Part One comes from interviews
in December 2018; part two
from interviews the author
conducted in 2022. It will
be posted next Sunday.
By Robert R. Schwarz
The family
is the simplest and most basic form of
society. It
is the main school of all the social
virtues. It
is the seedbed of social life. For it is
in the
family that we learn to practice obedience,
a concern
for others, a sense of responsibility,
understanding
and mutual help, a loving
co-ordination
of essential different characters.
(Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God,
Vol.
1, pg. 234)
My goal is to find what makes me happy in life ,
to stick near my family and to always have God
on my side, to really focus on the things that matter.
( Kiana Resch )
I have visions of heaven each day I go to work.
Heaven is going to be a beautiful place where
we're going see people who have passed before us.
(Sam Resch)
 |
| Kari, Kiana , and Sam |
When the
four of us sat down to talk , the family laughed freely and occasionally
held back tears when asked to tell me what
makes them happy. They replied: serving their St.
James Catholic church in Arlington Heights,
Illinois— or sad— missing friends and
family relationships left
behind in the small Iowa farming town of Spirit Lake ( pop: 5,000 ). Sam takes his
duties as mortician and funeral director
as seriously as a priest might take his
( Sam has his heart set on becoming a deacon after four years of study ) . Kari easily emotes over a
17-year love relationship she's had with the kindergarten students she teaches .
( One can sometimes see this when passing by her classroom door on their way to morning
Mass.) Kiana is a Eucharistic minister with her father at St. James and
will soon be studying biochemical engineering in college.
Edited excerpts of our conversation follow.
Sam,
what made you decide to become a funeral
director and a mortician ?
Sam:
When
we decided farming wasn't for us, we looked at other options. Doors closed on the farm and opened on
the mortuary.
Does it ever bother you working daily with dead people?
Kari: I just ask Sam not to tell me too many details. If I
did, I think I would cry at every funeral. But I'm glad to know that he can provide comfort
to families in need.
Kiana:
( lightheartedly ) Some people don't know what to say when I tell them that my father is a mortician. I'm glad that there are people out there
willing to do work like that . And I know that he's really good at his job.
How
do you know that ?
Kiana: People
write him thank-you notes. My friend [ whose grandmother had just died] told me she was so grateful to see my Dad's bright, smiling face [ in the funeral
parlor] to comfort her .
What
brought you and Kari together?
Kari: We
were set up for a blind date by Sam's
sister. It snowed on our first date and we had to cancel. It was another month before we could
meet. We married a year and half later.
We've been married 20 years now.
Sam:
Kari came into my life when my father was sick with various health problems. He was
on 17 different medications, and Kari was with him during his hospital stays.
What
do you do as a family, that is, do things together that you cherish ?
Kiana:
Every summer we go back to Dad's home town. At a nearby town we
reconnect with the whole family. And
that's just the highlight of
my whole year. And another thing we like to do is have family meals
together.
What
restaurants do you eat at ?
Kari:
We often do take-outs.
Sam:
Chili's, California Pizza , Noodles, and Francesca's .
You
go to movies ?
Sam:
We see all kinds of movies. I take care of the concessions.
Kiana
: [ with a chuckle ] Of course he
does . Actually , we go maybe only like
once or twice a year. The last movie we saw together was the latest Harry
Potter movie. Dad fell asleep during it.
Any
special skills or talents you three have ?
Sam:
How about helping and
servicing families ?
Kari
: Sam can fix things.
Kiana:
: When he has his mind set on something, he's going to get it done.
Kari:: I like to bake sweets.
You
have a cat with the formal name of James, right?
Kari:
: He definitely has his own personality .
Kiana: We
wanted to name him Hawkeye.
Sam:
We got him on the Internet after being interviewed by the owner.
 |
| Mom with Kiana at her first communion |
We
all have challenges in life…How has your faith got you through the tough
times?
Sam:
From making the transition from living on the farm to living in the
city of Chicago for three years, before
moving to Arlington Heights. After four years of working in Iowa, the owner of
a company I was working for gave me some
money to go to mortuary school . [
the Worsham College of Mortuary Science ] Also when
you're with a family [ at the funeral home] who is really torn up
and you have to help them come through it, you need strength.
That's
not easy.
Sam:
No, it isn't ! I have to put myself in their shoes in order to
serve them. I deal with faith every day I walk into the funeral home .
Kiana:
My mom has had some
surgeries , and I have been a very anxious person. [now in tears ] My
friends have told me to turn to God for
help. And that really helps. And last
year we lost someone really close to us.
It's hard for me to watch my aunts and
uncles and Mom and Dad getting older, and seeing them struggle with things.
That tests my faith. Whenever there's a
difficulty we turn to God and know that He's going to guide us. We always pray
for all the blessings and good things we have in our lives. We like to find
those special 'God moments' , and all
that's beautiful in our lives.
Kari: We do. We pray at night and thank God for the roof over our head ,
the food that nourishes our body.
What
makes you three sad ?
Sam: [ tearful
] Seeing friends I know die. And that's
something we have to get used to. Cause that's what I sign on to do. We're
there to help them get though it.
Kari
: Even though St. James is our home,
being away from our immediate family, especially at Christmas and I see people with these huge
families , and knowing we can't go back.
Kiana: I
would definitely agree with that. It's really hard seeing other people getting
together as families…[ pauses, then tears ]
What
makes you three happy ?
Sam:
To see other people happy due to the work we have done at the
funeral home. Being seen at St. James as a family serving the church. And, before work, bringing
a cup of tea from Starbucks to my
wife when she' teaching in her classroom. Or when Kiana is working at the
parish office, she sometimes gets a
latte from me .
Kari:
When Sam and Kiana are successful.
What
about goals ?
Sam:
To be a better husband and
father and better serve the community of St. James.
Kari: To be the best kindergarten teacher I can be, the best mom and wife.
Do
the school kids ever get on you nerves ?
Kari:
Not really. I try to be really patient.
Kiana: She's called the Mary Poppins of St. James….My goal is to
find what makes me happy in life , to
stick near my family and to always have God on my side,
to really focus on the things that matter .
Plans
for the future ?
Kiana:
Well , next year I'm
planning on going either to the University of Iowa or Marquette . I'm thinking of studying biochemical engineering . I'm
thinking of doing some lab work. I really don't want an office job. I really
don’t know what will happen next, but as
Mom always says, I'll trust that God will put me where I'm suppose to be
.
What
would each of you like people to say
about you after you have died ?
Sam: First, That I did not treat anyone any worse
than I wanted to be treated. Number two: that I cared for the less fortunate ,
the handicapped, and those who needed
help.
Kari: I'd want people to say that
she was a great teacher and that she helped me to learn to read and to add and subtract.
Kiana:
Kind of like what my Dad said, that I was best person I could be towards everyone and had a caring smiling
face towards everyone.
What
drew all of you into the Catholic faith?
 |
| Blaze wanted his picture taken |
Kari: I
was raised Lutheran, but before I married Sam I became Catholic. It was really important for us to
be of the same faith because I had seen
friends struggle with one being Lutheran and one being Catholic. I didn't want that to be a problem for us.
What
impact has being a member of St. James
had on your lives ?
Sam: You
know, everyone there talks to you , and they have opened avenues for each of us.
Kiana is now lecturing besides being a
Eucharistic minister and helps with the
Sunday school program and Kari helps with the before- school care , and
we’re seen as a family at church.
Kari:
You know, they say never always sit in the same spot at Mass, but I
love to because it’s fun to connect with Maria and Joan and others. It just
makes you feel at home.
Kiana: Definitely, it's the family
aspect. St James has given me so many
opportunities to enrich my faith. The mission trip we took was so much fun,
being able to join with other kids my age. We connected with people from over
the country.
Do
you have a favorite prayer or Bible verse?
Sam:
We have "conversations " with God . Sometime you have to
put it all together,
Kiana: My
class says a prayer from the book of
Philippians , which is all about anxiety. There's something so jarring
about it. There's something about it that always pokes out to me whenever I
hear it.
Sam: Same for me. There's always a Biblical phrase you we hear in our priests' homilies that helps gets you through
the day.
Was
it difficult , Sam, to learn how to
prepare a dead body for a funeral ?
Sam: I
learned through schooling , working with people at the funeral home , and
me doing practicum's at the Cook County
Medical Examiner's Office. (again, choking back tears ) But remember
this: the Glueckert family gave me a
chance. When they hired me , I
had not touched a dead body. But, they
believed in me. They put their arm around me and took me little steps to where
I am today.
How
long did it take you to get used to
working on a corpse ?
Sam:
[dismissing the question
while remaining quite
emotional There's one thing you have to keep in mind:
I had to prove to my family that I could
be successful.
How
do you feel doing you work on someone you
know, say a friend?
Sam: It's
rough . I pray for a few minutes… Then you have a job to do .
How
do you handle a situation where the dead person has been horribly mangled in a
car accident, and it's your job to make them look dignified in that casket?
Have you ever said to a family, ' You know I think we should keep the casket
closed ' ?
Sam: I have.
We present the family with options
and take a look at the family's needs.
We, as staff, might recommend to
a family that you can see your loved one
in private for an hour , and if you want a closed casket then , we can do that.
Holy
Scripture tells us that those in Heaven
arrived there with in glorified
bodies . What are your thoughts about
that ?
Sam:
. I
say to people at the funeral, ' Whatever
you tell me, I 'm going to believe. ' I
have visions of heaven each day I go to
work. Heaven is going to be a beautiful place where we're going see
people who have passed before us. They're going to look like normal people .
And
the soldier who's been killed in
combat and remains unidentified ?
Sam:
What I believe is that our souls are going to Heaven…and what we work with in the
funeral home is the body. Each
family that sits down with us at the funeral home has something to teach us. We
learn from about life and faith.
 |
| The Resch family on the St James altar with Deacon ( far left) and Pastor Matt Foley |
Part two will be
posted next Sunday.
comments welcome at
rrschwarz7@wowway.com
© 2018, 2019, 2022 Robert R. Schwarz
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