Welcome back to the peripheral. Today I speak with Ben Schmidt, who is a licensed funeral director, content creator, and many other things.

I ask him questions about what happens after you die, how your body is prepared for the last rights, and what family members should expect.

We also delve into the case of Kendrick Johnson, the teen who died in a gym mat,

and the condition of his body when it was returned to his family.

We get down in the weeds and while we nerd out on a lot of details surrounding embalming and cremation,

I promise we change up the topics a lot and regularly.

I even ask them about the pros and cons of smoking formaldehyde.

So without further ado, here's been.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Ben Schmidt.

I am a mortuary science professor at Northeast Texas Community College.

I am the community engagement coordinator for Frid Fluid.

I've authored a textbook.

I'm a regular blogger and content creator.

I'm a licensed funeral director in two states.

That's a lot.

It kind of is.

Okay, so what exactly is that job like can you define uh how do you explain that to somebody like me who has no clue okay so i mean obviously we kind of have an

idea of what a funeral director does because you know like a lot of times you have sort of a tangential interaction with

them, especially like people our age, you know, we're in a generation where we don't suffer

so much loss. So, you know, maybe a grandparent or whatever. So you don't know exactly what we do.

So there's really kind of two sides of it. There's the public facing side that you see the person who

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