If you were to plan your own funeral, what would be important for you?

I have a playlist on the mac for a CD to be handed out to attendees at a memorial service. No funeral, cremation, memorial service. Lots of good food, because I want people to remember the parties I used to throw.

The only certainty you have in life is that you will one day die, and you begin the journey in that direction the moment you’re born. I’m good with that.

I told my daughter that funerals were for the living, so she should do or not do whatever she felt comfortable with. I don’t want her to spend a lot of time or money on it. Just something short and sweet, and only a one day event.

When my father died, we had a service for him in Florida (where we lived at the time of his death) then we shipped his remains back hiome to Ohio, for a 2 day event with the rest of the family and friends. It was way too much for me. I was so tired of sitting in funeral homes looking at his lifeless body. I wouldn’t want to put my loved ones through that.

I’d like an optimistic but secular funeral most of all. I’d prefer there not to be any mention of an afterlife, or any other kind of magical thinking to avoid the reality that I’m gone. The religious can believe I’m in a better place if they need to, but I’m not encouraging it.
I’d prefer the people to go home from my funeral with the idea that it’s okay, because my life was totally worth it. And the fact that it had to end eventually was what made it all worth living in the first place.

I’ve heard of this paragraph being cited in a eulogy. It’s a great start.

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
– Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow

As for the specifics: I know how freaking expensive headstones are these days, so, over my dead body. I would turn over in my ridiculously overpriced grave if my relatives wasted their money on that sort of emotional blackmail.
And I’d like my remains to return into the ecosystem they came from. My body is made up of all sorts of nutritional resources I’ll have been hogging for long enough.

I also have a playlist that I want people to have that I update as I see fit.
There are a few playlists for specific people, too.

As for my body, I want to be cremated and my ashes put into necklaces/bracelets for specific people and the rest of my ashes to be buried with my horse.

Memorial service: Kegs with a round of tequila for everyone over the age of 16, and just turn on my music library and let it play. Maybe a slideshow of pictures, and some video clips from the various videos we have made.

I want to be cremated with half of my ashes spread over my hometown and the other half being buried in the cemetery of my future residence where I plan on raising a family. I also want people to wear yellow (my favorite color). I want people to eat lots and lots of yummy food. I’ve never been one to buy in to consumerism and in death I would like to avoid having my family be taken advantage of by the vultures that are funeral homes so everything would take place in someone’s house or outdoors-somewhere where I enjoyed going when I was alive.

I do not want an overly made up corpse with an open casket. Fortunately my faith dictates that the body not be embalmed. After death the body is washed, wrapped in linen, placed in a simple box and buried. That works perfectly for me. As for a wake or memorial? I would like to follow the tradition my family started last summer after my grandmother died, a giant family pie fight!

@rangerr, last weekend I was at a funeral for a second cousin who died unexpectedly. There was an amazing video of family pictures that started when she was a baby and showed up to current day. I did not know this cousin very well, but watching that video made me feel like we were best friends and it really touched me. All that is to say I think the video is a great idea.

No wearing black allowed. I want everyone to wear bright colors and polka-dots.

I think I’d want them to do what they felt would make me happy. I do want to be buried, and I’m the only one out of everyone in my family…which makes me feel sort of lonely. But, I know we’ll be together in spirit somewhere else.

My grandmother’s funeral was nice (except for the weird service given..). My Aunt made posters of pictures of my grandmother throughout her life, lots of pictures with her and all her grandchildren..and then we had all the photo albums she had kept together of her and my grandfather. It was nice to look through.
And she was buried with her first engagement ring/wedding band, and then the ones my grandfather bought her to replace them (I think after 50 years together, they at some point got new wedding bands.) She was also buried with a red wings pin, her favorite team ever. And a bracelet which was the last thing my grandfather bought her before he passed away…she cherished it. It’s what she would have wanted.

Hell, as long as they’re not singing this they can do whatever.

@avvooooooo lol, hahaha, gosh that was good. I don’t want them spending alot of money on me either, so a potluck, storytelling, and movie watching would be good. Also cremation, with my ashes scattered in the Pacific. I dont want there to be a place for people that they think they have to come and visit every once in a while, because I really wont be there, will I?

Everyone has to wear yellow. Whatever you want—anything from socks to a smiley face pin to a damn canary yellow zoot suit (I REALLY hope someone does this)—but something visible has to be yellow.

pinatas…streamers and garland and a christmas tree. and buttershots. michael jackson’s famous performance of billie jean would be playing on loop. i could allow smooth criminal and bad to be played as well. i’d love it if people just had fun. i admit that most people don’t see death as a party and it might be hard to get my closest friends and family to celebrate my death but i’ll be gone so this will no longer be a worry of mine. so party it up!

I want to be cremated and for everyone to enjoy a large feast in my honor. The food better be good too. I want laughter and joy. When I am dead and gone I hope that I will be lucky enough to have people who will tell happy stories about my life. I want them to be okay to continue on their own journey without me.

I want there to be a huge party where everyone just drinks, eats, and tells stories. No one is allowed to cry. :)

I wouldn’t care what happens at the funeral. If my parents were alive, they’d need to be under psychiatric watch.

I’d prefer it if the Hefty Bag they put me on the curb in had enough tensile strength not to bust open. Maybe they could use a band saw, and distribute me among three or four bags.

@pdworkin: Or just triple- or quadruple-bag you all in one piece; that might be strong enough not to bust.

I have a wax mold cast of my right hand raised in a one finger salute. I want to be cremated and my ashes mixed with plaster and poured into the mold. My last great act of defiance to the world

I’d love it if everyone sat around telling funny stories about me, times I made them laugh, times they made me laugh, times I made a fool out of myself (and made them laugh AT me!) I want to hear a lot of laughter at my funeral….

I would want nothing to do with God at the funeral…I’d want to be cremated (though the jury is still out on whether or not that’s more environmentally sound than burials) and the ashes scattered…I wouldn’t want my children to spend a lot of money…I’d want people to have fun, talk about the good times…

Open Bar and a rock band.

@reacting_acid Am I invited?? (Do you think insurance would cover all that? Hmmmmm)

I am not having a funeral. I carry a full body donor card in my wallet and fully expect to be an exhibit in some 1st year anatomy class. See your doctor for information on organ and body donations.

My family might or might not choose to have a memorial service, but most likely, just an in home meal with family and lots of Jazz music.

@Val123 Of course your invited! And I just wont waste money on a big coffin or urn. Just a cardboard box and my ashes.

I don’t want a funeral. I’d like to be buried in the dirt, no coffin..no clothes…nothing.

@avvooooooo Yeah, I got it! I LOL’d! My kids would probably play Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out”....For EVA!!!!!

@reacting acid. X2. Except, I think the EPA demands, by law, hermetically sealed coffins (unless you’re cremated) for what ever stupid reason….. @seeing red too. I think they’re just in cahoots with the funeral home. How…“unsanitary” could a decomposing human body possibly be? Any more than a cow, or the thousands or millions of birds that die each year? And the bugs? Whateva. Although @seeing red…you can’t go to your own funeral NAKID!!!! (Well, yes you can. It’s your funeral.)

Play the music I loved (Tool, Metallica, A Perfect Circle, Beatles, System of a Down etc).
Nothing religious (no Bible passages read out, crosses or speak of Jesus/Father etc etc).
Cremation.
Allow my dog to attend the ceremony.

Party afterwards for all my loved ones and those who loved me.

@YARNLADY Question: Both my parents want to donate to science. When you donate to science, are you not an organ donor (like, organs for people in need) anymore? I don’t know how it works, and if they have to have it set up before they pass away. But, I know it’s what they both want.

I wouldn’t want people to have to associate my body with my spirit any more than they had to. So cremation would possibly be my route. And I would want them to celebrate my life, not my death. And not to be too sad. I think it would have to just be a gathering of all the people I knew well to come together and celebrate.

@casheroo I believe that is covered at the links I provided. I suggest they also discuss it with their doctors.

Lots of music, lots of food (that I won’t be able to eat, sigh) and lots of good conversation. Don’t care at all what happens to my body; salvage what can be used and do what you want with the rest.

@janbb Hahaha. Simple and easy.

Important? Minimizing the cost and effort of a meaningless tradition for my friends and family. I’d prefer if they all went to dinner together and told stories about me and had a few laughs. That would be a more appropriate end to my life.

It seems like almost everyone tends to want it to be a celebration rather than mourning, yet when we are responsible for planning other people’s funerals, they certainly tend to be very sad affairs! I always tell my husband I’m going to have him bronzed when he dies… I think I might actually stick with that plan!.

I want a real wake, a family/friend reunion where the focus is celebrating the living and the fact I had a great life and was part of theirs. A want a week of picnics during the day for people to float on a river together or enjoy the ocean, dinners in a different home each night, people re connecting and making plans to get together again (under different circumstances). I want to be cremated and my ashes go to a few different people.

@juwhite1 You seem to be correct about how the planning goes down…in reality. I know we all say we want people to be happy and to just go on with their lives, but I wonder if this is what is really in their hearts.

@davidk That’s a very peceptive remark.

ive made plans for when i die to have my body donated to science, after they get finished with it the remains will be cremated and kept on their land. im doing this because my family is not close at all, no one would really want to bother with me after im dead ( i say this because they dont bother with me now ) and also no one will have to pay for anything…