Dennis Hastings, Funeral Director and Owner/Operator - Lewiston, Idaho, USA
THE PIECE
An industry most people haven’t thought about, or don’t want to think about
For most of my growing up years in northern Idaho, I was neighbors with Dennis, a mortician and funeral home owner.
Dennis is a character. You get a little of it in the series, but on camera he’s being professional, representing his funeral home. In person he’s humorous and light-hearted, with a booming, genuine laugh at the ready. It’s not that he’s never serious, it just seemed to me, over the years, that light-hearted was his default.
That always struck me as intriguing, given his profession and what I imagined to be the melancholy (maybe even creepiness) of it all.
So when I started thinking about what Elsewhere I’d personally want to get behind the scenes of, Dennis and his mortuary career were a no-brainer. That’s the first and most important filter I have for Some Elsewhere work: whether or not I’m personally intrigued by the story, community, career, event, etc. So, I asked if he’d let me in, and he agreed.
The Dying Business doesn’t follow a story arc. There is no rising action, no conflict, no resolution. Instead, it is a series of vignettes—a collection of different angles on what it’s like working in a funeral home, from a handful of north-Idaho-based professionals.
The guiding question: How does working every day with death influence your perspective on life?
Some of it is funny. Some of it is somber and heavy. Much if it is introspective.
I documented some of the processes that happen to the deceased before they are laid to rest in the ground or turned to ashes in the crematory. I did not show any of the bodies, and I did not reveal any identities. That would have been more provocative and click-worthy, perhaps, but it isn’t what I was after.
When I started posting clips on social media, comments began coming in about the coverage being in poor taste, though people couldn’t quite put their finger on what was distasteful about it. They wanted “more respect,” or objected to being shown the matter-of-fact mechanics of cremation and embalming.
In my assessment, these commenting individuals erroneously correlate discomfort with disrespect. Just because something makes you uncomfortable to consider or learn about doesn’t mean it is inherently disrespectful or undignified.
The processes discussed and shown in this series are presented essentially the way they’d be taught to a mortician’s apprentice, or in mortuary school. The people in it are compassionate and good-hearted. The Dying Business is one of those worlds that most never see from the inside— which is what Some Elsewhere is all about.
As Dennis points out in Episode 2, taking care of the dead has been happening forever. This is a behind-the-scenes look at what that career is now, and what it does to the people who feel called to it.
— Camden
Episode 1: HERE
Episode 2: HERE
Episode 3: coming soon
Know a world like this one?
Most people are experts in something the rest of us have never heard of — a job, a scene, an isolated phenomenon, something you're three years deep in and never thought to explain.
Tell me what you know from the inside. Hit reply, or write to [email protected]. I read every one.
