Behind The Scenes: Funeral Directors Handle Wide Range Of Responsibilities [VIDEO]

ST. CLOUD - Today in our "Behind The Scenes" series, we dropped-by a local funeral home to see what it takes to get someone ready for a funeral.

Death is a natural part of life, and it can happen at any time.  That means funeral directors have to be on call 24/7, 365 days a year.

Eric Warmka is a funeral director at Miller-Carlin Funeral Homes in St. Cloud.  He says when they get a call from a family they can show-up in either a traditional looking hearse, or an SUV.

Back at the funeral home, the body is placed on a cot and brought into the prep room for embalming.  He says the embalming process only takes about an hour and is just a small part of the funeral process.

Funeral Directors are licensed to take care of everything from the emblaming, to dressing the body, to applying make-up.

Another option is cremation, which Warmka says is becoming a more and more popular option.  Cremation happens in a retort room, where they heat brick walls up to 1,650 degrees.  The process takes about three hours, and what's left is calcium deposit, which is then processed into a fine powder.

As for the funeral service itself, Warmka says there's no such thing as a typical service anymore, and personalizing the service to each person is quite common.