This story originally appeared on April 4, 2025 in URBANIA, an online magazine based in Quebec focused on pop culture and society.

I think about death often.

Lately, faced with a loved one’s illness, it’s been on my mind almost every day.

And yet I rarely speak of it. Because death has a way of tightening the throat of those it touches.

I felt it was time to confront the reflections I keep sidestepping by meeting with those who live alongside it every day: professionals in the funeral world. If their work shapes their relationship to death and mourning, it also reshapes how they see life.

Not your typical somber funeral director

I feel a knot in my stomach as I push open the heavy door of the Memoria funeral complex in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie. These kinds of places—ones I’ve fortunately not had to visit too often—have always left me with a suffocating sense of discomfort.

To my surprise, I’m greeted by a young woman in her twenties with a radiant gaze. Warm and quick to laugh, Rosée Tremblay—introduced as a family advisor, the title the company uses for its funeral directors—shatters the rather austere image I had of professionals in this field.

Rosée Tremblay, family advisor for the Memoria funeral complexes.

“In my first months in the funeral world, I immediately realized it was going to profoundly change my perception of life,” she tells me right away.

Contrary to what I imagined, Rosée Tremblay doesn’t come from a long line of death workers, nor did she grow up with any fascination for the macabre.

She began working in a funeral complex out of sheer curiosity while in CEGEP, looking for a student job. “I just couldn’t see myself working in a pharmacy or a grocery store,” she says, smiling.

Talking about death

“If society had a better understanding of everything surrounding grief and death, I’m 100% sure people would be less afraid of dying,” says the woman, who has now been working in the industry for five years.

She explains that those who discuss their funeral arrangements in advance often leave the funeral home more at peace. In her view, talking about death offers “the possibility of seeing beyond the black hole after death.”

Her main advice: don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Rosée isn’t afraid of dying

“Do you think about your own death often?” I ask, mid-sentence.

She smiles.

“I do, but not in an elaborate way. I think more about what will make me happy in life rather than picturing my death. But dying doesn’t scare me.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t scare me.”

“Do you believe in something after death?”

“Not even,” she laughs. “But I do think the ritual after death is important for our loved ones. Honestly, that’s the most important thing. And it reassures me to know where I’ll be going after I die.”

I realize we’ve already laughed several times while talking about la muerte, which lightens the atmosphere and almost makes me forget where we are. “Humour is really important [in grief]. We can’t just focus on sadness,” she points out.

Finding light

The funeral director assures me that her work “isn’t dark” and that she actually sees a lot of beauty in it. “Some people are deeply affected, but others have been accompanying their loved ones through years of illness. For them, it’s a relief. It’s far from always being sad. Sometimes we can even have really joyful days.”

When we picture funerary ceremonies, what often comes to mind are solemn services in a church or funeral home, where, dressed in black, we sadly offer our condolences and a handshake to the bereaved family. But Rosée Tremblay insists we shouldn’t stop at that image. To her, the possibilities are endless.

For example, a ceremony can take place outdoors, like in the Jardin des mémoires at Memoria’s Laval branch. People can be asked to wear colourful clothing, musicians can be invited, butterflies or doves can be released.

Even though the death of a loved one brings sadness, shaping the ritual in their image can offer comfort and light, she emphasizes.

Living with death every day has taught Rosée Tremblay that life hangs by a thread—something that pushes her to seize each moment, travel as much as she can, and seek out as many occasions for joy as she can.

A thanatologist and life

I head out to the middle of nowhere in Anjou, where Urgel Bourgie’s operations centre is located. There, I meet thanatologist Katy Boyer-Gaboriault. This profession, which has always terrified me, is anything but morbid to her.

Katy Boyer-Gaboriault, thanatologist at Urgel Bourgie.

In 20 years, she has embalmed the deceased of all ages, origins, and faiths: those taken by illness, those subjected to medical relentlessness, those whose lives ended suddenly, those who were murdered, and those who ended their own.

The thanatologist holds deep respect for every person who passes across her table.

“When I embalm someone, I always tell myself: this is someone’s sibling, someone’s partner. I treat the deceased the way I would want my spouse or my family to be treated.”

For her, seeing a loved one one last time before cremation or burial is essential to the grieving process. “I find it so important for the shock of reality—for realizing that, yes, our loved one has truly passed, that they won’t be coming back. It can also leave a beautiful final image, seeing them at peace.”

A gesture that gives meaning to her work.

Stories that leave a mark

Although Katy Boyer-Gaboriault embalms people every day, some stories still affect her more than others.

“The first femicide I encountered,” she says, before pausing. “It’s not something they talk about at school. They prepare us for children, for murders. But femicides, in general, are extremely violent crimes.”

She recounts the devastating impact of realizing that this woman had been killed by the person she trusted most. That realization left scars, and the thanatologist admits she had trouble trusting others afterwards.

“There aren’t thousands of women who are randomly murdered,” she adds. “But I’ve seen them. Avoiding an alley at night on my way back from the metro because I saw her on my table—that’s happened to me. She and I, we’re the same person. But why am I standing, while she’s lying there?”

She doesn’t care about her own death

Does Katy Boyer-Gaboriault believe in life after death? Yes and no. She explains that, to build her own beliefs about death, she’s drawn from different religions—and from Pixar’s animated film Coco. I never would have expected such an answer from a thanatologist, and it endears her to me.

“I invented a little world for myself to feel better, where my loved ones are having fun. But do I fundamentally believe it? I wouldn’t go that far. It’s something you believe in to help you live,” she confides.

Either way, she puts it bluntly: “My own death? I don’t care.”

“In the lab, each of us has our favourite coffin,” she says, laughing. “We all say, ‘I want this one. I want that one.’ But me? I won’t be there. It doesn’t change anything in my life.”

It’s the death of her loved ones that frightens her. “Now, when I go on vacation, I’m always afraid someone will die and I won’t be there.”

Until then, she enjoys life and makes sure never to be on bad terms with her mother.

Cherishing the people we love

Before joining the funeral field, Michelle Auger, director of funeral services at Urgel Bourgie, worked as an early childhood educator—a real career shift.

She says she finds great gratification in her work. “When we hear comments from families like, ‘Wow, he looked so good, thank you,’ or ‘She seems so at peace’ […] that part, we often say, that’s our real pay.”

Michelle Auger, director of funeral activities at Urgel Bourgie.

She recalls one call that left a mark: for a twelve-year-old girl who had taken her own life. “I was in shock. My daughter was that age. I told myself: my God, I need to talk to my teenager even more often. This field makes you realize things.”

That story, along with her fifteen years of experience in the industry, has only reinforced her belief that we must make the most of every moment. “I don’t live with regrets,” she says firmly.

When she says that, I can’t help but picture the tattoo “No ragrets” that my friend proudly sports on the inside of her lower lip. I always found it rather ridiculous, but now I realize that hidden in that misspelling is a profound truth.

The three professionals I met made it abundantly clear: avoiding talk of death won’t make it go away. It’s inevitable, and there’s no need to make a fuss about it.

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Salomé Maari @ URBANIA

When rubbing shoulders with death is your full-time gig