Organising the final farewell
Terence Mirabelli explores the business of professional undertakers – or funeral directors, as they prefer to be called
In the fourth round, Henry Cooper landed a left hook on Cassius Clay’s jaw. Clay, later known as Muhammed Ali, fell backwards against the ropes, stunned. Fortunately for him the bell rang, signalling the end of the round.
That June evening in 1963, at London’s Wembley Stadium, Clay had been saved by the bell.
“Saved by the bell” is an expression commonly used in boxing to describe a situation in which a boxer on the verge of defeat is spared when the bell rings to signal the end of a round.
First used in a boxing context in 1893, “saved by the bell” is also associated with burying live bodies and is a phrase coined in the 18th century.
Since time immemorial, taphophobia – the fear of being buried alive – has been the stuff of nightmares. Though rare nowadays – the last recorded case was in 2020 when Timesha Beauchamp, a 20-year-old American, was found gasping for air in a body bag – it posed a real risk for centuries. The 18th and 19th centuries saw the height of the fear of being buried alive.
This paranoia led to the construction of ‘safety’ coffins. The earliest, which had a window and an air tube, was made in 1792. Dr Johann Gottfried Taberger designed a coffin in 1829 with an above-ground bell that was fastened to the body’s head, hands and feet with strings. If the person in the coffin was still alive, they could pull the strings to alert a watchman, and were thus “saved by the bell”.
More recently, a higher tech safety coffin was patented in 1995 by Italian Fabrizio Caselli that includes an emergency alarm, oxygen tank, heart monitor, torch and a two-way radio – but no bell.
Despite these innovations, there are no records of someone being saved by a safety coffin – equipped with a bell or not.
And Malta is no exception. There are no documented cases of live burials, the use of safety coffins or of anyone being saved by the bell.
In this regard, burial practices in Malta are very traditional, having barely altered over the course of decades.
For example, closed coffins are the norm because the local Catholic church forbids open caskets at funeral masses. In contrast, in North America for instance, funeral homes manage a high number of funerals and open caskets are common.
Church rules aside, most graves in Malta are between 80 and 90 centimetres wide, explains Johann Camilleri, managing director of Iklin-based Camilleri Funeral Directors International (CFDI). “And caskets are traditionally about 90 centimetres wide, so they wouldn’t fit.” Moreover, the minimum depth of a grave in Malta is 1.83 metres.
Nor are there any funeral homes in Malta – “yet”, adds Camilleri.
In 2019, when cremation was legalised, CFDI applied for a permit to build a funeral home and crematorium on a parcel of land behind the Addolorata Cemetery.
However, although cremations are now permitted – and in great demand – there still appears to be a lot of grey areas about how and where to build them. In February 2023, the Planning Authority issued “a policy and design guidance document” for crematoria; to date, nothing has yet been finalised.
Meantime, Camilleri’s plans for a funeral home have been put on hold. “We were hoping to complete it by 2022. Now we’re hoping it will be ready by 2027.” Until then, cremations are carried out abroad, mostly in Sicily.
Camilleri defines himself – and others in the same line of work – as funeral directors or funeral agencies and seldom as undertakers.
In the past, carpenters undertook the job of building coffins and, if they happened to own a horse and cart, they would also provide transport of the dead – which is what Camilleri’s greatgrandfather was and did. Over time, ‘undertaking’ evolved into the profession that we know today.
According to Camilleri, “there’s a very fine line” separating an undertaker and a funeral director.
“In other countries, an undertaker looks after everything, including the actual burial itself – the lowering of the coffin into the grave, the interment.
“In Malta, it doesn’t work like that, because interments are carried out by cemetery workers,” explains Camilleri. “Our job is more intermedial; we coordinate, we organise and we make sure that all details are handled according to the family’s wishes.
“We like to think of ourselves as funeral directors, not undertakers.”
And there are some 90 of them on these islands, about a third of them registered and ‘above board’. The other 60 or so, according to Camilleri, are either officially unemployed, help at a church or work in factories, and they all organise funerals as a sideline.
“Many have no resources,” he says. “They call us and rent our hearses, then they buy a coffin from Ċikku. They rent cars from Peppi…they may organise 10 or 20 funerals a year. It’s not a fulltime job but they are affecting those who earn a proper living out of it.”
“I help them appreciate the positive things about their loved ones
With an average of 4,500 deaths a year on the islands, competition is stiff among funeral directors.
A funeral director with a difference is Miran Sapiano and, at 36, she is probably the youngest in the country. Not only that, but she is also the only certified thanatologist here.
Thanatology is the study of death and the various aspects related to it. It encompasses the physical, psychological and social facets associated with the end of life. It also covers grief counselling. (In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death and the general term for death.)
The nexus in the undertaking business is the family connection, passing from father to son
– or daughter. Johann Camilleri’s great-grandfather, for instance, started the business in 1890. Sapiano’s father “inspired” her to follow in his footsteps, but a personal tragedy served as the catalyst. She miscarried and lost twins.
“Together with my husband, we grieved and I was a mess. I wanted to do something with that pain,” she says. She “discovered” thanatology and felt this was her “way forward”, abandoning her career as a pharmacist.
“I am a funeral director, because that’s my passion,” she declares, but she also wants to “bring something new to this country”.
“The way we tackle the undertaking role is transactional”, she says. “You go to an undertaker, and he helps you with the coffin, the flowers, the cards, with the permits and he’s very helpful… job done, it’s transactional,” she adds.
“I am very proud that I managed to elevate this role a bit...I help families with the transactional part of the funeral – that’s why they ask for our services – but, simultaneously, I support them emotionally as well,” Sapiano explains. “I try to organise more of a celebration of the life of their loved one.”
What makes her different, she says, is that, as a thanatologist, she “sits” with the families of the departed and asks them to “highlight nice things, share memories and show me photos of the deceased. We then shift the energy level from sadness to gratitude for having had such a person in our lives. And this is so healing for them.
“I help them appreciate the positive things about their loved ones. Even when it comes to choices of, for example, flowers, cards, coffins – we try to think what the person would have chosen [for themselves], we try to personalise it as much as possible,” explains Sapiano.
Few of us consider, let alone plan, our own funerals; instead, we typically leave that task, along with the financial burden, to our loved ones. Although common in continental Europe, preplanning one’s own funeral or cremation is still balked at in Malta.
Several undertakers now offer this service and the uptake is said to be on the increase. Preplanning “carries numerous advantages, including the reassurance that funeral or cremation arrangements are in accordance with the person’s wishes”, explains Camilleri.
Nevertheless, it must be unnerving choosing your coffin or urn.
Nowadays few undertakers manufacture their own coffins – most are imported and there just a handful of importers. One can also order one online from Alibaba.com! (Also available from this site are “corpse cremation machines” €69,000 apiece.)
More unsettling must be the conversation on whether one wishes to be embalmed.
At its simplest, embalmers – there are five on the islands, four in Malta and one in Gozo – replace the blood in the deceased’s arteries with formaldehydebased chemicals to slow decomposition.
Although the church may not allow open-coffin services, it is possible to view a loved one’s corpse at Mater Dei’s mortuary; consequently, funeral directors advise that bodies be embalmed.
“When you’re seeing your loved one for the last time you want [them to be] the same colour they were when they passed away, and ideally without any unpleasant odours, so we recommend embalming,” Camilleri explains.
A mortuary make-up artist is often used to, well, make up the deceased. It’s an added service that doesn’t occur to most people when organising a funeral. Some funeral directors take it upon themselves to hire a desairologist – the term for a mortuary cosmetician.
“I support people who are
asnthde dying as well grieving,” says Sapiano. She’s had cases where a person has asked her to be buried in a favourite dress or wanting to be made up “with that lipstick and this eye shadow”.
The deceased’s last journey is in most cases from the morgue, usually at Mater Dei Hospital or occasionally from care home morgues, to a church and then finally to a cemetery.
“Sometimes, although it’s rare,” says Camilleri, “we take the deceased from the morgue to their residence so that their last journey is from their home to the church or cemetery.” at