Heather Knows What Happens After You Die (What's It Like To Be... with Dan Heath)

Summary

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Episode Feature: Heather Knows What Happens After You Die (“What’s It Like To Be…” with Dan Heath)

Original Air Date: July 14, 2026

Guest: Heather Hill, Funeral Director

Host: Dan Heath

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Episode Overview

This episode, presented by Yowei Shaw on Proxy but originally produced by Dan Heath for the “What’s It Like To Be…” podcast, dives deep into the world of funeral directing through the eyes of Heather Hill, a funeral director in Raleigh, North Carolina. The episode explores what it’s actually like to work in a profession shrouded in mystery and taboo, providing an inside look at the logistics, emotions, and humanity involved in caring for the dead and supporting their grieving loved ones. Through Heather’s stories—sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, always honest—listeners come away with a new understanding of life, death, and the enduring value of community in the hardest moments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Breaking the Taboo: Demystifying the Funeral Industry

• Unique Requests and Unusual Funerals

  • Heather recounts a remarkable story about a man named Dan who conducted his own funeral via video, encouraging mourners to write messages on his pine casket ([03:07-05:10]).
    • “He popped up on the screen and he said, ‘Hey, I bet you didn’t expect to hear from the dead guy.’” (Heather, 04:17)
  • She also describes fulfilling a family’s wish to have their loved one viewed sitting up in a beach chair, complete with sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt ([11:45-13:55]).
    • “He was literally in a Hawaiian shirt and khakis and sunglasses.” (Heather, 13:53)

• Physical Realities of the Job

  • Heather explains the process of retrieving bodies from various places, not always as seen on TV ([06:54-08:10]).
  • She clarifies misconceptions about rigor mortis and body handling post-embalming, emphasizing respect and technique ([13:58-14:33]).

2. The Emotional Landscape of Deathwork

• Initial Family Contact

  • The first calls often come from family “in shock...in business mode,” requiring compassion and patience ([06:05-06:41]).
    • “You can hear it in their voice when they’re calling. Just saying the person’s name is sometimes even hard.” (Heather, 06:05)

• Event Planning Under Pressure

  • Funeral planning is described as being like “planning a wedding in three to five days” ([09:11-09:40]).
    • “You are like an octopus. You are present because the family has gotten to know you. So you’re constantly making eye contact with them.” (Heather, 10:54)

• Emotional Boundaries

  • Heather discusses holding space for family grief without making it about herself, relating particularly to cases involving children or people like her own loved ones ([21:01-24:03]).
    • “I have no right to have a level of grief that doesn’t make sense because I didn’t know the person.” (Heather, 21:01)

3. Preparing the Body: Ritual and Practicality

• Dressing and Cosmetizing
  • The importance of using familiar clothing, the challenges of fit, and the art of hair and makeup for the deceased ([17:14-20:55]).
    • “I find that I talk to the ladies a lot of times when I’m doing their hair, because that’s what you do at the beauty shop.” (Heather, 18:29)

4. Hardest and Most Memorable Cases

• Most Challenging Situations

  • Deaths of children or spouses married for decades are the hardest (“families that mirror your own situation”) ([23:02-24:03]).
  • Coping is done with her team at the funeral home and sometimes by gently sharing with family at home ([24:13-24:58]).

• Continuing Bonds

  • Heather often receives messages from families years later and personally checks on graves, understanding as a widow herself the comfort this brings ([34:15-36:53]).

5. The Impact of Deathwork on Living

• Life Perspective
  • Sitting in the presence of grief week after week has made her “less afraid of death” and more focused on cherishing life and relationships ([26:27-28:53]).
    • “After sitting in that feeling, week after week, it starts to stick and you really start to see the value of community, the value of life, and the value of relationships.” (Heather, 27:26)

6. The Profession's Changing Face and Everyday Realities

• Paperwork and Misconceptions

  • Paperwork is identified as “the most annoying part” of the job and a major responsibility for funeral directors, not doctors ([29:07-30:39]).
    • “You wouldn’t believe how much paperwork has to be done for insurance policies and pre-planning and getting the death certificate correct...” (Heather, 29:07)

• Being a Woman in the Industry

  • Facing assumptions from colleagues and clients but noting that funeral service education is now majority women ([31:57-32:41]).
    • “‘Oh, it’s nice they let you drive this [the hearse].’ ...I was like, get out of my way, let me drive.” (Heather, 32:08)

• Jargon and Sights/Sounds of the Job

  • “Decomp” (decomposition) as an industry term, and the haunting sound of the “death call chime” at 3am—for which she uses an alarm that “gets louder and louder until I get to it” ([30:51-33:49]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Death’s Surprises:
  “He popped up on the screen and said, ‘Hey, I bet you didn’t expect to hear from the dead guy.’” (Heather, 04:17)

• On Compassion and Presence:
  “You are like an octopus...there’s 700 things to think about all at once that you are responsible for.” (Heather, 10:54)

• On Emotional Balance:
  “We can grieve and mourn for these families, but I have no right to have a level of grief that doesn’t make sense because I didn’t know the person.” (Heather, 21:01)

• On Death’s Lessons for the Living:
  “After sitting in that feeling, week after week, it starts to stick and you really start to see the value of community, the value of life, and the value of relationships.” (Heather, 27:26)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:07-05:10] – The story of Dan who emceed his own funeral by video
• [06:05-06:41] – Receiving the first phone call from a grieving family
• [09:11-09:40] – Comparing funeral planning to wedding planning
• [11:45-13:55] – The beach chair funeral viewing
• [17:14-20:55] – Preparing the body: make-up, clothing, and hair talk
• [21:01-24:03] – Holding space for grief and dealing with emotional triggers
• [26:27-28:53] – How the job changes your relationship to life and death
• [29:07-30:39] – All about the paperwork headache
• [31:57-32:41] – Gender bias and changing industry demographics
• [34:15-36:53] – Heather’s continued relationships with families and ongoing care

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Tone & Style

The tone of the conversation is candid, often intimate, peppered with dry humor in the face of what could be morbid material. Both Dan and Heather approach the subject matter not only with curiosity but with a shared respect for the emotional gravity of the work. Heather is open about the grim and grinding parts of her job, but also finds the ways in which her work deepens her appreciation for life and relationships.

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Closing Reflections

The episode spotlights the invisible labor and emotional intelligence required of funeral directors, showing them not as remote caretakers of the dead but as critical facilitators of community healing. Heather’s journey—an unexpected career switch late in life—underscores both the unpredictability of vocation and the power of presence, empathy, and ritual in the face of mortality.

If you're interested in professions that deal with life’s hardest moments, Dan Heath recommends checking out his episodes with a hospice nurse (ep. 45) or a clinical ethicist.

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Transcript

[A]

Yo, yo, yo. It's yoa. So earlier this year, I was talking to a proxy listener who had a very specific, funny conundrum. This listener is a strategy consultant. He helps companies understand people. What they want, what they need, what they're really trying to solve for. And then he helps those companies figure out what to do with that insight. This listener loves his work, but his conundrum was hardly anyone in his life understands what he does to them. His job is basically presentations statistics, something with brands. I found this really interesting because my work is public facing. People may not understand the truly deranged number of hours that go into making one episode of Proxy, but at the end of the day, there's a thing you can press play on. You can hear the result of my work. But so many people have jobs that are harder to see. Jobs where the output is confidential or abstract or invisible or impossible to explain at a party without someone's eyes glazing over. And if your work is a big part of who you are, that can feel lonely, like there's this whole part of your life that even the people who love you don't fully get. So today, as the proxy team works on cases for when we come back in the fall, I'm sharing an episode from a show that feels like an antidote to that. It's called what it's like to be hosted by the journalist Dan Heath. In every episode, Dan interviews someone with a specific job. A couples therapist, a dog groomer, a diplomat, a secret service agent, an and asks them all the questions you'd want to ask if you were sitting next to them at a dinner party. Like, what does a couple's therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? What does a hairstylist do when someone asks for a celebrity haircut that will obviously not work for them? What is it actually like to spend your days inside a profession that most of us only encounter from the outside? The episode you're about to hear feels especially proxy adjacent because Dan talks to a funeral director. Someone whose job is partly event planner, partly grief translator, partly logistics assassin, someone who has to help families make 700 tiny decisions at the exact moment when their brains and hearts are least equipped to do it. In this episode, you'll hear about the strangest request for a viewing this funeral director has ever handled. What it's like to do hair and makeup for a body, what kinds of deaths are hardest for her to handle, and how spending so much time around death has changed the way she lives. You can find more episodes of what it's like to be wherever you get your podcasts. Here's Dan Heath with Heather Hill, a funeral director.

[B]

So a guy named Dan, no relation, got a terminal diagnosis, and he was a planner, apparently. So he called a local funeral home and started planning his own funeral.

[C]

And he wanted very basic pine casket. He was being buried in our local cemetery. He was a veteran, so he wanted military honors. And then he said, heather, I want to conduct my own funeral. And I just kind of went, you want to conduct your own funeral? How are you going to do that?

[B]

Do you know something the rest of us don't?

[C]

And he's like, no, I want to videotape myself conducting and officiating my own funeral. And I thought, you know what? I love this idea. And I was like, david, Dan, you need to do this. I love a unique funeral.

[B]

Heather Hill is a funeral director in Raleigh, North Carolina. She helped Dan record himself as the emcee.

[C]

He had the whole order of service mapped out. He knew who was gonna speak, what songs were gonna be played. So he had an opening, and he popped up on the screen and he said, hey, I bet you didn't expect to hear from the dead guy. And I wasn't able to be at the funeral, but the whole funeral was recorded. So I could see heads turning to look at each other and people gasping like they didn't expect to see him pop up on the screen, right? And then he said, I have this casket here. I have markers. Because he had an unfinished pine casket. And he's like, kiddos, and anybody who wants to, please come up. Come on, don't be shy. And he's waving people up. Take some markers and write me a message. Just be clean about it, you know? And. And they. They did. And it was beautiful and moving and something I'll never forget. And the family was wonderful.

[B]

I'm Dan Heath, and this is what it's like to be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession. An archaeologist, a hospice nurse, a speechwriter. We want to know what they do all day at work. Today we'll ask Heather Hill what it's like to be a funeral director. We'll talk about the strangest request for a viewing she's ever handled, what it's like to do hair and makeup for a body, and what are the hardest situations for her to handle. Stay with us. Heather's job as a funeral director begins with a phone call. Often it's from hospice or a hospital, but it can also be from the family member of someone who's just died. Those phone calls are harder.

[C]

You can hear it in their voice when they're calling. Just saying the person's name is sometimes even hard. They're usually calling to ask questions. Will you pick up my person? Will you transport them? And usually the first thing we try to do is just say, I know this is a really hard phone call. Let's take our time. We'll answer any questions that you have. And usually they're not, you know, in the depths of their grief just yet. Usually they're in shock and they're in what I like to call business mode, where they're like, this is just a step.

[B]

If they move forward, someone has to pick up the body and pretty quickly. Heather says it usually happens within an hour. Early on in her career in the funeral industry, that was part of her job, too.

[C]

I'd get called in the middle of the night, have to pop up and look presentable and meet the team at the funeral home to get the stretcher and then head to the home.

[B]

But you wouldn't actually be like lifting the body or something, would you?

[C]

Oh, yes, absolutely. We would find them in whatever space they were in, whether it was on a bed, on the floor, in a bathtub, sitting on the commode. It takes a lot of creativity sometimes to figure out how you're going to move that person respectfully from their place and get them on the stretcher and back to the funeral home.

[B]

Once there, the body goes to one place if it will be embalmed and to another place if it will be cremated or if it hasn't been decided yet.

[C]

Then they're usually just placed on a, we call it, we say boarding cooler. So they're on a hard board because the cooler has rollers and, you know, we want to keep them safe. And they're usually head is placed on a pillow and they're covered in a sheet or a blanket. So it's not what you may be visualizing. I don't know what you're visualizing, but it is a very respectful way.

[B]

You know, I think I've got that sort of morgue shot from the TV crime shows. And I imagine it's nothing like that.

[C]

It's not the drawers that people think of when you're watching ncis.

[B]

Right. A day or so later, Heather has what's called an arrangement meeting with the family to walk through the decisions they need to make.

[C]

We're going to go over vital statistics that we need for paperwork and the death certificate. We're going to answer Any questions that you have, we're going to talk about what services you're looking for. And if there is going to be a funeral or a memorial service, then we'll, you know, we'll say let's look at dates, let's make sure the cemetery is available on that date. So it's so much planning that goes in, but taking things step by step not to overwhelm anybody because you know, they may have just gone through something really, really horrible or really tragic or just really sad.

[B]

And so you meet with the family, you kind of make some key decisions, and then I imagine your attention must turn really quickly to the service. I mean, I was just thinking before we were talking about how much event planning you must have to do as part of this. Like trying to get a meaningful service whipped together in a couple of days.

[C]

Yeah, it's like planning a wedding in three to five days. You know, there's similarities. You have an officiant, you need something to wear. The deceased person, person needs something to wear. You have logistics of people from out of town. There's flowers and paperwork and brochures. And so it is usually a very quick turnaround. And the nature of funeral business is that anything is available right away.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, reel off some of the items that are on your checklist in planning that service.

[C]

So it depends whether it's a cremation or a full service. So if we're doing a full service, it is obituary on the website, do they want the obituary in the newspaper? What is the person wearing? What is their hairstyle like? If it's a woman, what makeup style are they used to? What casket choice? What cemetery choice, what outer burial container choice? If it's a traditional burial, who's going to officiate? Who's going to speak? What music are you going to play? How will you get there? Are you getting a family vehicle? Who's going to feed the out of town guests? Where will you be going afterwards? Is the person a veteran? Do we have their DD214? Is the military honors organized? Is the cemetery have the final paperwork that they need signed? And that's just rattling off? I'm sure there's many more.

[B]

I mean, that is just an absolute blizzard of complexity. Like, I feel overwhelmed just hearing that. And that stuff is under your purview as a funeral director?

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. The day of the service, you are like an octopus. You are present because the family has gotten to know you. So you're constantly making eye contact with them. Do they look thirsty? Do they need to sit down? Are they getting lightheaded? Is the line too long? Do we need to cut the line off and have people speak afterwards? Is the police escort there? Is the music queued up? Oh, this register book is out of pages. We need more pages. So it's. I have a letdown after a funeral because there's 700 things to think about all at once that you are responsible for with a great team. But ultimately it's, you are responsible for all of those things.

[B]

Each funeral service is as unique as the person who died, but some are uniquer than others.

[C]

I don't know if it was his family or the gentleman himself called us probably around Halloween and asked if we would allow their person to be placed sitting up in a beach chair for their viewing. And the director put them on hold and looked at me and said, this is what they want. Can we do it? And we looked at each other like, you know, eyeballs going right to left. And I said, well, we can try. And then we also said, this is just somebody's, you know, popping off and it's not really going to happen. But, you know, we could take the business. You know, we want to serve this family. So, sure, say yes.

[B]

I just love that moment where the boss puts it on hold. He's like, hold, please.

[C]

Yes, please hold.

[B]

Can we put a dead guy in a beach chair? Is that something we offer?

[C]

I know, I know. That's kind of how we felt. And then he died, I think, on Christmas Eve. And we had taken their name down, and we didn't bring up the fact that they wanted Mike in a beach chair. So we didn't bring it up. And the family said, and we'd like to move forward with having him in a beach chair for his viewing. So my coworker called me and we met at the funeral home and we embalmed him and they brought the beach chair. And so it wasn't so unique that he was standing up. He just needed to sit up a little bit. And we didn't know how we were going to. I mean, people that are deceased are in a casket with wheels or they're on a stretcher with wheels. So we're. How are we going to get this beach chair into the room? So we had, like, one of those flat dollies that, you know, you move heavy things with. So we put the beach chair on the dolly. We lowered him onto the beach chair, and then we rolled him into the room. And then we had, you know, like, wood pallet underneath of him. That's part of the dolly. So we used beach towels. We took every fern that we had in the funeral home and put that around him. He was literally in a Hawaiian shirt and khakis and sunglasses.

[B]

That is unbelievable.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And I mean, not to get weird, but like, how do you get the body into that sitting posture? Isn't there like rigor mortis to fight or something?

[C]

I'm glad you asked. So with embalming, you are not solid stone. There is movement. So while there is preservation chemicals going into the circulatory system, you're not rock solid. You know, we're able to move the body in different positions after embalming because it would be really hard to dress somebody if they were unable to move.

[B]

Oh, yeah, Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the physical side of the work for a moment. I imagine when you tell people what you do, there's just a certain fraction of people who are just skeeved out about the working with dead body factor. Like, is that a reaction that you get? Common?

[C]

I do get a few of that where they'll either if I'm in a circle of people in a group and some people will just kind of, you know, the eyes go big and the chin goes back, like, ugh. Ugh. That's, that's gross. Most people are morbidly fascinated.

[B]

Oh, really?

[C]

They're like, whoa, what's the grossest thing you've seen?

[B]

What is the grossest thing you've seen? That's a great question.

[C]

I don't, I don't know that I want to repeat that. It's probably equal to when I worked an X ray and took a cast off and flies had laid eggs underneath. Cast. That's not super common. But you know, there are some accidents that things are pretty bad. So much so that when I started and I was an apprentice, there was a gunshot wound that came in and me, you know, fresh eyed apprentice, I'm like, I want to come back, I want to help. And my director, who was, you know, in his 60s, he's like, Heather, I don't want you to see this. And I said, well, this is the job I'm going to do. I need to see this. And he's like, the last Apprentice. I showed this to left and never came back. And I said, I can assure you I'm okay. But there's some things that are so bad that it doesn't feel real. That's when that wall goes up and you're like, I'm looking at something. I'm looking at anatomy. I'm not looking at a person, you know, so you can imagine grotesque things. But we're also in north Raleigh. We're not in, you know, a war zone or in an area where there's a high amount of crime. So mostly we're seeing, you know, old people. But we do get an occasional gunshot or car accident or, you know, when there's flames involved. That can be pretty hard to see after the break.

[B]

How seeing funeral after funeral shapes Heather's outlook on life. Stay with us.

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

North Carolina. You need one license to be a funeral director and an additional license to be an embalmer. Heather is not an embalmer, but she does still have a role in preparing the body.

[C]

So if they are doing embalming, they're usually doing a viewing, which means we are dressing them. Most people don't think that they need to bring undergarments, so we ask that folks bring undergarments, that they bring clothing that they have worn recently so that they'll actually fit into. Or if somebody has been in the hospital for a while, a lot of times there's a lot of swelling, so there is. Might need some larger clothing. And then it is literally cosmetizing the person, making the skin tone look as natural as possible, Looking at their photos to make sure that if the woman wore makeup, that the style of makeup that they wore, where did they part their hair on the right or the left? I'm trying to get them to look as healthy as, you know, they want to see their person looking healthy again, which can bring some grace and closure to a family. But once they're embalmed and dressed and cosmetized and they go in the casket and then they are placed in the room into where their service is going to be.

[B]

What's the biggest difference in doing hair and makeup for a dead person versus yourself?

[C]

Not as much as you would think. Like, the foundation, we're not using in all aspects. We're not using typical makeup that a woman would buy. There's special foundations because when women are putting makeup on, we have the warmness of our skin to help blend and create the coloring that we want. So there is special foundations that are used that don't need the heat to react to it. And doing hair, it's usually just really trying to mimic what their pictures look like so that we can part on the correct side, or if they wore it curly or wore it straight. I find that I talk to the ladies a lot of Times when I'm doing their hair, because that's what you do at the beauty shop. I may say, your daughter was so nice and she brought your favorite earrings in. Just helps me a little bit to. To know that I'm helping and that that's what their family member would want. And sometimes we have, you know, I'll say something funny, you know, like, ooh, your hair was just cut. It's gorgeous. Have you ever thought about styling it this way or something? You know, just. Just in the most respectful way. But besides the foundation, there's really no difference with cosmetizing than anybody would do on their own. We use regular curling irons, regular hairspray,

[B]

and I imagine the dressing process cannot be easy. Are there any tricks for accomplishing that?

[C]

Where my mind just went to is there are some times when people will bring in clothing that is perfect and we'll say, wow, this was the perfect outfit because it's very stretchy. We don't always cut clothing. Sometimes we do have to cut clothing if the person's reason for their service that we had to embalm and they had to be preserved a little more than normal. It's harder to move arms above the head or, you know, manipulate the clothing. Most of the time it's because the people bring in the wrong size.

[D]

Right.

[C]

And there's no way that button is going to button. It didn't button years ago. It's not going to button now. So we may have to alter the pants a little bit to have it fit correctly. I don't like the word smoke and mirrors, but sometimes it is. Okay, I've gotta tack this down so that it looks right because there's no movement, that it's going to be out of place.

[B]

Right, right, right. And what are your emotions as you're going through this?

[C]

It's a unique place to be because we can grieve and mourn for these families, but I have no right to have a level of grief that doesn't make sense because I didn't know the person.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

So we have to have the empathy for the family, which we do. Like, I can empathize when I'm sitting with a husband and his wife and he were married for, you know, 65 years. I'm grieving for his loss. I'm not actually personally grieving for her because I didn't know her. So it feels unfair to grieve for somebody that I didn't know. But I can have empathy for the families. The toughest parts are when it's you know, a tragic young death, and you're serving a family and you have a daughter or a son the same age. And I sometimes even feel that when there's a person that's the exact same age as my parents, because you're putting yourself into their position, which is the nature of grief and funerals. You can go to a funeral and it's bringing up your own grief from your own loss, as well as empathy and sympathy for the person that you're there for. So it brings up more of your own things.

[B]

Yeah. That just seems like it would put you through such an emotional wringer to be, you know, witnessing these services and inevitably having your thoughts turn to, what if this was me?

[C]

Yeah. I had a family who played a slideshow that had a very meaningful song to me that was attached to some of my personal grief, and I sat in the front row and just, you know, caught my tears in the tissue. You know, it's. It's not fair for me to break down at somebody else's funeral. So you try to keep it at bay a little bit, but you're also human.

[B]

What kind of situation or death is the hardest for you to deal with?

[C]

I think it's. I have three kids, and it's probably kids that are my own age. I had a young little one one time, and when we were dressing him, he had the same, like, superhero pajamas. And my kid had the exact same superhero, and he had, like, one of those temporary tattoos on his forearm. And I mean, you're. You put yourself only so far into that person's grief to where you can still do a good job, but you're not losing yourself in it. So those are the toughest for me. And not. Or seeing a older gentleman who's been married for, as I said earlier, 65 years, and he's saying goodbye to his wife. Oh, they don't know anything else but that person for more years than I've been alive. And that's really, really hard to see, too.

[B]

So what do you do when it gets really heavy in cases like that? Like, who do you turn to or what process do you go through to kind of cope with that?

[C]

I have a great team at the office. We will come out of a room and just rattle off everything that we're feeling. Wow, this is a tough one. This person did this, or this person had this, and they worked here. And that's where I used to visit, or we talk amongst ourselves, because I think that only funeral professionals can understand what other funeral professionals are going through. And I Also share a little bit with my family when I get home, especially about some of the really tough cases and also for a way for them to say, you know, especially when they were little, hey, guys, don't get on my nerves today. I had a really tough case today.

[B]

What do your kids think about your work?

[C]

It's funny you say that. When I went to the interview, speaking to the funeral home to see if I wanted to do this job at all, and we were down to one car because one of our cars was in the shop and my husband drove me there and the kids were in the car. And later on my daughter told me that when we were in there, they were crying. They knew what a funeral home was, but they thought I was in there for something sad. And I think my husband told them there was zombies in there. So they were a little scared because he was trying to make it lighter. He's like, she's in there with the zombies. So I think they didn't start out very well with my life in the funeral service. But two months after I started there, my husband unexpectedly passed away and they got to experience grief and the services. He died in California and we had to have him transferred back to Raleigh. And his service was at the funeral home where I work. So they actually got to walk through what a funeral is and how meaningful it can be. So I think as horrible as that experience was for our entire family, they got to understand a little more about the importance of what I do because it was important for them.

[B]

Yeah. Do you think you live your life differently because of doing this work?

[C]

Absolutely. When you go to a funeral, a good funeral, because there are some funerals that aren't as good based on the officiant. You go to a funeral and you really feel moved, you really feel the briefness of life and the importance of community. And you leave there and you're like, wow, I'm going to call the friend I haven't talked to in 10 years. And I'm going to reset my priorities in my life because this lady just lost her husband and I want to spend more time with my family. And that feeling, it's only there for a little while and then the next day your alarm goes off, you go to work and you're might be grouchy again because of the day to day monotony of life or the day to day stress of life, but I get to sit several times a week in that feeling. And after sitting in that feeling, week after week, it starts to stick and you really start to see the value of community, the value of life, and the value of relationships. And it really does meld into your soul to where you're able to appreciate things a little better.

[B]

Gosh, that is a really insightful point. Yeah, I would not have thought of that because I think we all have these experiences in life. It might be, you know, a death in the family or maybe something less dramatic, but that kind of yanks you out of your day to day and makes you think about the big pictures and what you value. And then, you know, the next day we're all back on email and TikTok and, you know, the moment has faded. But. But because of your work, you're having those moments enough that it kind of lands and it seems like it permanently reorients you to what matters. That seems like a really attractive thing about the role.

[C]

I think that's what draws me to it, is living in that feeling a lot more than other people might.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I think it's also actually made me less afraid of death. I still have my mom and my stepdad and I feel like this has prepared me for when their time comes and I no longer have them in my life. I feel like I'm taking the pictures now. I am spending the time with them that I need right now and that when their life comes to an end, I will. I will be okay.

[B]

Yeah. So we talked a lot about the deep stuff involved with the job. I'm curious actually about the flip side. Like what is the single most annoying part of your work?

[C]

Paperwork. Paperwork is really annoying. You wouldn't believe how much paperwork has to be done for insurance policies and pre planning and getting the death certificate correct. If the death certificate is wrong, the amount of paperwork that you have to produce to get that done and the tracking of everything.

[B]

So you guys are involved. I'm not really clear on, on like the process flow for death certificates. Like you are at the helm of that kind of work.

[C]

Yes. So people assume that the doctor signs off on the death certificate with some, you know, calligraphy pen. That's not how it works. Most states, I think now, are all electronic. So we have to go into the death certificate system. Start the death certificate, it gets a number and then it's assigned to a doctor. And then we have to chase the doctor down to make sure that they sign the death certificate and the doctor

[B]

is responsible for saying, yes, this person's really dead. Is that, is that the idea?

[C]

It's the cause of death that they have to put on there. And have you ever tried to Call your own doctor's office and you sit on hold. It's tedious. I mean, I can't tell you how long we spend on hold just trying to chase doctors down to get that signed. And then we collect vital statistics, so the only thing the doctor does is actually sign off on it. We put down the age, birthplace, parents, names, occupation, make sure it is all correct, file it with the state and county, and then pick it up at the register of deeds. So that process is all in the hands of the funeral home.

[B]

So, Heather, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know? And what does it mean?

[C]

Decomp.

[B]

Decomp?

[C]

Yeah, we don't like that word because it means that somebody had been in their place of death for a long time and not found. It stands for decomposition. And that means that we are coming across something that is not pleasing to look at or smell.

[B]

And is there a certain point beyond which, like a traditional funeral embalming, like, is not even an option?

[C]

Yes. And that is a really tough thing to tell the family. That's when you have to earn their trust. To where you say, we want you to have a chance to see them, but in this case, I hope that you will trust me that we think it is better if you don't. So in a case like that, we would say, we don't want you to see them, but let's place them in the viewing room under a blanket where you can lay your hand on. Be in the same room with them and you can talk with them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. What is the most insulting thing you could say about a funeral director's work?

[C]

I would like to say from a female perspective of a funeral director is somebody actually said to me, oh, they let you drive that, that hearse?

[B]

Someone said that?

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Were they from Saudi Arabia or.

[C]

No, it was actually a funeral attendant that we had just hired. He's like, oh, it's nice they let you drive this. And I was like, get out of my way, let me drive. Or when I'm at a church and I'm with a male attendant and the pastors automatically go up to the gentleman and assume that they're the funeral director. And by attendants are great. They will stop them and say, she is the funeral director. That's the annoying thing for me is not being seen as the typical person in this industry.

[B]

And by the way, the demographics of the funeral home industry are changing really fast. In 1970, women were only 5% of mortuary school graduates. But today, women make up over 70% of students in mortuary school. Okay, back to the lightning round. What is a sound specific to your profession that you're likely to hear?

[C]

A sound for me is the death call chime that comes in on my phone at 3am it wakes me up, straight up. And my heart starts racing because I don't want to miss the call. And I have a special tone for it. And it's really loud so that I don't miss it.

[B]

A death call in the middle of the night that just sounds eerie. What is the sound that you chose for that?

[C]

It's like a loud strumming, and it goes on and on. It's like. And it gets louder and louder until I get to it. But it needs to be that way so that it wakes me. I'm not a heavy sleeper because I'm a mom, but it needs to be loud and annoying so that I don't miss it.

[B]

Right. What is an aspect of your work that you consistently savor?

[C]

Hugs from a family after a funeral that's completed. And I know that what I've done has brought comfort to them and will help in their grieving process.

[B]

Do you ever have families follow up with you later and if so, like, what triggers the contact?

[C]

I do a lot, but that's me. Sometimes I'll the nature of our work. Sometimes they have my cell phone number. And actually on Easter, I just had a family reach out to me that I helped in 2017 just to wish me a happy Easter. But I become friends with most of the people, like this lady. Dearest Heather, I'm sorry about your father. My father passed away a couple years ago. And this. She just sent this last week. You are the best person to be with him as he left this world into the next. Thank you for going to Marjorie's grave and leaving a rose and sending me the picture. It's beautiful. You are a godsend through the process of Marjorie's wake and funeral. You've been a source of strength to me. So, like, we go to the same cemeteries, and if I visit the grave of a person, you know, sometimes I'll send a picture and say I'm visiting this person because it's meaningful to them to know that somebody is still thinking about their person and being a widow, when somebody texts me and says, oh, this picture of your husband came up, I'm gonna send it to you. There's nothing more meaningful to me than knowing that somebody else is continuing to think about my husband. So I'll go to the graves or I try to remember their year anniversaries and text them or call them and just let them know that I'm thinking about them because that first year anniversary can be really tough.

[B]

What an incredible thing to do. I'm just imagining what it would be like to get that picture from the grave of a loved one and to know that someone that's not part of the family is thinking about them. Like that's not, not part of your job description. That's really special.

[C]

Thank you. And she was, you know, the lady, the text I just read to you like her daughter was just, you know, a year or two away from my age. She had children. Her death was complicated and it, it was. I kept her brochure up on my bulletin board ever since then and think about her a lot. You know, I've served maybe thousands of families and there are some that, that stay with you that you become close to and, and they just happen. One of them that I've kept in touch with. But having gone through a first year anniversary of a death, I know how hard that is. And so we implemented at the funeral home sending actual cards out to them saying, you know, we remember. Because I think that's really important for families to know that they're not forgotten.

[B]

Heather Hill is a funeral director in Raleigh, North Carolina. She writes about her work on her website, which we'll link to in the show notes. This episode did get me reflecting about death, but also about career paths. On this show we talked to a bunch of people who are carrying on their family's tradition. The life insurance salesman was third generation in the role. Same thing for the toy distributor. The high school principal, fifth generation educator. The city manager's father was a city manager and the hairstylist swept the floor at her mom's salon as a kid. Now funeral director is one of those classic family business type roles. But not this time.

[A]

Time.

[B]

You know what Heather did before she became a funeral director? She was a flight attendant, an X ray tech and a web designer. She was dissatisfied in her early 40s and she took a late night online career quiz. It told her funeral director and the rest is history. Isn't that something? I think we might have the illusion that a career path is all about slow progress. You gradually get closer and closer to the perfect job for you. But what if that's wrong? What if what works is actually lurching around until you find the thing that clicks? Our London cab driver previously worked at British Telecom. The Cattle rancher was a VP at Sears, for goodness sakes. The homicide detective worked in television production. Our master electrician was formerly a stand up comedian. And our stand up comedian was formerly in it. So if you've got the career doldrums, maybe that's what you need. A lurch. This show has made me a believer in the power of hairpin turns. It certainly worked for Heather. Answering death calls in the middle of the night, guiding families through difficult decisions, planning a deeply personal ceremony on impossibly short timelines, and preparing a body with grace so that loved ones can say goodbye. Folks, that's what it's like to be a funeral director. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Heather in every episode of this show. What it's like to be. I talked to someone from a different profession. So if you're interested in an episode with similar themes, check out my conversation from last year with a hospice nurse. That's episode 45.

[D]

So we have to sort of negotiate food. And what does it mean to respect the patient's right to not want to eat or I want to eat, I don't care if I'm diabetic, I want a milkshake or I want to eat the slice of cake and to say, just let him eat, Let her eat, let her enjoy.

[B]

I also recently spoke with a clinical ethicist. That's someone who helps doctors and nurses answer difficult moral questions that come up in healthcare.

[E]

We're asking them not to think what they want for themselves in terms of, this is my mother. I really want to keep her alive. We're asking them to say, if your mother could sit up in bed right now and tell us what she wants, what would she tell us?

[B]

And if you want something a little lighter. I spoke with an Irish barman. It's episode 41. Do American tourists ever come into the bar and order like a Budweiser?

[F]

It does happen.

[B]

Do you shout them out the door?

[F]

No, no. The first thing they will do is they will get the eyebrow. You know, the way the rock does that thing with his eyebrow. I can do that with both of them. Them individually, you know, so you got the inquisitive eyebrow and the desultory eyebrow and then the disappointed eyebrow and the

[B]

Budweiser gets which of those?

[F]

Well, in that order. My eyebrows decide to have a little. Have a moment all their own. They all do a little Macarena off the top of my head.

[B]

This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. Thanks for listening.