For a man who has spent most of his life literally surrounded by death, Isaiah Owens is surprisingly happy and upbeat.
The reason is simple, really. Beside the fact that business is always booming at his Manhattan mortuary, the Harlem funeral director says his job title belies what it is he really does.
Sure, there’s the whole embalming process, or the details around cremation to deal with and the endless parade of grief-stricken family and friends. But that’s only a part of it.
More than anything else, Owens sees himself as a counselor, a man whose job is to make people feel better. Every day.
That has been Owens’ philosophy for 50 years, a milestone he is celebrating this fall with a swanky soiree in Queens complete with a keynote speaker — the Rev. Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church — and a host of well wishers helped by Owens through troubled times.
“Sometimes, I’ll have great big men trying to hold up, and they’re just boo hoo crying on my shoulder,” Owens said. “I just have that little gift, I guess. They don’t ever forget.”
Recently, one of Owens’ clients lost his wife, daughter and mother in the same fire. When he came in to view the remains, he fell on the floor, Owens said.
“When he hit the floor I went on the floor with him,” Owens said. “I told him. `I’ll sit here until we can get enough strength to get you back on your feet.'”
They were on the floor for 20 minutes.
Among the Harlem luminaries who received the Owens treatment was Sylvia Woods, whose soul-food restaurant, Sylvia’s, also on Lenox Ave., was for years an Uptown staple. Her funeral in 2012 at the Abyssinian Church, drew former President Bill Clinton to then Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The top-tier treatment includes Owens in top hat and tails and a final ride in his custom-built Rolls Royce hearse.
Owens’ comfort has stretched beyond his eponymous funeral home in Harlem. After John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999, Owens left a blank register outside his business and encouraged people in Harlem to write in it and express their grief.
More than 7,000 people signed the book.
Owens, a South Carolina native, said he is in talks with theater and television producers to bring a version of his story to Broadway and eventually a streaming platform.
In the meantime, he’ll keep tending to the dead and hugging the heartbroken.
“Life goes by so fast,” Owens said. “Fifty years seems like a year to me now. I’m still going pretty strong. Stopping ain’t an option.”
