My late father-in-law spent his career as a teacher and principal. He watched thousands of children grow up.
That experience gave him something most parents don’t have: he had seen the pattern enough times to know what was coming next. He became a guide.
My wife grew up in North Carolina. We lived in Michigan. She made a point of calling her parents every Sunday. Those calls had a rhythm. Family news, the week’s events, the kids. And then, at some point during the call, her father would say something about what to expect next.
Not advice exactly. More like orientation. A signal that the moment she was in had a shape he recognized, and that knowing what came next would help her navigate it.
One of the lessons he passed on early was simple. When you’re on a family outing with young children, end it while everyone is still having fun. Don’t wait for the meltdown. By then it’s too late. The memory of the day belongs to whatever happened last, and if you waited too long, you know how that ends.
Act before the moment turns. That was the principle.
He could say that with authority because he had watched it play out thousands of times. He had earned the right to give the guidance. And my wife trusted it because she knew what it was based on.
He was her guide. Not because of his title. Because of what he had seen.
Someone in society used to fill that role.
Not just for parenting. For dying as well.
For most of history there was a person in every family’s orbit who had watched the pattern enough times to say: the season is changing. It is time to begin.
Sometimes it was the family doctor. Not a specialist managing a condition, but a generalist who had known three generations and understood when a trajectory had shifted. He was the guide who said: there are things you should be doing now, while there is still time.
Sometimes it was the parish priest. Present throughout a family’s life, not summoned at the moment of crisis. He had standing to initiate the conversation because the relationship existed before the emergency.
Sometimes it was simply an elder. Someone whose age and proximity to death gave them permission to say what others were avoiding.
What all of them shared was this: they had seen it before. They knew the shape of the season. The family trusted the signal because they trusted the guide.
That person is gone.
The family doctor was replaced by a team of specialists, each managing a separate condition, none of them responsible for the whole picture. The parish relationship thinned as communities became more mobile and less rooted. The elder lost standing in a culture that confused age with obsolescence.
Medicine moved into the space they left behind. And medicine is extraordinary at what it does. But medicine manages the condition. It does not name the season. It does not say: the time to prepare is now, while you still can.
No one does now.
Families move through the final months of a loved one’s life without anyone saying what my father-in-law would have said without hesitation. End it while everyone is still having fun. Don’t wait for the meltdown. Act before the moment turns.
The signal never comes. So families wait. They do what the culture taught them to do in the absence of a guide.
They wait for death to tell them it is time.
Funeral professionals are not the family doctor. They are not the parish priest. But they are the people in this culture who have sat with more families navigating this season than anyone else alive.
They have seen what it looks like when families had time to prepare and used it. They have seen what it looks like when they didn’t.
They know the shape of the season.
That is standing. Not the standing of a license or a title. The standing of a guide. Someone who has watched the pattern enough times to recognize the moment, and who cares enough about the family in front of them to say something before it passes.
The role exists. It has always existed.
For now, it is simply empty.
More soon,
John
P.S. My new book, A Beautiful Farewell, is now available on Amazon. It tells the story of a family navigating the loss of a parent, and the funeral professional who became their guide. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when someone shows up as a guide rather than a vendor, the book is that story.