#97: Diane Bruno (From speech writing to funeral directing)

“I was not feeling the fulfillment [in the writing business],” says Diane Bruno.  Her mother had died — suddenly and traumatically — and Bruno was impressed with the “eloquent and kind” funeral director, speaking with him at length, learning that he felt he was performing an important service that made him feel needed. Bruno decided that “Death is part of life. I became comfortable with it. [And] I’m not squeamish.” So she enrolled in an online Mortuary school. Three years later she was working as a funeral director in Cape Cod. Even though an accident forced her to boomerang back into communications, Bruno learned a lot that made her kinder, more empathetic, “more at peace". “I lived this journey,” Bruno says. “Having been on the side of darkness and death, I can deal with anything."