Warning: This article contains discussions and descriptions of death that some people might find confronting.
Now a journalist and author, Hayley has spent two years researching the many people who work with dead people in what's known as the death industry. In the process, she became fascinated by the natural processes she noticed occurring in the man's body. "We have this chance to have this transformative, profound experience, and we waste it by giving it away to strangers. To me, that is desperately sad."While Hayley is encouraging of people giving this final act of kindness to their loved ones, for many, the very act of viewing the body of a friend or family member is overwhelming.
" they have a chance to separate the shock of seeing death for the first time from the shock of grief."British-Australian journalist Hayley Campbell uncovers the secret society of the Western world's death industry, run by people who have made death their life's work.For Hayley, having already confronted "what death looks like", she believes she's more prepared for when someone dies in her family.
Like a funeral director in the United States who transitioned to working with people's bodies that had been donated to medical research. As she waited to interview the team, Hayley flipped through large folders of photographs of people's belongings that hadn't found their owners."There were glasses that had been smashed in some explosion or plane crash, there were books that were all bloated from being in the sea. There were little Smurf dolls, prayer cards and car keys."Other people might say, 'Well, what's the point in returning the Smurf doll to the family? It doesn't matter all that much'.