All Empty

All of our services are concluded, we had no new calls as of closing time today, and the crematory has cremated all but two bodies. Tomorrow one of those will be taken care of, and then we'll be cleaning the cooler from top to bottom, inside and out. Of the three and a half years I've been working as a funeral director, I have never seen business so slow. We are about 45 calls behind this same time last year. However, it's not just us. I've been tracking the obituaries and all of the local funeral homes are down. Firms that averaged 30-40 calls a month are running at about 10 calls to date. There was even an article in one of the trade magazines that was discussing the declining death rate for this year. At least the owner is aware that it's not just us.