Funeral Home Introduces Drive-Through Viewings for Busy Professionals

Eternal Comfort Funeral Home in Fort Worth, Texas, has unveiled a drive-through viewing window that allows busy professionals to pay their respects to the deceased without the inconvenience of parking, walking inside, or spending more than four minutes on the grieving process. The facility, branded 'Express Remembrance,' features three lanes -- Standard, Express (no eulogy), and Mobile Order Ahead -- and a seven-foot viewing window behind which the deceased is displayed on a motorized platform that rotates slowly for optimal viewing angles. 'Time is the one resource you can't get back,' said owner and funeral director Darla Hutchins. 'Well, time and the deceased. You can't get either of them back. But we can save you one of those things.' The system works as follows: mourners pull up to the window, confirm the name of the deceased via an intercom, spend a recommended ninety seconds viewing, and receive a complimentary prayer card dispensed from a machine modeled on a drive-through receipt printer. An optional 'Add-On Grief Moment' provides thirty additional seconds and a tissue packet for $3.99. Early reviews have been polarized. 'I made it to the viewing and still got to my two o'clock meeting,' said marketing consultant Brad Ellison, who visited during his lunch break. 'That's efficiency.' Others were less enthused. 'I pulled up behind a woman who was eating a burrito,' said retired teacher Gloria Vance. 'She did not stop eating the burrito. I don't think that's what Harold would have wanted.' Hutchins noted that the drive-through has reduced the average viewing visit from forty-five minutes to three minutes and twelve seconds. 'We've also seen a 600 percent increase in volume,' she added. 'It turns out a lot of people want to pay their respects. They just didn't want to pay them slowly.' A mobile app is in development. Pre-orders include a 'virtual condolence' feature that Hutchins describes as 'basically a sympathy DM, but sacred.'