Blowin' Smoke - Paperback

Blowin' Smoke takes readers behind the doors of the crematory and into the heart of the funeral profession, where fire, faith, grief, history, and human dignity meet. Drawing from personal experience as a funeral director and crematory operator, Benjamin A. Saunders explores the rise of cremation through real stories, cultural traditions, religious questions, historical turning points, and lessons learned while caring for the dead and serving the living.

From the quiet transformation of a small-town flower shop into a modern crematory, to the ancient debates over burial, fire, resurrection, and remembrance, this book blends memoir, history, humor, reverence, and hard-earned professional insight. Saunders invites readers to confront a subject many would rather avoid, not with fear, but with honesty, compassion, and even a little smoke-filled wit.

Both informative and deeply personal, Blowin' Smoke is for anyone who has wondered what happens after the funeral home doors close, how families make final choices, or why the way we honor the dead says so much about how we live. In these pages, death is not treated as a taboo, but as a teacher-one that reminds us to cherish life, preserve dignity, and understand that, in the end, we all return to dust.