Survivor Network

by Chaplain Jeffrey Wolfe

Death notifications are challenging tasks for Law Enforcement Chaplains. They deliver heartbreaking news to families about the loss of their loved ones. Typically, the local Coroner’s office handles most deaths, but sometimes, they request a Police Chaplain to make the death notification.

Here are some crucial points to remember when making a Death Notification:

1. Confirm the Coroner's Positive ID

Upon receiving a call from the Coroner’s Office, confirm if they have a positive ID of the deceased. To prevent mistakes, ask how the identification was made. Common methods include fingerprint, facial identification, dental records, and DNA.

2. Gather Accurate Details of the Decedent and the Incident

Accuracy is vital. Ensure you have correct details such as the decedent’s full name, birth date, time of death, residence, cause of death, and the Coroner's details.

3. Request Assistance from a District Car

For safety reasons, always request a district car's assistance when going to notify the next of kin.

4. Be Cautious when Knocking on the Door

Wait for the district car to arrive and then inform the officer about the death notification details. Always stand to the side of the door when knocking.

5. Show Your Credentials

When the door opens, identify yourself clearly and show your credentials.

6. Confirm You are Speaking to the Legal Next of Kin

After identifying yourself, confirm if you're talking to the legal next of kin before delivering the news.

7. Don’t Give the Death Notification at the Front Door

Ask for permission to come inside the house. This is a matter of respect and privacy for the family.

8. Be Direct with the Death Notification

Start by saying, “I have some bad news for you” to prepare the person for the upcoming information. Use explicit words like “died” or “killed” to kickstart the grieving process.

9. Know the Family's Cultural and Religious Practices

Understand the grieving processes and death rituals of the family's religion or culture to show respect and avoid misunderstanding.

Continuous learning about other faiths, local resources, and enhancing chaplain skills is crucial in this line of work.

Checklist:

Checklist:

[ ] Confirm the Coroner's Positive ID

[ ] Gather Accurate Details of the Decedent and the Incident

[ ] Request Assistance from a District Car

[ ] Be Cautious when Knocking on the Door

[ ] Show Your Credentials

[ ] Confirm You are Speaking to the Legal Next of Kin

[ ] Don’t Give the Death Notification at the Front Door

[ ] Be Direct with the Death Notification

[ ] Know the Family's Cultural and Religious Practices

[ ] Continue learning about other faiths, local resources, and enhancing chaplain skills

Note: One of the courses required for the Basic Chaplain Credential within the International Conference of Police Chaplains is called Death Notifications. Make sure you go through proper training and even observe an actual death notification before attempting to make your first notification solo (with an officer).

About the Author

Thank you all for joining the Police Chaplain Coffee Shop and supporting our work at ChaplainUSA.org. 

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There is something spiritual about joy.

A rich mixture of happiness, delight, gladness, and wonder combine in our depths to create a sense of reverence and awe.

That's the difference. It is like refraction of light through a glass prism The light is bent and deviated, leaving the prism as a rainbow. Joy changes us and everyone around us.

We have been told over and over again that wealth and wellbeing are one and the same.

Can it really be that money and the economy are what hold the keys to our happiness and morality?

A humanitarian and author I admire thinks not.

Gregory Boyle, who lives and works with gang members in Los Angeles, said during a conference in Memphis that there is a much more meaningful path to follow;

It’s where the joy is, follow the joy, it’s about the joy

Georgia O’Keeffe, the artist known for her striking perspectives and innovations was asked in an interview about why flower petals and other small objects were magnified making them appear larger than mountains or skyscrapers in her landscapes.

She replied that "Everyone sees the big things, but these smaller things are so beautiful and people might not notice them if I didn't emphasize them."

Miracles can be found everywhere if only we pay attention.

When embraced and appreciated fully we will experience the internal and eternal presence of authentic joy.

The awe of joy, that refracted rainbow, leads to our heart of hearts, our true selves, where God is always waiting with open arms. I've experienced such bliss at the birth of my children and grandchildren or while hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains to sit at the base of a 'hidden' waterfall.

I feel it while sitting in the living room with my wife and hear it in the voices of old friends over the phone. The world stops for a moment and what is important becomes clear. I witnessed one of those times at the former Children's Home of Vermilion County in Danville, Illinois.

As a child care worker, I had joined in an effort with other service providers to reunite four children ages 6-12 with their mother. They had lived at the facility for over a year with no family contact allowed due to allegations of abuse from the father and negligence of responsibility by the mother.

Even after the father was safely in prison and mother was cleared of all related charges, the State of Illinois DCFS was unwilling to bring them back together. Six months of diligent pleas and hard work finally resulted in a softening of their position.

On Christmas Eve there was a group banquet and gift exchange for the kids and staff in the main dining area. As a local church choir sang "O Holy Night" the mother of our four kids appeared from behind the lights and garland at the doorway. The youngest boy looked up and shouted "MAMA" followed by shrieks from his brother and sisters.

They rushed together in a group hug that almost knocked mother down. The incredible radiance which filled them spilled over to us all. There wasn't a dry eye in the place. It cannot be denied that this moment manifested the awe of joy.

Only humans “dream things that never were” and “say ‘Why not?’ ” as George Bernard Shaw famously put it. This capacity gives us flying machines and pocket computers. It also gives us rising suicide rates in countries around the globe, from the United States to India to New Zealand. 

To be unhappy enough to end it all, a person must first imagine a condition of greater happiness, then lose hope that the greater happiness can be achieved. 

Because there is no limit to human imagination, there is never a shortage of greener pastures. 

A strong case can be made that modern society does a poor job of preparing 21st-century humans for the inevitable ebb and flow of discontent. Indeed, British therapist and philosopher James ­Davies has buttressed that case formidably in a scholarly tome titled “The Importance of Suffering.” 

Davies argues that we have created a culture that assumes happiness to be the normal, healthy human condition. Deviations from the blissful path — sadness, anxiety, disappointment — are thus treated as illnesses in search of a cure. This “harmful cultural belief that much of our everyday suffering is a damaging encumbrance best swiftly removed” gets in the way of a more robust response, he writes: namely, approaching unpleasant emotions as “potentially productive experiences to be engaged with and learnt from.”

Davies suggests that suffering is a healthy call-to-change and shouldn't be chemically anesthetised or avoided. 

The Importance of Suffering offers new ways to think about, and therefore understand suffering. It will appeal to anyone who works with suffering in a professional context.

While grumbling, fault-finding, and name calling are so commonplace, it seems like good words, well wishes and blessings are in short supply. We are starved for an unceasing, free-flowing benediction from the mouths of every religious leader, governmental representative, media personality, teacher, and employer. In fact, each and every one of us needs to stop the malediction (Latin; evil speaking) once and for all. It poses a real threat to the future and well-being of our world.

I remember being a boy at First Presbyterian Church in Danville, Illinois struggling through sermons, anticipating the Charge and Benediction. I was thinking more about the cavalry charge from a western movie than a mission call from the alter. When the benediction blessing came saying; "May the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace" to me it meant we were set free. Charge! My mother could hardly restrain me as my suit jacket ripped off in mid-flight to the car. There was still time to play a game of kick the can when we got home. Then it was off to my grandparents for Sunday dinner.

We can bring a message of hope and joy where we might have inflicted damage and beaten others down in the past.

“There was literally nothing enjoyable about the job. You’d go into work at 9am every morning, turn on your computer and watch someone have their head cut off. Every day, every minute, that’s what you see. Heads being cut off.”

That’s how one man, who wished to remain anonymous, characterized his job as a content moderator at Facebook.

“We were underpaid and undervalued,” said the man, who earned roughly $15 per hour removing terrorist content from the social network after a two-week training course.

Pictures, videos, profiles and groups would be flagged either by users or algorithms to review, and his team would decide if they needed to be removed or escalated.

“Every day people would have to visit psychologists. Some couldn’t sleep or they had nightmares.”

Psychologists say that the emotional toll of looking at extreme imagery, whether violent terrorist acts or child sexual abuse, can be punishing.

Workers exposed to such content should have extensive resiliency training and access to counsellors, akin to the support that first-responders receive.

However, testimony from those working to keep beheadings, bestiality and child sexual abuse images off Facebook indicates that the support provided isn’t enough.

“The training and support was absolutely not sufficient,” said the analyst, who worked at a company contracted by Facebook to moderate content.

Facebook company spokeswoman said:

"Every day people would have to visit psychologists. Some couldn’t sleep or they had nightmares. We recognize that this work can often be difficult. That is why every person reviewing Facebook content is offered psychological support and wellness resources.”

Can more be done?

According to Rabbi Avram Mlotek, the answer is YES.

Rabbi, writer and co-founder of Base Hillel, Avram Mlotek is a longtime advocate of using chaplains in Silicon Valley

From Rabbi Avram Mlotek’s recent essay: Why it’s time for Silicon Valley start hiring chaplains:

I am a rabbi, so social media is not my primary operating system. Nevertheless — like billions of other people on Earth — I’m a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram user. Why shouldn’t a sermon reverberate across as many virtual channels as possible? Our globe is interconnected like never before because of such advances in technology, and that is something to be celebrated.

" Our spiritual lives have suffered as technology use has expanded. We’ve forgotten how to pause, to look up from the screen, to see and be seen."  -- Rabbi Mlotek

Still, the obvious needs stating: Our spiritual lives have suffered as technology use has expanded. We’ve forgotten how to pause, to look up from the screen, to see and be seen. The ethics of the internet corrode as quickly as they develop.

The onus of responsibility for reevaluating the effects of technology should not lie solely upon users; the providers of this technology share this responsibility too. After all, we occupy this new virtual landscape together. This symbiotic relationship is paralleled in Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism: The mekabel, receiver, can only receive insomuch as the mashpia, provider, can readily give.

That’s why it’s time for Silicon Valley to start hiring chaplains.

Chaplains work on-site in hospitals, prisons and social service agencies providing spiritual care to all — nurses as well as patients, guards as well as prisoners, staff as well as clients. It’s not so farfetched. Technology companies host gyms, massage therapists, keynote speakers and meditation spaces to contribute to the wellbeing of their employees. Why not chaplains too?

My husband died out skiing in the neighborhood on Christmas Day in 1985. I was 39 and our daughter was 3. She had started at a local nursery school in the fall. None of the parents at the school reached out to me. Others did. I had visits, food, notes from people close and very distant (friends of friends). Other people disappeared. I had never been taught about offering condolences. I learned a lot.

If someone is having any kind of hard time — death in the family, bad grades, parent arrested, bad publicity, anything, really — you can always say, “I’m thinking about you.” For any loss, you can always say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then just listen.

We are not in the habit of welcoming or celebrating death and loss.  It seems counter-intuitive or just plain wrong on so many levels.   We aren't ready to grieve and mourn regardless of how well we've been prepared. Planning and anticipation might set the stage for loss, but when it comes there is little which has been done that truly relieves the suffering. I remember when my paternal grandfather died at age 97.  He had lived an active, happy and virtuous life to its fullest.  But it was the only time I saw my father cry.

Western culture tends to divide things into either-or's as opposed to both-and's.  This two-ends-of-a-spectrum, dualistic thinking leaves little space in the middle and narrows wiggle room for processing death, loss, and suffering leaving only simple opposing choices.  Either you are happy or sad, angry or forgiving, beginning or ending, grieving or celebrating.

The dualistic mind wants everything to be black or white. And, in reality, isn't it interesting that black and white are so much alike? On the color wheel, black is the presence of all color and white is the absence of all color. But on the light spectrum white is the presence of all color and black is the absence. Maybe God is trying to tell us something. Eastern cultures and religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism practice non-dualism. And Christian mystics have long understood the value of oneness.

When it comes to grief and celebration, the two are never far apart at all.  Many traditional funerals with somber open casket viewings and formal services are often set aside for Celebration of Life memorials.  Stories of good times and bad are offered by family and friends who might gather over a banquet table with cocktails and luscious desserts.  Laughter and tears share the same space. Such gatherings create an atmosphere conducive to healing.  The dark specter of loss and finality gives way to the possibility of new beginnings.

There is a beautiful, hopeful and certainly non-dualistic verse attributed to Henry Van Dyke or Luther F. Beecher that was presented to me when I was volunteering at an AIDS hospice in 1992.  It sums up for me what loss, grief, and death are all about.

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."Gone where? Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast, hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me -- not in her. And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone, "there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

New Perspectives on Grief and Loss

Rabbi Moshe Scheiner offers a simple but challenging way out of the darkness of anger and hate in modern life. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Rabbi Moshe Scheiner is the founding Rabbi of the Palm Beach Synagogue in Palm Beach, Florida.

He holds a Masters degree of Talmudic studies and Jewish philosophy from the Rabbinical College of America. Rabbi Scheiner resides in Palm Beach with his Rebbetzin, Dinie and their six children.

As part of my grief and bereavement training I was introduced to the benefits of asking those who knew the deceased to write a letter, a letter written to the deceased or to the family or both.

A personal letter that comes from the heart and says what ever the author wants if to say.

Tales of fond memories and hilarious recollections of events few may know about or thoughts of how much they are missed and how special their friendship was.

These letters fulfill two important functions. If it is a letter to the deceased, it provides the writer an opportunity to begin their journey of grief and to give significance to the life of the deceased. To say what hadn't been said before or to say what needs to be said now.

The key issue is that these letters will never be read by anyone because they will be placed into the casket with the deceased. They are a personal correspondence between friends.

When I did this for the first time and I went to the wife and asked her permission to place any letters I may receive into the casket, she was overwhelmed with emotion and thought it was a wonderful gesture.

When I went and spoke with the officer's co-workers, a detective unit, my message was received with reservation but several people did submit letters addressed to the deceased officer. I also invited the officer's co-workers to write letters to the wife and family. I told them how talking to her and offering their condolences and sharing fond memories were good and important, but that a letter was something the family could cherish and read for many years to come.

That these remembrances would be important now but would be more meaningful in the future, especially for the young children who will read them as adults in the future, adults looking to learn more about their missing parent. Again, several people did submit letters addressed to the family. These letters are personal and, for many people, very difficult to write.

There are some fundamental guidelines funeral coordinators need to be aware of. The invitation to write these letters should be done soon after the death, one to three days after the death. Before emotions become hardened and they become accustomed to the loss.

The invitation should be made by someone who understands and believes in the idea because it has to be sold, people have to be convinced that it is good for them and the surviving family. The letters need to be turned in within two days after the invitation, regardless of when the services are.

This is because the longer people wait the more they procrastinate. They need a due date.

The longer they have to submit the letter the more they will be tempted to go back over what they wrote and begin to edit it and check it for grammar errors etc. It won't be graded or returned for corrections. It is an informal personal conversation.

Write, seal it, submit it.

This is a difficult thing for many people to do but they need to be aware of the opportunity.

They need to be informed of the purpose of the letter, either personally or for the family. They need to be motivated by someone they know and trust and who believes in the importance of the request. They need to be provided a strict, but reasonable, time line for completion and submission. If we don't do it, who will?