- Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
No riff-raff funerals for his company. Brite-Lite Funeral Services owner Tommy Thompson reckons that poor people also deserve a dignified funeral, so he often stands the cost when clients cannot pay. Below, he inspects the coffin of teenager Shawna Palmer.
Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
TOMMY THOMPSON, chief executive officer of the Brite-Lite Funeral services, has devoted his life to righting the wrongs of death, and writing off debts, in his quest to ensure that even the poorest citizens of this land get a decent funeral.
In his latest philanthropic gesture, he has underwritten the cost of burying 13-year-old Shawna Palmer. The teenager was killed by gunmen while trying to save two children who came under attack during a birthday party in Greenwich Town, Kingston. The funeral reportedly cost more than $800,000.
"When our kids are being attacked this way, the future of our country is at stake. I went to the family, and this is an attempt to ease some of their pain, to show that somebody cares," said Mr. Thompson.
"I hope this gesture will send a clear message to society. Shawna died trying to save others and she is in heaven now. This funeral (which took place last Saturday) is not just about this little girl. It's a statement to careless bus drivers, to men who kill babies, to civil society, the business leaders, and the government that we will not allow our babies to be killed anymore. The life of every child is precious," said Mr. Thompson who provided a custom-made $150,000 casket adorned with white baby angels, programmes and prayer cards in full colour, floral arrangements, limousines, a Lexus SUV, Benzes and company-employed ushers.
What would drive any man to incur such expenses on behalf of persons he doesn't even know? The answer may lie in his past.
At 16, Mr. Thompson's father died. The funeral, he remembered, was a "shabby affair, which brings tears to my eyes even now".
"It was so bad...the smell...I couldn't even stay beside the casket, and how he was brought to the church...good God. It was terrible," recalled the 42-year-old who is a big fan of HBO's 'Six Feet Under', shaking his head slowly.
Since entering the highly profitable funeral industry two-and-a-half years ago, Mr. Thompson has completely revolutionised this service industry with designer funerals, complete with creative, offbeat concepts and a personalised hands-on approach that endears him to the bereaved families.
"I attend every funeral my company takes on. I become a part of the extended family, I grieve with them. I attend the nine-nights, I drink what they drink, I eat what they eat, I go anywhere just to be with them," he said.
Mr. Thompson, who grew up in the Lincoln Road area before going overseas to Florida where he lived for about 10 years, calls himself a 'grief therapist'.
It is a touching if bizarre way of trying to make right the shabby way his father's funeral was handled.
"Talking with the families brings back bad memories for me, and sometimes I get teary-eyed but I like to grieve with the little man, I like to bring some light into his life, especially at this dark time. So I end up doing funerals without making a profit many times," he said.
"No riff-raff funerals for my company, even if I have to write off a debt if a funeral costs $70,000. I don't worry about it though, I am always blessed with the big ones which I use to subsidise the others," he added.
'Big ones' is a euphemism for the sort of lavish funeral arrangements that have riveted public attention in recent times. Mr. Thompson's company was responsible for the pomp and ceremony behind the William 'Willie Haggart' Moore funeral with the $1 million price tag last year. Earlier this year he conducted the lavish $3 million plus interment of businessman Eugene 'Fat Eye' Parkinson, the former manager of the Mt. Salem Football Club, who was buried like a king in a glass mausoleum covered by a glass house.
Given the lavish nature of funerals overseen by Brite-Lite, what can he do for an encore? "I like to be different every time, so I have to constantly come up with new ideas, but it is not harder, I like what I do. Plus the Lord has blessed me with many funerals. By doing something for the poor and needy is my way of saying thank you to Him."
Plus, he will be subsidising the burial of the five people who were killed in August Town earlier this month.
Asked if he had been approached by thugs for money given the belief that he must be a very rich man to be so 'generous', Mr. Thompson said:
"I am a tough guy, I won't be bullied. I know I have lots of enemies, but if I die, I go to the ground like everyone else. No big deal. I have lived my life the way I wanted to live it...helping people as much as I can."
