Final Embrace honours diverse funeral traditions with compassion

“You’re sort of helping them at a really difficult, one of the most difficult times in their lives, usually,” he said.

“It’s an honour to help them.

“We basically do everything from when someone passes away.”

As a funeral director, Mr Saitta also makes sure religious and cultural practices are followed when requested.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” he said.

“I sort of specialised in certain cultures and traditions in places I’ve worked, and also in international and domestic repatriation.

“Sikh, Hindu, and Islamic cultures, they’re my specialties as well, and taking care of people with those traditions and faith.”

Mr Saitta said families that had different cultural and religious funeral practices were grateful when the funeral home understood and knew what their traditions were.

“A lot of the time, we find even the younger family members may not be aware of what they need to culturally do,” he said.

“It’s assisting and guiding them in their own traditions at times, which they really appreciate.

“With those communities, we generally have someone, like a contact person, that would be within their community that would be in touch with me, and let me know that they need us to take care of someone.”

He said it was important to respect and assist people with their traditions and beliefs.

Funeral length is something that varies greatly across cultures.

In some cultures in Asia, multi-day funerals are common.

“I think it’s a very western thing where we don’t deal with our deceased,” Mr Saitta said.

“We don’t deal with the process as such. They sort of get picked up, and the next time we see them, it’s in their coffin at the funeral.

“I just don’t understand how we justify saying goodbye to someone in such a short time frame.”

“I love other traditions and cultures, even like the Philippines and the Thai culture, the families will take their loved one home, and they’ll care for them.”

Although Final Embrace provides traditional western funerals, Mr Saitta said his team was branching out and encouraged family involvement.

“Family involvement in terms of everything. Preparing their loved one, washing them, dressing them, having them at home,” he said.

“Obviously, we do absolutely everything because not all families want to have that sort of part, so we can do everything, but we can also be there to assist families, to do it all themselves as well.

“It would sort of only be Hindu or Sikh, even Islanders, where they would take their loved ones home for a few days.

“If you mention it to a western person to do that, they look at you a bit strange. It’s not something that they’re used to being offered.”

He said Final Embrace had a few families take up that offer.

“A young woman passed away and her children were able to come in every day and spend time, and they dressed her, bathed her, looked after her,” Mr Saitta said.

“They weren’t sure if they were going to be able to do it, but once they did it, they were so thankful they were able to and it really helped with their saying goodbye and their grieving process.”

Part of Final Embrace’s philosophy is to not rush the family.

“It is very much entrenched in our beliefs that someone’s died, the funeral has to happen within a few days,” Mr Saitta said.

“That’s so far from the truth.

“Our motto is that you can only do the funeral once, so there’s no rehearsals, there’s no second go. Why rush it?

“We can have someone into our care for months, if that’s what the family would like, but there’s no legislation in how long someone has to be buried.”