Harlem undertaker brought to life on PBS
Isaiah Owens has come to terms with the fact that his 96-year-old mother Willie may not be around forever.
But he simply can’t live with the blue polyester dress that she has chosen to be buried in.
While most boys his age dreamed of being baseball players or race car drivers, Owens dreamed of doing the costumes, the scenery, the make-up and the props — for dead people. Yes, everyone thought he was strange, especially mom.
Producing and staging his own funerals for the dead animals in the neighborhood paid off. A widely respected member of the Harlem community, Owens, now 62, is one of the most admired funeral directors in the business.
While New Yorkers are accustomed to dour people at the top of glamorous professions (see: Wintour, Anna), Owens brings joy, humor and style to the business of death and dying.
“Where beauty softens your grief” is the motto of The Owens Funeral Home on Malcolm X Blvd., the setting of “Homegoings,” a documentary that kicks off the new season of PBS’s “POV” on Monday, June 24 (10 p.m./Ch. 13).
The show takes us into Owens’ world and the business that employs many family members (including his mother, wife and son), who aren’t exactly thrilled by the sight of dead bodies or the lingering scent of formaldehyde.
The reason for Owen’s initial, breakout success in the business was his ability to apply make-up for viewing. He is willing to show people the before and after photos that show his ability to make people appear younger and to dramatically transform people whose faces have been tragically disfigured at their time of death.
While he would appear to be in his own world, Owens has regularly dealt with the real world outside, especially as AIDS and gang violence ravaged the community in the 1980s.
Whenever there’s a media feeding frenzy over a death in the black community, chances are good that Owens gets the call to make sense of things with shocked and aggrieved relatives.
Owens is often the buffer between families who can’t seem to pull together during death — often placating the “high maintenance” troublemakers are among his loyal customers.
He jokes that while his family always comes together around death, “my brother and I would like to hit my sister on the head with a shoe” on occasion.
Owens says that funerals today are increasingly “not so churchy.” Mourners who still want to hear “Amazing Grace” are now treated to what the deceased liked — from jazz and R&B on the sound system or soap operas and football games playing on the widescreen TV.
By JOHN G. EKIZIAN