I Want A Fun Funeral Blog
Before I Die Festival
Just in time for Halloween… the 4th Annual Before I Die New Mexico (Virtual) Festival. Yes, it's 1910 miles away, but one of the upsides of the pandemic is that with Zoom geography is no obstacle. Which is why I was invited by my friend and End-of-Life colleague Gail...
It really isn't hard thinking about what you want. What makes you smile? What makes you happy? What's important to you? If you remember anything, let it be this. For your very own goodbye party, you don't have to do:• what's always been done• what is expected• what...
Death… it’s always near.
There's a promising new resource in the End-of-Life world! As featured in the article Boom Time for Death Planning in The New York Times on July 16, 2020, it's called Near. Explaining the name, they say ”While others may move away from the conversation and...
Does it make you smile?
Saying Goodbye as an activity
Forget what you know about funerals. If there were no normal funeral custom already existing, and a beloved person in your life died, what would you rather do—Roll up your sleeves and do something in their honor, or go sit in some chairs somewhere, following awkward,...
Put the ache in your heart into action
Hello Fellow Quarantined Humans,Does anyone need another voice saying “Crazy, scary times!”?I know I don’t. I actually don’t even want to hear myself think anymore.But avoiding it is futile. You might as well try hugging your neighbors.My heart goes out to everyone in...
“I‘m in”
After a few hopeless starts for this blog post, I’m leaving it at this: Make friends with “I don't know.” Like good, good friends. BFFs. Throw a Welcome Party for uncertainty. And try to take in, deep in your bones, that all of this stuff in our lives is a complete...
For the Living
A heartbreaking story in Kentucky of a mom and her 12-year-old daughter killed in a car crash. And buried together in the same casket. It doesn't make the tragedy easier to bear, but it provides just a tad bit of relief from the darkness. It's another reminder of how...
Glitter Caskets… something for everyone
Glitter caskets, people! Not for your average corpse: What says Inhabitant Loved Life!! more than a crazy shiny, glittery box for eternity? And that, in a glittery nutshell, is why I love them. The photo is from the collection of The Glitter Coffin Company based in...
New Year’s Revelation
Happy 2020! New Year’s seems like weeks ago already. How is that possible? It seems unanimous that time is flying faster than ever. With a new year, and a new decade to boot, comes new perspectives. What’s disguising itself as a perspective, for me, is more an...
Coming to terms, a little philosophy
I think about death a lot. But unlike funerals directors or healthcare workers, for me it's mostly theoretical. I'm fascinated by the dichotomy we live in: Knowing we aren't immortal, yet mainly living in denial of it. It seems to me that if we really accepted death,...
One Hour to a Better Goodbye
I Want a Fun Funeral is ever evolving, my friends. Chalk it up to my own revelations about life and death and how we relate to it, as well as the seismic shifts that are going on in the actual funeral industry. One of my bugaboos has always been the cost of funerals....
Stones, not ashes
I love new offerings for what to do with our deceased bodies, and this latest one is solid. Literally. It’s stones instead of ashes after cremation. Or rather, stones from ashes. Parting Stone has developed a process of turning cremains (aka ashes) into smooth and...
Talk about exquisite resting places
There's more to funeral innovation than better experiences, even though that is what I am usually harping on. In fact, the seed that led to I Want a Fun Funeral was an exasperating incredulity that funeral homes themselves are still so stodgy looking, uninspiring, and...
Whatever works
Article in this week's Time magazine about collecting all your end of life paperwork. This is the practical end of I Want a Fun Funeral. You can't pull off the goodbye you want without leaving instructions for it. The list of what would ideally be in this place (file,...
Shopping for funeral services should not be torture – What you can do to help
Low sexiness factor, high practicality factor… Shopping for funeral services. As I've said in many posts, the prices of funeral services vary incredibly — by thousands of dollars for the same services. This is no joke or exaggeration. We need to shop around when...