Another gang shooting and another high school kid is dead. He had just moved here two months ago. I’m climbing the stairs of the large apartment complex and a teenage boy dressed in gang colors shoves ahead of me, carrying two candles. When I reach the apartment, he is there. He’s the kid’s younger brother….

“All of you. Outside, now. This will not happen here. You won’t be the first family I’ve thrown out in the middle of a service for not knowing how to act.” I physically removed six fighting people from the funeral home, as in, I stood chest-to-chest with them and pushed them out the front door…

I have a canned speech I give over the phone to people when they explain that what I’m doing isn’t right – usually regarding cremation arrangements. By law, if a person’s children are making the final arrangements, they need to be in agreement on choosing cremation, since of course it is irreversible. So, all surviving…