Pamela Skjolsvik

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A Chat with Sheri Booker

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Today I am pleased to welcome Sheri Booker to the Death Writer blog! Sheri and I both went to Goucher College.  (In case you were wondering, not everyone who goes through the MFA program at Goucher writes about death.)  Sheri's book,

Nine Years Under

, is about working at a funeral home as a young woman.  I look forward to reading it.

DW:  I read that you began working in the funeral industry at the age of 15, which I think is amazing. How did that happen?

SB:  I lost my great-great Aunt Mary to cancer. She lived with me and was my everything. The funeral director who buried her was a member of our church and close family friend. I needed closure and was very curious about what happened to Aunt Mary, so I accepted a position at the funeral home that handled her services. While most people run away from death, I ran towards it. What was supposed to be a simple summer job turned into nine years of living and learning through death. I know it will sound cliché but everything I learned about life, I learned through death.

DW:  Did you have experience with death prior to working in a funeral home?

SB:  No, just Aunt Mary. If she had not passed away, there was NO WAY I would have worked, stepped foot in, or even looked twice at a funeral home. 

DW:  What was your job title at the funeral home? 

SB:  I had so many different roles at the funeral home that I didn’t have a specific title. We were a small business and so you did a little of everything. I probably held every hat there, except embalming. Some days I was a receptionist, greeter, hearse driver on service, personal concierge. I’ve done hair, makeup, helped dress bodies, written obituaries.

DW:  What was your favorite aspect of this job? 

SB:  I worked with some amazing people and they made the work we did so much easier. I felt blessed to be able to service grieving people, especially since I had been on that side of death. I knew how important it was to be that voice of comfort on the phone when we received a death call or that smiling faces when they came to the funeral home to make arrangements.

DW:  Were your coworkers a support network for you when there was a particularly upsetting death that you all had to handle? Was there someone you could talk to? 

SB:  Yes, we were a family. There were no secrets between us. My boss, Mr. Wylie, was like a father to all of us and Ms. Angela, the office manager, kept everything together. We laughed a lot and we had to because we saw some really heartbreaking cases. Working there made us all stronger.

DW:  Did you learn anything about yourself during the writing process of this book? 

SB:  Absolutely. I happened to be one of the youngest people in Goucher’s MFA program and all of my peers kept telling me that I was too young to write memoir, that at the age of 23 I couldn’t possibly have one in me. But in my mind, I had stories for days and days, more than one book in me. Looking back, I’ve realized that they were right about me being too young to write a memoir. I didn’t have the distance and maturity that I needed to really delve in. I struggled through a few revisions because I just couldn’t come to terms with what had actually happened. I think when writing memoir you have to have the ability to be subjective.

DW:  Burial or cremation? 

SB:  It’s so interesting. For me personally, I’d like to be cremated. Of course I want to have a viewing and funeral but for my final disposition cremation all the way. For a long time cremation was taboo in the African-American community because it’s such an inexpensive service. Many people assumed that if you chose cremation you just didn’t have the money to bury someone. Now it’s more of a preference for families. 

DW:  Are you going on a book tour? 

SB:  Yes, I will be having events in Baltimore, DC, Philly, NYC and ATL this summer. Check out my website

www.sheribooker.com

and

www.nineyearsunder.com

 for more information.