Bringing compassion to sorrow

WASILLA -- Her clients are almost always traumatized, overwhelmed with emotions that range from anger to extreme shock. Tears are shed opposite her desk on a daily -- sometimes hourly -- basis. This is where Jeanne Garmaize does her best work.

No, Garmaize does not work in a counseling or therapy center, although she majored in psychology and philosophy in college. She is the administrative assistant at Valley Funeral Home.

"I can't do anything to ease their grief, but I can go behind the scenes to make the arrangements easier, to get the obit right, to get the paperwork done on time," Garmaize said of the nearly three years she has been working in the funeral business.

The 50-year-old said her early experiences with death had a profound effect on her. She first dealt with a family death at the tender age of 6, she said, and even at her young age she was impressed with how kind the people [at the funeral home] were with children.

"I thought, 'they're nice to me.' That really touched me as a little kid," she said. That memory is something she keeps with her on a day-to-day basis.

"I just know what it's like," Garmaize said of her clients, explaining that by the time she was 40 she had lost all but her sister, an aunt and an uncle. "So I did spend some time in funeral homes."

The brunette with the easy smile said she's not immune to the pain, but her sense of compassion, her faith in God, and her attention to detail help her get through the daily trials of dealing with other people's grief.

"I make mistakes from time to time and that's where I grieve. I feel so

bad when I've ever forgot something … I try to cross all my Ts and dot my Is and try to make sure everything in perfect order." Plus,

she said, she has a good teacher in Bill Keller, her boss and owner of Valley Funeral Home.

"He's always calm, very orderly, and very particular -- I just love this environment," she said. Garmaize was quick to add that working with the dead is not the draw to her job, it's the connection to family.

"I prefer working for a family," Garmaize said of the Kellers, and as each client comes through the door she has a chance to help a family.

"I get to say the word 'family' dozens of times a day and that makes me feel good," she said. "I like to do service work, I like to help people."

Garmaize, who was previously married to Rabbi Abraham Garmaize and came to the Mat-Su three years ago with her husband to help build a local Jewish temple, said her faith helps her get through the difficult cases -- especially the deaths of young people.

"With the elderly, it feels like a completion," she said. "But it feels like life interrupted with the young people. Every time I hear a mother cry it's like the first time, and it tears me up. I cry every time -- not with the family, but on the way home. Then I turn it into a prayer and by the time I get home I'm comforted, I'm calm. It's the best I can do. The most I can do is really do my job well."

Garmaize got her start in the funeral business working for Kehl's Mortuary in Palmer in 2001, until Keller "stole her away," she said. Before that she was a certified nurse's attendant, she waited tables, checked groceries, worked at a gas station and other miscellaneous jobs to make a living.

"I just felt like I found what my niche was when I got in the funeral business," Garmaize said. "Just knowing how I felt when my family all died, feeling like an orphan and all alone on the planet -- you need someone compassionate and someone you can trust."