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![“The death experience sends [families] into an emotional frenzy,” David Penepent said. “It’s not that they don’t think rationally--they do--it’s just that their mind is going at a very fast rate of speed, and a good funeral director slows that speeding train of emotions down so that they can start making rational decisions. It’s not that they’re irrational, it’s that their mind is racing so quickly that they lose sense of what to do cognitively, because the emotions are so rapid.” Penepent was an embalmer/funeral director and is currently the operations manager at the Herson Funeral Home in Ithaca. He’s been involved in the industry since 1993.](http://caylena.com/photo/photoj/photos/herson_project/1-1.png)
![Penepent and the others at Herson take part in a program through the organization Heart to Heart, which sends refurbished pacemakers to people in third world countries. According to Penepent, the pacemakers act like hand grenades when a body is cremated, causing it to blow up and damage the retort. He thinks there is no sense in burying them, but they cannot be put into the biohazard waste container or a landfill, “so this is the best alternative [about] what to do with it.”](http://caylena.com/photo/photoj/photos/herson_project/2-3.png)
![David Penepent folds a piece of clothing he has stored for use with indigents. In a year, the Herson funeral home usually serves about six to ten “true indigents,” or people with “zero or very little assets and [who] has no one to take care of their final arrangements.” He made a distinction that, in Ithaca, an indigent is someone with limited financial means. He makes sure that all the bodies he prepares leave the funeral home clothed because at Herson, “the people that don’t have get the same respect and dignity as the people who have [money] ... and just because they don’t have, it doesn’t mean that they can’t receive that same respect and dignity that is afforded to people who can do for themselves.”](http://caylena.com/photo/photoj/photos/herson_project/2-5.png)
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