With hopes to improve the emphasis on prearrangement and aftercare, Mayer Funeral Home has added Ed Brady to its staff.

For the past two years, Brady has been employed by KAUS AM-FM radio in Austin and joined the Mayer Funeral Home Staff Nov. 1 serving as a pre-need and aftercare specialist.

Shortly after every funeral at Mayer Funeral Home, Brady’s position is to contact each family to answer any questions and offer them a listening ear during their time of grief. Aftercare visits are a free service of Mayer Funeral Home offered to every family served by the staff.

“What we feel here at Mayer is that most funeral directors handle the funeral wonderfully. But it’s a month, weeks, months after the funeral that people feel [alone],” Brady said.

“That’s usually whenever the grief really sets in,” he added. “There’s the empty chair that the husband used to sit in. There’s the empty place at the Thanksgiving table.”

Being affiliated with a funeral home is nothing new to Brady because from 1996 to 2000, while attending seminary, he lived in the attic of the Egelhof Funeral Home in Dubuque, Iowa, serving in various ways in all aspects of funeral arrangements.

“By living inside the funeral home, I learned, at a heart level, the painful feelings of grief and loss that I will address during aftercare visits to families served by Mayer,” Brady said in a press release.

He will be on staff at Mayer Funeral Home also helping people prearrange their funeral services many years before they actually pass away.

Brady is also an ordained pastor. He has been involved with many denominations as either a member or pastor, including Catholic, Presbyterian, United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Wesleyan and a non-denominational church as well. He currently teaches Sunday School at and is an active member of Austin’s Crane Community Chapel.

Mayer Funeral Home is located at 600 Second St. NW in Austin.