One Man's Dream Job: Transforming The Dead Sam Reed loves his job so much that it almost seems like he was born to do it. He's a mortician who has always been fascinated by the way dead people are prepared to look peaceful at their funerals. But the real benefit, he says, is that it can ease a family's grief.
Sam Reed loves his job so much that it almost seems like he was born to do it. He's a mortician who has also been the caretaker for Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery for more than 10 years.
His interest in the funeral business started when Reed was a child. That's when his first-grade teacher asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up.
"I want to be an undertaker," Reed recalls saying when his turn came.
"Everybody thought that was crazy. But I was always fascinated by the way a dead person looked when you went to see them."
That was especially remarkable when the mortician had restored the body of a person who had died in a violent car crash, as Reed recalls.
"When you got to the funeral, you were hearing them say, 'Whoa, grandma looked great. She looked at peace.' And I wanted to know how to do that."
As a child, Reed's ambitions were confined to holding elaborate services for pets that had died. He would get his sisters to go pick flowers for the burial service, held alongside a creek.
"I just knew this is what I was destined to do, to deal with the dead."
But that doesn't mean Reed believes there's a certain type of person who goes into his line of work. He hears stereotypes describing morticians as someone who looks old — even dead — and who drinks a lot.
"I say, well, I'm not dead; I don't I think I look old, even for my age — and I don't drink."
Another misconception, Reed says, is that because they deal with death, morticians are cold — that they don't have the same feelings as other people. That's just not true, he says.
"The best part is meeting the needs of the families," Reed says. "Their load should be just a little bit lighter.
"That's what I strive to do every day, to make people feel better."
Produced for Morning Edition by Vanara Taing. The senior producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo. Recorded in partnership with WABE.
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