Funeral director, 31, opens up over high-profile cremation mix-up; aims to uphold her granddad's industry legacy
After university, Ms Harmony Tee worked in the United States as an auditor but returned to run the family business established by her grandfather when her father's health was failing.
Ms Harmony Tee, founder and funeral director of Harmony Funeral Care. (Photo: CNA/Raj Nadarajan)
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Warning: This story contains references to suicide and suicidal ideation.
Loraine Lee
02 Nov 2024 09:30PMBookmark
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Asour smell, almost like vinegar, grew stronger as I walked towards a morgue at a premises along a road in Sin Ming known as "death road". As I tried to identify the source by taking a deep breath, Ms Harmony Tee stopped me.
"You're smelling the formaldehyde which we use to embalm bodies," said the 31-year-old.
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The matter-of-fact statement was like whiplash: She seemed unfazed that on the other side of a metal door was a morgue where several embalmed bodies were waiting to be picked up.
Yet an hour earlier, she had been teary-eyed as she talked to me about some of the funerals she had organised, including that of a four-year-old child.
But both hard-headed practicality and the ability to navigate confronting emotions are important parts of the job for Ms Tee, the founder and funeral director of Harmony Funeral Care.
She said that her job requires a large amount of empathy in helping grieving families. And with empathy comes the emotions and ability to understand grief.
"If you see meaning in what you do, no matter how you try to be immune to (being emotional), you can't unless you really take this as 'just a job'," she said.
"Of course I don't show my emotions while working – I remind myself that my job here is to ease the family's burdens. But when I have time alone, that's when I release my emotions and sadness."
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It's seven years since she joined her family in the funeral business and six years since she started her own funeral company.
But her journey handling death has not been a straightforward one – her company was embroiled in controversy in 2019 after an employee picked up the wrong body from an embalmer, which resulted in the wrong body being cremated.
The Taoist man, whose body her employee had mistakenly taken, was given Christian rites before being cremated.
For the then 26-year-old, handling a crisis of such magnitude left her at a "complete loss". Apologies were made and religious rites were performed, but that did little to ease the anger and grief of the family.
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"There were a lot of factors involved in the mix-up such as improper tagging of bodies ... but the incident affected me and led me to believe that I was not so suitable for my job back then," she recalled.
Other funeral directors told her to give up on her career, and the media backlash grew. While she said she did all she could, enduring weeks of scrutiny and guilt was difficult. Ms Tee contemplated suicide as a "means to put an end to it all".
"I thought I was done for, when a man called me and said 'Harmony, I saw the news and my mum just passed away. I would like you to do the funeral because I want to encourage you, and I think my mum would love that'," she said.
"I felt like it was so out of the world, so unexpected ... and I told myself in January 2020 if I had seven funeral cases to handle that month, I would stay in this line of work.
"And somehow, I don't know what the universe was trying to tell me. But I had exactly seven cases."
AUDITOR TO FUNERAL DIRECTOR
About 60 years ago, Ms Tee's paternal grandfather came to Singapore from China and started a funeral business. After her grandparents' deaths, her father took over the family business with his brothers.ADVERTISEMENT
As a child, Ms Tee was rarely involved in the family business aside from visiting the company's warehouse in Sin Ming for reunion dinner during Chinese New Year, as her grandmother had to be at the premises every day.
After graduating from university, Ms Tee became an auditor for EY and was posted to the United States.
But as she enjoyed a new city, her father suffered kidney failure in 2014. With his ailing health, there was talk of selling off the family's funeral business.
"My father persuaded me to come into the family business and try it out, because if no one (in my generation) was to come in and help out in the family business, all his efforts and my grandfather's efforts would go down the drain," she said.
His persuasion worked – Ms Tee decided to enter the funeral trade and leave her cushiony auditing job behind.
She also had to go through a year of training in the family business, learning how to embalm a body, handle grieving family members and set up a funeral, among other things.
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"Even though it was really hard, I have no regrets. My passion is serving families who are dealing with grief," she said.
It was quite tough to hear her describe some of these cases she has had to handle, including comforting a 30-something father of two planning his funeral before he succumbed to cancer and a teen who committed suicide.
I had to hold back my tears.
Having lost a friend tragically to suicide, I knew very well the pain of having to say goodbye too soon while staring at a closed casket. I dug my fingernails into my palm, hoping the pain could alleviate some of the tears as I interviewed her. How does she keep going when she sees death every day?
She told me she is not immune to emotions. And the tears she has shed were something only the four walls of her car would truly know while she finds time driving from funeral to funeral.
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What also helps her cope with the stress and sadness is understanding from her friends and loved ones, especially her husband Jeremy Toh who started working in her company full-time after their marriage.
"Because our work is 24/7, most people marry within the industry or their loved ones join the industry," said Ms Tee. "If not you won't see each other at all."
The duo had met on dating application Coffee Meets Bagel. While on their second date, Ms Tee received a work call.
Despite barely knowing her, Mr Toh insisted on following along for her work. Was this modern-day chivalry? He told me it was because he wanted to know if he could handle death in the long run if he were to marry her.
During their second date, Mr Toh held a dead body for the first time and carried the body from a home to a vehicle.
"Surprisingly, I didn't have any fear pop up. It just felt like a natural part of life, and I realised that this was a form of ministry and way to serve," he said. He proposed three months later, though Ms Tee accepted the proposal only a year later. The couple has a nearly two-year-old son named Josiah.
24/7 LIFE AROUND DEATH
While Ms Tee sets aside time for her family every week and tries to tuck her child into bed, she does have to sacrifice family time for work.ADVERTISEMENT
She is alert for phone calls as Harmony Funeral Care's hotline is her mobile phone number. For years, Ms Tee always answers her phone within three rings. When she's busy, an employee helps man the hotline – and answers at the same speed.
I was taken aback when she picked up my call before the first ring in hopes of scheduling an interview, accustomed to people taking a little longer to pick up a call.
"People want someone who cares to help send off a loved one. And showing that you care is being available around the clock, and as quickly as possible," she explained.
However, this has taken a toll on her social life, as she sacrifices time with family and friends for funerals. Even if she can meet them, she might have to run off midway should she receive work calls.
Work also poses its challenges.
"Sometimes the family also have different opinions about the funeral send off. I don't get involved and always warn that this is something they have to settle on their own," she said. "All I can do is advise."
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Since the mix-up, she has set additional standard operating procedures to ensure it does not happen again. This includes asking family members to write on plastic tags placed on their family member's wrists and ankles and sending pictures of the body being collected as part of the verification process.
She said standard operating procedures for funeral rites is rare in the industry. She recalled having to jot down notes on how to set up funerals for different religions and having to learn from observation. Most industry practitioners have their own way of going about things and learn from observation, she told me.
"Nowadays, death isn't that scary, and we receive quite a number of people looking to try their hand working in this industry," she said. "But there's no proper guide or information on what its like entering the funeral space."
This is why Ms Tee decided to write a book detailing her experiences handling funerals of different age groups, insights into the industry and about overcoming her mistakes and challenges.
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She also details some of the hardest funerals she has had to arrange for, such as for children and for suicide cases.
"The book is really to educate the public, to let the public know and be aware that such funerals happen and everyone is struggling, so let's just be a bit kinder," she said.
The self-published book, titled Echoes of Farewell, will be launched on Dec 7.
Perhaps it could make for a good guide for her son if he wishes to join his parents in the funeral industry in a couple of decades. But while Ms Tee said that she would support him, she prefaced she is also open to him chasing other careers and interests.
"He's his own human being after all, he should choose what he wants to pursue," she said.
As we spoke about the taboos around death, I bluntly asked if she had wondered or planned for her own funeral. Ms Tee laughed, and said she definitely has.
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"When you're surrounded by death, and you help people prepare for their own funeral, you can't help but think about your own," she said.
"I want something simple. Nothing extravagant. Just cremate me and move on. Because I rather live in the moment and to the fullest – and have already spent all my time with my loved ones."
