Tim Totten was an innovator in an industry that was notoriously resistant to change. As a young funeral director in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, he recognized a problem. Entering a family’s home after a death had occurred, and assuring their loved one would be treated with care and love, didn’t feel right when the very next step was to cover the loved one with a corduroy bag emblazoned with the funeral home’s name. He knew there was a better way to make that first goodbye sting a little less. 
So, using quilts and the sewing skills his grandmothers taught him, he got to work designing quilted cot covers that felt more like a warm, homey hug than a fuzzy body bag. He cut up a store-bought quilt, fitted it himself, and took it on a removal. The family’s reaction told him everything he needed to know. That’s how, in 2001, Final Embrace was born.
Those who ‘get it’, got it right away. But when he started sharing his quilted cot covers with the wider industry he got a lot of push back from people couldn’t see beyond what they always knew. He began documenting his journey to grow Final Embrace on the Final Embrace Blog, ages before blogging was really a thing, and long before those in the funeral industry did so regularly. That’s how Tim and I met- I wrote a number of early guest articles for that blog.
Tim documented his process. He shared about the various fabrics he was trying, how he was working to make them more impervious to fluids and dirt, less likely to wrinkle when they are stored. He shared the negative feedback and the steps he was taking to improve his products. And he did this at a time when no one was sharing their behind the scenes experience. At a time when the concept of a business blog was barely a conversation, Tim was writing one — candidly, thoughtfully, and without pretense. He documented the unglamorous realities of building a niche company from the ground up.
What he created in that one-car garage in 2001 was not just a product. It was a philosophy made tangible: that every step of the funeral process, including the ones families rarely see coming, deserves dignity, intention, and beauty. He soon moved on and expanded into AlternaView system. He hated that when families came into the funeral home to identify their loved ones, they were often greeted by someone on a table covered with a sheet. He made the process more inviting and loving by creating the AlternaView table covers, so the person would appear to be in a bed, not on a table. He created Comfort Pouches, so infants and children would be swaddled in something soft and warm, instead of being placed in a cold, black case. Then he added church truck drapes and more, giving funeral directors the tools to transform clinical-looking equipment into something that actually reflected the gravity and tenderness of the work. He understood, perhaps before most of the industry did, that the removal is the first act of care a funeral home extends to a grieving family, and that it really matters.
His products were tested, refined, and built to last. He manufactured everything in the United States, grew to a team of 10+ employees who were paid a living wage, and shipped orders within 72 hours because he knew that when a funeral home called, someone was waiting. That was not a policy. That was Tim’s character expressed as a business practice.
He did not officially hire himself for ten full years. Yet he kept writing, kept connecting, and kept inviting others into the process. His blog drew readers from across the funeral profession and beyond, including a secular funeral celebrant writing from England who told him his work was always thought-provoking and admirably written. That kind of reach, built without algorithms or ad budgets, was a testament to the authenticity of his voice.
Tim was a parallel entrepreneur in every sense. He co-founded a travel company, a game company, and Funeral Business Solutions magazine. He organized the Amazing Race for Charity, raising tens of thousands of dollars annually for local organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he mobilized his community to produce more than 30,000 masks, keeping his staff employed and his neighbors protected at the same time.
He was, in the truest sense of the word, a maker — someone who found joy in creating things that were new, that were better, and that made other people’s lives easier or more beautiful. He built Final Embrace stitch by stitch into a company that today stands as the leading manufacturer of mortuary transport and alternative viewing products in the country. When he launched people said he was crazy and it would never work. Now, there are a dozen funeral supply companies who sell their own versions of his original.
I am grateful for how influential Tim was on me, especially early in my career. I am so grateful to have known him.
The funeral industry will continue to benefit from what Tim built. Families will continue to be comforted by products they will never know existed, designed by a man who believed they deserved nothing less than the best. And those of us who followed his journey, who read his words, who were shaped by his example of what it looks like to innovate with integrity in this profession, will carry his memory forward.