have enough property, you can be buried on your own property. We've got a couple of families, actually more than a couple, but several families here in the broken arrow area that have buried their loved ones on their property.

Ric Shields (18:32):

Is outside the city limits.

Jack Hayhurst (18:34):

Yeah, it's out outside of the city limits, but you just have to have enough land that you're, where you're burying them does not touch property of other property owners. So, if you've got, you know, five acres roughly, you could designate an acre of that in the middle of your property as a burial ground. Regulations for what you do is up to your regulations. If you go to any of the cemeteries in the Tulsa area, and for that matter, any, any of the cemeteries around the country, they regulate whether we have to have a casket, whether we have to have a grave liner. So that's why a green cemetery can have their own rules and they can decide they don't require a liner, they don't require a casket.

(19:15):

Now my casket manufacturers try to offer everything that families might want. So, they came up with some biodegradable casket that you can actually place the person in, have a viewing no embalming, and then that biodegradable casket is buried in that cemetery or at the home where they allow it. And it returns to dust quicker. There's a lot of cemeteries, especially overseas Germany, for one that I know, I had a family went there, they actually rented some mausoleum space for their loved one to go in. When the body had reduced itself to bones, they removed the bones and that space was then rented out to another family. And I've heard that chose what they wanted to do with the bones.

Ric Shields (20:06):

It's like a five-year period or something. So, they rent.

Jack Hayhurst (20:09):

Them for, so yeah.

Ric Shields (20:10):

Yeah. But cemetery space is pretty limited in some of these places as it's becoming more and more limited here as well.

Jack Hayhurst (20:19):

I know that California, New York, and most of the coast, you're going to find cremation rates up in the 85 to 90% range. And part of that is because of space. Now, obviously here in Oklahoma we have lots of land, and so we're not in a space problem. Our city cemetery here, Park Grove, most people think it's a small cemetery and it's filling up, but they, they've got property there for at least the next 40 years.

Ric Shields (20:45):

Any final thoughts, Jack, that you would like to share with our listeners that may help them as they either plan ahead or, or find themselves needing to make decisions that they never hoped to have to make?

Jack Hayhurst (20:56):

You know, the, the biggest thing would be think about this ahead of time. When you talk about pre-planning, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to prepay for everything, but planning can just be as simple as telling your family what your wishes are. It will help your family out a lot whenever the time comes. They will not be trying to figure out, well, what do you think dad wanted? What do you think mom wanted? Where did mom want to be buried?

(21:24):

 If you talk about those things and let your family know, then it makes it much easier on them at that time when you're not there. None of us are promised tomorrow. No. So this is not a conversation that we have to continually procrastinate about and put off.

(21:40):

My wife's own parents died within 24 hours of each other, some 12 years ago. And her mother was in good health and she had a brain aneurysm within 30 minutes of my father-in-law passing. And she passed away in about 24 hours, but she had been unconscious that whole time. So, her, her kids now, we already knew what they wanted.

(22:03):

You know, the other thing that, what a lot of people don't realize, and we deal with this a lot, families will come in and they want to know, well, how quick can you get us death certificates? And I tell them all of that and they'll say, well, you know, mom or dad didn't have a will, and so what are we going to have to do? And so, we do have some attorneys we can, we can set them up with, but if you don't have a will, get a legal pad and write some things down on there, sign it and have a non-family member witness it, that will at least serve as something. But you should put a will together because your kids, if they have to go through probate, makes things much, much more difficult for them.

Ric Shields (22:39):

Much more difficult. It sure does. But

Jack Hayhurst (22:41):

The biggest, the biggest thing is write down the things that you want. You know, I've got families that have prearranged here 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and we've had to go in there and change some things because the preacher they put down not here anymore. He passed away. Yeah. Yeah. The pallbearers changed. They found out they had a new song. They liked better than one. My wife always thought she wanted Unclouded Day at her funeral. Well, here about a month ago, she said, you know, I heard this song the other day and I think I want to take that one out and add this one. And so little things like that can make a big, a big difference in family.

Ric Shields (23:17):

So, you're telling me you've got a plan?

Jack Hayhurst (23:19):

I do.

Ric Shields (23:20):

So, you're not like a plumber when he comes home. The sink still leaks, you know, the toilet runs. You, you're like a funeral director with a plan. This is good.

Jack Hayhurst (23:29):

<Laugh>. That's right. And you know, the one thing I have not done yet, Ric, that I, I really do want to do this. I would like to sit down behind my computer like I am now, and I would like to talk to my family and save it and maybe update it periodically and have them play that at my memorial service.

Ric Shields (23:48):

Oh, that'd be cool.

Jack Hayhurst (23:49):

I don't think that anybody, number one could say some of the things that I could say at that time and get by with it.

Ric Shields (23:57):

<Laugh>

Jack Hayhurst (23:58):

And be very stern and that sort of thing. And my main thing with them is I want all of them. And right now, I'm very, I'm, I'm blessed beyond measure. My kids are all serving the Lord. My grandkids are all serving the Lord. So, I'm not concerned about that. But in this day that we live in, I believe they need the encouragement of these guys who are either losing their hair or turning gray.

Ric Shields (24:25):

And part of that great cloud of witnesses come alive. Really? Yes. You have an opportunity for them to hear it and then to see it re you know, look at that over and over again. That's the great thing about this digital age.

Jack Hayhurst (24:36):

It is, is.

Ric Shields (24:37):

That we can save that. That's so good. Jack, I know you're a follower of Jesus. Would you be so kind as to pray for those listeners who will be making important end of life decisions and need Jesus to guide them and comfort them?

Jack Hayhurst (24:51):

I would love to. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

(24:54):

Our dear Heavenly Father, we love you today. And we, we thank you, Father, for all that you do for us in our daily lives. We thank you for caring for us. I thank you, father, for sending your son Jesus Christ to live on this earth, but then to die on a cross, but then most importantly, three days later, to arise from that grave and defeat the grave hell. And we thank you for that. Father, we thank you Father for each one out there that may be dealing with, with a loss today or may have someone who is sick and knows that their time may be short. I just pray. Father, the peace that only comes from you, the peace they say that passes all understanding will rest with them and be with them, that you will secure their hearts and their minds to let them know, father, that you are there to comfort. Most importantly, father, we pray, father, that if they do not know you, that they will come to the realization that they need Jesus Christ in their life. So that when they come to that point and they meet you face to face, their family will know Father, beyond any doubt where you are, where they are. And we thank you for those things. We thank you for them in the name of Jesus Christ, your son. Amen.

Ric Shields (26:16):

I am glad you've joined us today. Thanks so much for investing your time with us. If you found this episode to be helpful, please pass along the link to a friend.

(26:25):

I don't know of anyone who has experienced more grief than Karol Miller. Within a short time, Karol lost a family member who took his own life. Her mother-in-Law died on the way to that funeral. Her husband died six weeks after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Her sister died unexpectedly, her brother died, and then one of her sons was killed during an encounter with a police officer.

(26:47):

I'll speak with Carol Miller next week about grief and loss. I know you'll benefit from the conversation, and I hope you'll join us.

(26:55):

You know, I'm always happy to hear from you. Drop me at info@doorways.cc and let me know if we're providing content that's beneficial to you.

(27:03):

Until next time, this is Ric Shields. Thanks for joining us.