How Francis and Kaiora Tipene find time for each other in their busy working lives.
As a new season of The Casketeers begins, funeral directors Francis and Kaiora Tipene tell Sarah Nealon about the challenges of caring for the dead in the Covid-19 era and how the couple make time for their relationship.
Thanks to their TV show The Casketeers, Francis and Kaiora Tipene are arguably New Zealand’s best-known funeral directors.
The reality show about a M ori husband and wife, who run Tipene Funerals, is now in its fourth season with viewers given a peek behind the scenes at the Auckland business.
“I think this is the first time (on The Casketeers) we’ve had to conduct a funeral for someone with no family,” says Francis when asked about filming for the new season.
“I think that’s going to be special. I don’t get to see what it (The Casketeers) looks like. I watch it when everyone else watches it on TV. But I remember what it felt like. It was very sad. But whether that comes out on the TV I’m not sure because I haven’t seen it.
“But I know we did come together as a staff to farewell this particular person, to have a little service, because I felt there was some inkling that this person might have been a serviceman to our country.
“So I thought he needed to be sent off to say goodbye, to thank him for the service because he had no family. That particularly was important to me.
“I can’t quite remember because this season was a long filming period. We started then we got locked down, then we started again.” He apologises for his forgetfulness. “That’s why you wanted to talk to me and I’m just so useless. To be honest, last year was awful.”
Covid-19 restrictions meant funeral attendance numbers were limited in levels two, three and four. Kaiora elaborates. “It impacted our business, yes,” she says. “But we saw more impact in the families than we did us. They weren’t able to celebrate the life of a loved one to the full culturally
or (with) their own little family traditions. They weren’t able to honour that because of the limits of numbers that could attend a funeral. You have gone from all these beautiful traditions to cutting back and having everything done electronically over Zoom.
“In alert level three you’re having only 10 people maximum. But in alert level four it’s completely no one. So trying to have a funeral when no one was allowed to be there except for those in their bubble ... it was just crazy to witness.
“So we tried our best to salvage what we could to honour the families’ traditions, cultural traditions or the loved ones’ wishes. It was challenging but, at the same time, we were grateful to still make it work.”
It is worth remembering that besides running their business, the couple had the added pressure of keeping their children home from school during lockdown.
Together the Tipenes have five boys. Their youngest is two years old and their eldest is a teenager. Francis has another son, 20, from a previous relationship.
Last year Francis and Kaiora put out their book Life As A Casketeer: What The Business Of Death Can Teach The Living. They are also working on a book about tikanga.
As well as running the two Auckland branches of their funeral business, Francis and Kaiora are preparing to open a branch in Porirua. They have rented a house near their Wellington premises which they will use when required.
With such busy lives, you can’t help but wonder how the couple make time for their relationship?
“It’s very hard not to talk about work just because Porirua has been so consuming with time, energy and money,” says Francis.
“But with each other, we have our little moments. Maybe we might be driving to a crematorium taking a body for cremation and we might talk about each other and how we are feeling.
“We might talk about what we’re going to have for lunch or where we’re going to go for lunch...
“When a couple goes on a date, you have rules like, ‘Don’t talk about work and this and this’ but we always talk about work. We say we’re not going to but it eventually crawls and creeps back in.
“The thing with us is we find the moments to have a date in the unplanned places and that’s usually at funerals, funeral arrangements, crematoriums or graves.
“We might see a husband in mourning for his wife, or a wife morning her husband. If they are a young couple and that reflects and relates to us, that’s when we just will connect together and talk about things and tell each other how much we love each other. Because we just never know when our time is up.”