Goodbye 2.0

In the past 20 years, the undertaker trade in Tyrol has undergone fundamental changes. Today, grief counselling and care for the deceased extend the range of services for mourners. The times of just laying the coffin and organising the 'pompes-funèbres' including flower arrangements are definitely over. A change, by the way, that originated in Tyrol.

Christine Pernlochner-Kügler is the name of the woman who had Facebook had always attracted my attention. Anyone who visits her site for the first time rubs their eyes in amazement. Her profile picture shows her - surrounded by stacked coffins - standing in a coffin with her eyes closed. This is due to her profession: She is an undertaker in Innsbruck.

Recently Christine has also become the author of a remarkable book: "You only die once, you can live every day" is the title of her recently published book Goldegg-Verlag published 'Occupation with death'. The claim bordered in red on the book cover, "Death makes you live!" is a reference to the author's dazzling personality, having been terrified for many years by a monster called 'Death'. The book - I should rather call it a guidebook - is about coping with grief and saying goodbye to the deceased in a respectful and beautiful way. In other words, about saying goodbye 2.0.

FUNERAL DIRECTOR WITH DOCTORATE

How does one actually become an undertaker? "I slid into it," Christine Pernlochner-Kügler admits bluntly. Her dissertation topic, "Body shame and disgust", was actually only marginally related to her current profession. Her teacher training in psychology, philosophy and German logically led to a career in teaching. After the baby break, she also began teaching psychological subjects at the nursing school in Innsbruck's West Training Centre.

DEATH WAS A MONSTER

With death, as already mentioned, Christine had a more than divided relationship early in her life. "Death was my fear topic, always connected with horrible phantasms" she tells. No wonder that she also made death a topic in her teaching. She wanted to teach her students how to deal with deceased relatives during field trips to the Innsbruck clinic. "In the process, I noticed that those rooms in the clinic where the deceased are laid out are, of course, not designated 'farewell rooms' for relatives," she said. "I wondered if I could handle finding a deceased relative or acquaintance like that" she says today. That's exactly what she wanted to change.

The invitation of the educationalist Markus Ploner to a seminar in the nursing school was then the beginning of a remarkable collaboration that culminated in a fundamental change in the way Tyrolean funeral directors work and what they offer. Ploner, a native of Vorarlberg, namely learned modern deceased care as a student during an internship as an undertaker in a German funeral home. This also had a lasting influence on the choice of his dissertation topic, which dealt with 'saying goodbye'.

TIROL LAGGED BEHIND

"Whereas in our country deceased persons were merely dressed and placed in the coffin by the funeral home 20 years ago, deceased care in Germany was already at a much higher level" Christine tells us. "Deceased care means presenting the dead in such a way that relatives can say goodbye without being frightened or even disgusted."

Together they decided in 2004 to join the 'Trauerhilfe', which was founded by funeral directors from Tyrol and Vorarlberg at the time. "We certainly did pioneering work in Tyrol," says Pernlochner-Kügler today. While Markus Ploner took over the management, she was responsible for public relations and training. Then, in 2011, when the opportunity arose to open the Funeral home I. Neumair in Innsbruck's Schöpfstraße, the two of them jumped at the chance and in 2012 began to give the institute new work content and also a new image.

The very name of the institute suggests this: I. Neumair Bestattungundmehr. The word 'more' stands for a completely new kind of mourning support and care for the deceased.

COVID DEATHS IN INNSBRUCK STATISTICS

I had always been interested in how many people die in Innsbruck on average each year. It is 1,200, says Christine Pernlochner-Kügler. And if there had been any need for proof that the COVID disease can be fatal, she provides it: in November and December 2020, the number of people who died in Innsbruck shot up by 45 percent; on average, eleven percent more people died in 2020. That's when the warning lights should go on, despite all the vaccination scepticism.

In her book, she not only provides an insight into this unusual profession, which can be sad and heartbreaking, but also funny and bizarre. She also describes what services a modern funeral home offers and tells stories from her practice as a funeral director.

WHAT WOULD A DECEASED PERSON BE DOING RIGHT NOW?

One of her methods of channeling grief particularly impressed me. She sometimes suggests that relatives think about what the deceased would be doing right now if there really were an afterlife. It then turns out that one would like to drink a shot of liquor, another visits boutiques to buy handbags and shoes. "After all, she has to dress up there again," the relatives laugh. If you want to know more about the care and service work a funeral director performs, you shouldn't miss the video of a programme on Swiss television: Why dead people scare us.

Actually, the book by psychologist Pernlochner-Kügler is a guide for all those who are confronted with the death of friends or relatives. It contains tips and instructions for mourners and above all helps to deal with grief. The suggestions on how to overcome grief as well seem particularly important to me. What makes the book so worth reading are the many entertaining descriptions of saying goodbye, with no shortage of funny incidents.

That laughing and crying are close together is well known. "Humor begins where laughter ends" she thought to herself when she posted a joke on her Facebook page after the passing of Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister, who was followed a few days later by David Bowie: "Lemmy dead. David dead. Someday we'll be alone in the world - with Helene Fischer." 144 likes and only one rebuke were the result.

Her humour is typical of this woman with both feet on the ground, who still teaches future nurses in her own seminar room at the institute. For she is not only concerned with preparing the future nurses for questions from relatives. She also teaches techniques for positioning the deceased correctly so that no death marks appear.

GOTHIC FEELING WHEN LYING DOWN FOR A TEST

But the institute has also made a name for itself as a further education facility for interested groups, for school classes and even senior citizens. The aim is to inform interested people about how a modern funeral home works. In the process, one can even lie down in a coffin. If desired, the employees of the institute put the lid on it. There is then a gothic feeling that can be quite funny, as I convinced myself.

Christine Pernlochner-Kügler studied psychology and philosophy and is a thanatologist with her own funeral home in Innsbruck. She is involved in the health sector and in the management of crisis situations and is a member of the Austrian Network for Ritual Research. Her main professional focus lies in accompanying relatives during the funeral and in the individual design of funeral ceremonies and rituals. It is her concern to make dying and death as the last stage of life acceptable, to break the taboo of death and to question our messed up way of dealing with finiteness.

Christine Pernlochner-Kügler
"You only die once, you can live every day"
An undertaker tells
220 pages, 2021, ISBN: 9783990602430

€ 19.95

Goldegg Publishing House