Tim Rivera

My friend Dorie Hagler and I have recently embarked upon a short column in Horse Fly, Taos’ arts and politics newspaper. It’s a biography column, focusing on Taos folks. (Believe me, Taos has no shortage of interesting characters.) I’m doing the writing and Dorie is doing the photos. The catch is that our column is currently limited to 850 words. I didn’t realize this until after writing the following article. So, while you can find the shortened version in this month’s Horse Fly, I’m including the longer version here.

A friend in advertising recently told me about his theory that Star Wars provides the ultimate paradigm for compelling character archetypes, ones that can be found throughout religions and mythology. If I were to apply this theory to the characters we’re choosing to interview for our new little column, our first character surprisingly emerges as our Luke Skywalker, the reluctant hero who learns to use his considerable, quiet power as a force for good in the world. Who knew he’d turn up in the form of a funeral director?

A Guide For the Souls Left Behind

When I sat down for lunch with Tim Rivera on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, he expressed his anxiety about leaving later in the day for Denver to visit with dear, longtime friends. They had recently lost their fourteen year old son who was hit by a car while crossing the street.

“My work doesn’t make this kind of thing any easier,” he said, referring to his job as funeral director for Rivera Family Mortuaries. “I want to go. I need to be there with my friends but there is still a sense of dread. It will be very emotional.”

Earlier in the day, Tim had driven to Holy Cross Hospital, to pick up the body of a one month old baby.

“People think the most challenging part of my work is dealing with the dead human body. In fact, that is probably the least difficult and most rewarding part of my work. It’s tender. It’s caring. I completely understand the humanness of the body. Just because the baby has stopped breathing doesn’t mean it’s not loved. It is surrounded by so much love. I don’t like the term cadaver. It dehumanizes the body. I care for the body as I would care for my child. The most difficult part of my work is actually being in the presence of grief – intense emotional pain.”

A couple of months ago, I was moved by Tim’s warmth and soulfulness at the rosary for a young man, beloved in the community, who had died suddenly of a rare infection. With a few introductory remarks, Tim acknowledged the depth and the heat of the emotion in the packed funeral home, discouraged formalities by reminding everyone that, “This is Taos,” and gently invited everyone to participate in the rosary, sung in a haunting, powerful rhythm by a male choir in Spanish. He hugged many of those he knew in the unadorned, dimly lit room.

“People in Taos have an instinct for sacredness. Contemporary death is reflective of modern society. Sometimes things are done in a way that doesn’t respect the sacredness of death. There is no lack of feeling in the Taos people. And a memorial service needs to reflect the power of the moment.”

If I were meeting Tim for the first time, I would never be able to guess his occupation. With his dapper style, lively eyes and friendly nature, I might assume he was a musician, a college professor, or even a dance instructor. Funeral director is certainly not the first profession that would come to mind. It would be equally challenging for me to place Tim on a map. With urban sensibilities and a relaxed, lyrical way of speaking, one would be hard pressed to deduce where exactly he had been raised.

In fact, Tim has been working as a funeral director since 1982. His father, Amos Rivera, bought the business in 1958. With funeral homes in Taos, Santa Fe, and Espanola, the Rivera family owns some of the few remaining family operated funeral homes in New Mexico.

“We actually wanted to scale back but there was no one else to take over these businesses except for big corporations. For me, this work was a denied calling, a calling I kept running away from.”

Growing up in both Taos and Pueblo, Colorado, Tim had no intentions of entering the family business.

“I had good grades in school but was getting into trouble, party trouble. I was ready for a change and I saw a brochure for this boarding school in Mississippi. In the brochure there were photos of school trips to Florida and New Orleans, trips to the beach. I had never before seen photos of girls in bikinis! I decided to go to boarding school!”

Tim went on to college at San Francisco State. His father encouraged him to also go to mortuary school on the side, just in case he would ever need a license in order to keep the family business running. Tim did get licensed, but after college he traveled to Spain. His greatest regret is that he took the money he earned while providing childcare for a Spanish family and spent it on a Eurail pass, instead of accepting an offer to stay in Spain and work at the family’s language school. “I could have learned several languages. It would have changed my life completely. But I had an itch to travel.”

Ultimately, Tim returned to Taos and his family’s business. “ I feel I’m meant to do this work, but I couldn’t do it anywhere other than Taos. I don’t like formalities. Even when I was a little boy, my dad would dress me as a funeral director. I have an aversion to those kinds of formalities. I search for meaningful experience through the intimacy of death. I feel privileged to be with people during such an intimate time, to be exposed to people’s stories. I couldn’t do it in a place that is emotionally closed. I love the richness of people’s spirituality in Taos, as reflected in their death rituals. It’s a healing elixir.”

I told Tim that when my beloved grandfather died in New York last winter, I was shocked to find that the local Catholic diocese did not allow personal eulogies at a funeral mass. I had written a eulogy and was determined to deliver it at his mass, in spite of my near disabling fear of public speaking. I simply couldn’t bear the thought of a generic, fill-in-the-blank funeral given by priest who had never met my grandfather. My mother somehow finagled permission from the church for me to speak for two minutes and while I needed to drink a shot of whiskey with my cup of coffee that morning in order find the nerve to read my eulogy (which was stubbornly longer than the alloted two minutes) aloud, the opportunity to do so publicly allowed for what felt like a healthy catharsis and emotional release.

“Even a simple story can mean so much,” Tim concurred. “You feel cheated otherwise. ”

Tim emphasized the value of working with experienced and compassionate local clergy members and grief counselors, including Father Bill, Ted Wiard, and Stephen Wiard who seem to intuitively sense what grieving loved ones need in order to help them begin to heal from their loss. When he told me that survivors of death are his heroes, he was quick to correct himself, smiling. “I should say survivors of the death of a loved one. No one survives death.”

Ted Wiard first worked with Tim following the deaths of his two young daughters in a car accident, and is the founder of Golden Willow Retreat, which offers free grief support groups in Taos, Espanola, and Santa Fe. Ted counts Tim as his hero, his teacher, and as his spiritual brother. He believes that Tim, by his example, is helping to evolve the role of funeral director into a healing profession and respects Tim’s gift to work “both sides of the veil”, providing “a quiet foundation for a soft landing.” Perhaps it is evidence of his respect for both life and death that Tim honors the deaths of people without family, including homeless people, with reverence and ritual.

To relieve the enormous stress that comes with his work, Tim and his wife Kelly and their daughter Miranda (who is currently living in Belgium through a college foreign exchange program) enjoy traveling to exotic locals like Cuba and Southeast Asia where Tim seeks out “overly colorful” restaurants, bars, music, dancing and authentic local experiences.

“I don’t do drugs at all. It makes it worse and creates more tension and stress. I’ve known several people in my line of work who have become alcoholics or committed suicide.”

Instead, Tim prefers scuba diving. “It’s the ultimate escapist experience. You become part of a liquid world. You realize how limited and narrow the scope of your vision is in this world. “

I asked Tim if he thinks scuba diving might feel a little like death.

“Yes… When I’m in a liquid world, it reinforces the idea that there are different forms of existence, that the spirit exists. Escapism is my salvation.”