A Funeral Director
4/21/202637 min
Guiding grieving families through arrangement meetings, orchestrating meaningful memorial services within days, and preparing bodies for viewing with Heather Hill, a funeral director in North Carolina. What's different about doing makeup on a dead person? And what is it like to field a death call?
LINKS & REFERENCES
- Heather writes about her work on her website.
- She's a funeral director at Renaissance Funeral Home in Raleigh, North Carolina.
- "The Future is Female" - American Funeral Director on the surge of women graduating from mortuary school
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Heath· Host0:00
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.
Heather Hill· Guest0:12
And he wanted very, a 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 kinda went, "You wanna conduct your own funeral? How are you gonna do that?" [laughs] You know.
Dan Heath· Host0:33
Do you know something the rest of us don't? Yeah.
Heather Hill· Guest0:35
And he's like, "No, I want to videotape myself conducting and officiating my own funeral." [laughs] And I thought, "You know what? I love this idea." And I was like, "Dan, you, you need to do this." I love a unique funeral.
Dan Heath· Host0:47
Heather Hill is a funeral director in Raleigh, North Carolina. She helped Dan record himself as the emcee.
Heather Hill· Guest0:55
He had the whole order of service mapped out. He knew who was gonna speak, what songs were gonna be played.
Dan Heath· Host1:02
Huh.
Heather Hill· Guest1:02
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." [laughs] 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.
Dan Heath· Host1:24
Right.
Heather Hill· Guest1:25
And then he said, "I have this casket here. I have markers," 'cause he had