Bryant has seen many familiar faces on the embalming table. He embalmed his mother, honoring one of her more difficult requests. \u201cShe didn\u2019t want anybody else but me to do it. So my mother can say at least I minded her one time,\u201d\u009d he says. He\u2019s embalmed his father, brother, aunts, uncles, nephews, and classmates from grade school. When one heavy-drinking friend turned up at the funeral home, Bryant tsk-tsked at the body. \u201cI told him, \u201d\u02dcMan, I tried to tell you this was going to catch up with you.\u2019\u201d\u0160\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Bryant is a trim man who wears a Fitbit and works out at Life Time Fitness three or four times a week. It\u2019s one way he copes with the challenges of the job: embalming a child, or someone who\u2019s committed suicide. Once, he worked on a man who\u2019d been shot 54 times. \u201cDealing with death every day is not for everybody,\u201d\u009d he says. \u201cIt can be overwhelming.\u201d\u009d He takes time off to visit Spain or Morocco with a group of funeral directors (his wife of 33 years is not keen on traveling; his four adult children are out of the house), but he always misses his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born to be an embalmer,\u201d\u009d Bryant says. \u201cI\u2019ve never been afraid of this. I never struggled with it in school. I picked it up\u201d\u009d\u201d\u201dhe snaps his fingers\u201d\u201d\u201clike that. I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to have a job; I just get up every day and do something I love to do.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n