NEWPORT — “I’ve had two calls this week,” Phil Brown of Newport said recently, “from people actually shopping around.” If Brown sold auto parts or pizzas, having people call up for price lists would not seem very out of the ordinary. But Brown operates a funeral home and most people would be surprised with a new trend in funeral arrangements.

Brown said that not only are more people comparison shopping, but many are pre-planning their own and their families’ funerals. Brown said that pre-planning is much easier for both the funeral director and the client. “By pre-planning,” he said, “they are not experiencing that overwhelming grief when we talk. It is easy for them to understand the arrangements and easy for me to understand their needs.”

Eliminating the emotional chaos that most people are in when making funeral preparations, said Brown, takes the fear and mystery out of the arrangements and allows for clients to precisely make their needs known.

Dealing with the living is the primary purpose of the funeral service, said Brown. “Most of my dealings are with the living,” he said, “with the families. We are here to do whatever is best for them.”

Often families in the throes of grief will react in unnatural ways. “Some need to get the process over quickly while others want to draw it out over two or three days. Some prefer simple arrangements. Still others want more elaborate preparations. The easiest funerals to do,” said Brown, “are those that have been talked over, either with me or the family, prior to the death.”

When a family comes to Brown for arrangements, he said, the process is rather simple. Federal Trade Commission regulations require Brown to show a complete price list to all clients. “Everything is itemized,” he said, “and we work with a contract.” When families are experiencing grief, he said, sometimes even the simplest decision becomes complicated. “It is my job to guide them through the process but it all goes much easier if they have made previous arrangments.”

“We are here to do whatever is best for them. There is really no odd request or silly question. Whatever their need is, whatever it takes to get them through the process, we provide,” said Brown.

Brown said quite often people ask that special possessions be buried with loved ones. “Often a special quilt or special pillow,” he said. “It could be anything from fishing poles to canes to toys owned by children. “Anything that makes the family feel better is right,” he said. “My own mother wants to wear wood socks because she says she always has cold feet.”

Many of the families Brown deals with are already friends and acquaintances because of his business’ 30-year history and rural location. “If I don’t know them,” he said, “we learn to know each other quickly because of the intimacy of the questions I must ask.”

Brown said, “I try not to be real, real formal. I try to give the impression that they are dealing with a friend. We are able to do that because we are a small, family run business.”

Brown is on call nearly 24-hours a day but works with other local funeral homes to “cover” for each other on days off. When a family in need arrives at the funeral home, Brown tries to sit them down and have them relax. “No question or request is ever wrong. There is never a question about funerals that can’t be asked,” he said.