"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die." (Ecclesiastes 3.1)

For the last 15 years, Berthiaume Funeral Home implanted to our youth the real facts of life and death. That is why we wish to continue to supply relevant information to our students concerning funeral practice.

There is no doubt, death is inevitable: our time will come. Death is the only human event predictable without any discussion after birth. Even now, talking about death is more taboo than talking about sex in our society.

The word "death" is disguised by a euphemistic language. People do not die. One always says: "He left us" or "He passed away". Death is not only camouflaged, one tries to avoid it. For some, the subject of death is obscene and must not be discussed with our young society. There is a superstitious saying which says "if one doesn't speak about it, it will not happen".

Mortality was considered as being normal for our parents and our grandparents because of the very high mortality rate, death was for them a frequent guest. On the contrary, today, the percentage of the North American population which faces death in their immediate family is once every twenty years.

Since we are little confronted with it, death is not a determining factor of our life but rather rare, impersonal and practically an abnormal event. As a result, some of us are not ready for death. We often put off till tomorrow words and gestures of love, forgiveness and other which are intended for our spouse, relatives and friends. When one of these persons die, it is negation, fury and anger, sense of guilt, regret. All of these feelings can surprise the survivors unconsciously.

The purpose of the funeral director is to serve the needs of the suffering family. One of the needs which was identified with the majority of the survivors is to complete the relation with the dead person. It is only after completing this relation that the person will find it easier and satisfactory to say goodbye. "To experiment something, one eventually understands better and accepts. The children also have their own progress to go through to face the mortality. It is important for them to participate and to share with the community the process of the mortality and the mourning. They are proud to be considered rather deserving to be included in the adults ceremonies." "Death, presented calmly and with respect, on a continuum of hope, gives a sense, a direction and an inestimable wealth to life. It is because life is limited in time that every moment takes such a value." (Louise Champagne, psychologist)

We sincerely believe that by visiting the funeral home, the guests will notice and will realize that to die and death is an integral part of life. Given that the guests will not be, at that moment, confronted personally with death, it will then create a more relaxing and less emotional situation. This will allow them to dialogue freely and to ask frank questions while receiving wanted information. Otherwise, this information supplied during the visit would be inaccessible in other circumstances. The 7th grade from the surrounding schools participated in such a visit at the funeral home for the last 15 years and we hope, by the intervention of these visits, to be able to demystify the image of funeral homes as well as the profession in itself.

We shall also present a short film which explains the various facets of a funeral director's career. We hope that these visits can begin around September or October.

We sincerely believe that this program will help our youth to better understand the mortality process and this program will also be able to answer to the immediate necessities of the young students. We are entirely available if you wish to obtain more information.

Visit at the Funeral Home

Once at the funeral home, the students as well as teachers will have to sign their name in a register book.

Then the group will view two films (The values of a funeral and Talking about death to children). We will then proceed to visit the reception area, the selection room, and the preparation room where we will explain the embalming using a chart, while having the opportunity to ask questions.

The purpose of the visit is to be able to demystify the image of funeral homes and to help the young people understand loss, death, grief and growth and to share their feelings.

The visit will last about 1 hour and a half to 2 hours (approximately).