Summary

At her funeral home, Caitlin Doughty receives a phone call from a hospice nurse. The daughter of a recently deceased patient wants to keep her mother's body at home but the hospice nurse is concerned that may be illegal. Doughty educates the nurse about what is allowed when it comes to deathcare as well as what her funeral home encourages to ease the grieving process. While not everyone is her industry is supportive of the progressive way she runs her funeral home, Doughty is determined to subvert the commercialization of the American funeral industry which keeps "grieving families separated from their dead" (3). Doughty segues into the story of a trip to Belize she took five years ago, just after opening her funeral home. A discussion of her career with her host, Luciano, prompts him to reveal the differences in how deathcare is...