The National Funeral Directors Association annual convention, which recently ended at McCormick Place, and happens every October, and has met for more than 140 years, was not a solemn gathering. There was a small bar off to the side, between the booth for Southern Funeral Director Magazine and a casket maker. I saw women dressed as flowers trying to drum up attention for an AI-assisted database for funeral homes. I saw a man take bites of his hot dog between answering questions about cremation niches, those roomy holding spaces for urns. Hubert McQuestion, vice president of a longtime family-owned vault company, told me he slipped a check for $2 million into his late father’s jacket pocket, to be buried with him for eternity, though: “He still hasn’t cashed it.”

I learned that as a person

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