By Thomas A. Parmalee
When you think of Michaelene Dowers, the founder of Pollen – a company that offers curated books to help grieving children – you might want to have one of Johnny Cash’s classic songs playing in your head.
If you know country music, you’ll know the chorus:
I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere
Dowers, 37, a wife and mother whose husband, Jack, spent 10 years in the Marines, has been a funeral director in Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Indiana, Oregon and Idaho – and she just recently became licensed in North Carolina. Right now, she’s living in Tennessee, where the country music legend made his home for many years.
“Every couple of years, someone is following someone,” she said, referencing either her or her husband following the other for a better opportunity elsewhere, which sort of sounds like a country song in itself.
While an injury she suffered riding an electric scooter a couple years ago has limited her time in the prep room and doing what some may consider traditional funeral directing, she keeps her licenses current in most of the states she’s worked in and calls funeral service “the only career I know.”
She started off in funeral service while still in high school in conjunction with a senior class project. “And I never left,” she said.
She went on to earn her associate’s degree in mortuary science from Cypress College, a Bachelor of Arts in religion/religious studies from Grand Canyon University; a Master of Arts in crisis/emergency/disaster management from American Military University; and a master’s degree in thanatology from Marian University of Fond du Lac. She’s currently completing her Ph.D. in mind-body medicine and end-of-life care from Saybrook University.
Over her career, she admits that she’s tried using her artillery of credentials to escape death care. “But that doesn’t work,” she said. “So, I am embracing it, and here is where I stay.”
Licensed as a funeral director and embalmer for about 10 years, she has, however, found a passion for being a mortuary science educator, serving as a professor, adjunct faculty member or instructor at multiple institutions.
While she loves teaching, right now she’s devoting her attention to growing Pollen, which she started last year.
The idea of offering curated books to children in grief came to her a long time ago, but she noted that her daughter – who is 5 – gave it new life with her constant questions about death.
She explained, “The idea that we are not telling children about death, dying and bereavement bothers me,” she said. “The idea of telling them about death should not be scary … children are not stupid.”
Far too many times, she’s witnessed a child being left in the dark after a grandparent or some other loved one has died, she said.
“They absolutely know something is going on,” she said. “Grandma didn’t come back … where is she? They want closure.”
The desire to help them get that closure was the driving force behind launching Pollen, she said, recalling how she once got into an “internet battle” with a woman who insisted it was inappropriate to tell children about death.
“Why not keep them innocent?” was her argument.
That type of thinking won’t do anyone any good – especially children, according to Dowers.
“It sounds safer, and it may sound helpful, but you are creating a mysteriousness around it that when perpetuated creates a fear of the unknown,” she said. “You don’t want a child who is 8 or 10 years old to go to school and learn about sex from their classmates … why would you want them to learn about death from their classmates?”
Conversations about death should happen early – preferably before a child finds themselves coping with the death of a loved one, she said. For the same reasons, they should be familiar with other uncomfortable topics, such as drug addiction and divorce, she believes.
“Why wait for this to happen to have these conversations in a heightened environment?” she asked.
When children are not told the truth about death, the results can be traumatic, Dowers said. She recalled a few instances over her career in which she worked with families that really struggled with helping a grieving child.
One family had a son whose grandmother had died.
She recalled their language:
“We don’t know what to tell him,” they said. “He’s too young to remember and will stop asking about her eventually.”
As their funeral director, she told the couple that their response was not appropriate, but they still did not know what to do.
“So, I sat down and asked them their religious viewpoints – not to be nosy – but because it was going to affect how they talked to this child about loss,” she said. “I also asked about their level of understanding of life in general. Could they read and write? Are they able to use critical thinking skills?”
Eventually, they did talk to their child about grandma dying and what it meant.
“And they did a great job,” she said. “But they had this fear of the unknown and what would happen.”
Things – unfortunately – did not turn out so well for another child.
In that case, the family consisted of a divorced couple with a 7-year-old and 5-year-old, both boys. When the mother went to take the children to their dad’s place, as he had custody for the weekend, she didn’t get a response when she knocked on his door.
She used a key that she had for emergencies to enter his home and found him hanging in the closet.
“The kids are still in the car and see all this going on and have questions … and she answers those in an OK kind of way,” she said.
But fast forward to later, and things did not go as smoothly.
Dowers discovered that the mother had been telling her boys that hey “needed to be good to Mommy” and pointing to airplanes flying overhead. She was telling them, “He’s up there and he is watching, and if you aren’t good, you won’t see him anymore.”
She explained, “She used the airplane as a way to perpetuate a fear of going to heaven or hell … and I thought, ‘They are never going to get on an airplane ever again if she keeps this up.’”
Dowers has also worked with other individuals who were clearly reluctant to pursue anything over than the simplest of cremations as the result of a traumatic experience with death as a child.
One gentleman she served as an adult shared with her how after his father died when he was 8 years old, he was told that “the adults were grieving” and that he needed to “sit down and be quiet.” He was not even allowed to approach the casket – he was told to sit in a corner, she said.
“He was traumatized by that situation, and no one explained anything,” she said. “When his mom died, she was a direct cremation with no service.”
She also has served numerous families throughout the years who had to cope with the death of a stillborn child without any type of comfort being given to them or their other children.
Essentially, they were told to “go home and make more babies – it’s okay,” she said. “These are things that are super important that we need to be working on as Americans.”
Offering a Solution
With Pollen, Dowers is doing her part to work on those things – and her curated packages of grief books and related materials have received a warm reception from families as well as veterinarians and hospice care organizations.
But funeral homes, so far, have been slow to embrace the offering, which is something she’s hoping to change.
“Financially speaking, the man who did not have a service for his mother who could not bring himself to show up because of something that had happened 40 years back, could have held a wonderful service,” she said. “That is lost revenue, but of course, I’m not doing this because of that. However, if we get people educated and if they educate their children right out of the gate, that will only make services better in the future.”
Her business received a big boost when Michael Story, who goes by the name TheAppalachianSon on Instagram, opened a curated box of books from Pollen on Instagram – a post that generated a great deal of engagement from his 196,000 followers.
As part of the unboxing, Story read a note Dowers had included: “My mission at Pollen is to transform how we approach the discussions about death and loss with young minds. I provide tools and support that help caregivers and educators create meaningful conversations with children, fostering a sense of security and understanding during challenging times,” it read.
Dowers explained, “Michael is not a licensed funeral director, but he has a huge Instagram following. He is very popular and talks about the Appalachian region and death care.”
When he unboxed her book of materials on his Instagram feed, he became emotional, she said.
“And I got 120 clients in a day and a half,” she said.
As for how Pollen works, it concentrates on offering curated boxes of books that focus on themes, such as suicide, drug addiction, school violence, weather-related events, Alzheimer’s, the loss of a pet, etc. Books can be targeted to serve a particular religion or the secular community. There is even a curated box for toddlers, which includes a stuffed animal.
Funeral homes are encouraged to buy a “one of everything box” that costs in the $500 to $600 range and then display the materials, so that they can easily strike up a conversation with families on whether they may have a child struggling with the loss of a loved one.
When families want the materials, they could either be loaned out or sold, and then the funeral home could buy a new kit of materials to display, Dowers explained.
“Funeral homes would just do a third-party expense as a line item – at least, that is the way it works in my head,” she said.
A curated box of books focusing on a single subject generally costs about $75, Dowers said.
Dowers has heard from many families who have said they wished they knew earlier on that Pollen existed.
“Parents are not thinking that they need to find resources to tell Timmy about Grandma or the dog,” she said. “But I have already curated them for you.”
Sadly, however, she’s heard from too many funeral directors whose reaction is that they don’t need such books – that they are there to help families with loss or that families are not going to ask for that.
“But I think this takes a small load off the funeral director’s plate,” she said. “Funeral directors know what they know, and I can say this from experience – they are really good at arranging funerals and counseling families. But children are not always there and aren’t always talked about.”
Even though Dowers is focusing most of her attention on Pollen, she’s still active in other aspects of funeral directing, serving as the funeral director in charge for a company based in Washington state.
“I sign all their death certificates and clear all their contracts and cremation authorizations to ensure they are abiding by the letter of the law,” she said. “So, my funeral director’s license is still in use. I will next be getting a license from the state of Virginia to do preneed sales … but all the money I earn is going directly into Pollen.”
Interested in placing an order with Pollen or learning more? Email Michaelene Dowers.
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