{"id":142,"date":"2016-05-25T15:43:32","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2016-05-25T15:43:32","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T15:43:32","slug":"death-and-the-need-for-mortality-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/death-and-the-need-for-mortality-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Death and the need for mortality officers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When my father, a retired army sergeant, passed away at the age of 79, the army sent a mortality officer to our home. He attended the military funeral and then, over the next several weeks, came to the house and walked my mom through all the required paperwork: getting the death certificates, contacting the army and civil service regarding retirement benefits, dealing with bank accounts and insurance.<\/p>\n

In the midst of my mother\u2019s and our family\u2019s grief a sympathetic outsider helped manage all the details of death.<\/p>\n

Recently my brother-in-law, a retired Air Force officer, passed away and I called the base nearby. They put us in touch with a \u2018casualty officer\u2019 who performed the same services.<\/p>\n

As a pastor I have been a \u2018mortality officer\u2019 for members of my community at times. I have had to self-educate to figure out paperwork, social security, insurance, retirement, bills owed- the whole gamut of issues that come with death. I am willing to perform those functions and try to see it as a way of being present.<\/p>\n

But as pastor my call is to be available for spiritual and emotional support.
\nI say all of this to name a need in our culture. We have sanitized death to the point where it is an alien event to many, many people. Some are hesitant to write wills because of a superstitious fear that we are inviting death. Widows or widowers are confronted with the possibility of losing the family home. How to probate a will. How to deal with the issue of no will.<\/p>\n

We sanitize death and shut it away. Out of sight out and out of mind. And then when death touches our lives, we are at a loss. \u00a0Especially the unchurched, I would imagine. And everyone, whether they belong to a church or not, deserves support in the trying time of the death of a loved one.<\/p>\n

Here is my thanksgiving: that the military takes such good care of its own.
\nHere is the question I am left with: how can we, as a people, provide \u2018mortality officers\u2019 for everyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my father, a retired army sergeant, passed away at the age of 79, the army sent a mortality officer to our home. He attended the military funeral and then, over the next several weeks, came to the house and walked my mom through all the required paperwork: getting the death certificates, contacting the army … Continue reading Death and the need for mortality officers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,8,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}