How do I cope with a job few people understand or thank me for?

You prepare people with dignity and real skill, doing work that families never see and rarely know how to thank you for. There is a loneliness in that. You give something profound at the hardest moment of a stranger's life, and then you step back into silence. The lack of understanding and thanks is not because the work does not matter. It is because most people cannot bear to look at what you do, so they look away. But consider what you actually provide. When a family sees their person one last time and finds peace instead of horror, that is your hands at work, unseen. You give people a gentler goodbye and a memory they can live with. Few crafts touch someone so deeply while asking so little recognition in return. The thanks you rarely hear does not measure the worth of it. The worth is in the dignity itself, given whether or not anyone knows. Since the recognition will not come from outside, build it within and among your own. Take quiet pride in a case done well, on purpose, as its own reward. And find the others who do this work, who understand it without explanation, and let them be the ones who see you. You are not owed a parade to know your work matters. But you deserve to be understood by someone. Reach toward those few who can, and let the meaning of the craft be enough for the rest.