My mom wrote her own obituary.
I honestly still have so many conflicting feelings about that, but her doing so took such a huge task off of our plates. During a time when our brains are just struggling to survive, writing a comprehensive obituary seems so impossible.
She wrote it before my second child was born, so I had to edit it to include him, but beyond that, all I had to do was copy and paste.
She also provided her funeral arrangement wishes in extreme detail. The funeral director I met with said he had never seen anything like it. She even specified the color of the hearse and casket! She told us not to make her video too sad, to “put some humorous stuff in there!” And not only did she describe the type of grave marker she wanted, she also wrote the epitaph for it (below).
I had no questions whatsoever about whether or not I was honoring her wishes; she left me clear instructions for everything.
- Obituary Information (Download)
- Final Funeral Arrangements (Download)
Even while preparing for something like this, my mom’s sense of humor never wavered. I couldn’t help but smile as I read through her final funeral arrangements.
At the top of the document, my mom wrote:
I request that the following wishes and arrangements be honored after my death (of course, you can really do what you want since I’m dead – I wouldn’t know anyway ☺︎).
In the section about the casket, she wrote:
DO NOT spend a fortune on this thing to just rot in the dirt! It just needs to “look” expensive! Buying it at the funeral home is fine, but if someone has the “hook-up” somewhere else and it’s not a lot of trouble, go for it.
In the transportation section, she wrote:
A White Hearse please (to match my casket). I know, I’m a diva 😊
In the “Additional Wishes” section, she wrote:
Closed casket funeral with a recent, large portrait on an easel. Make sure the picture is beautiful for my age – or a couple years younger will be fine! I’m so vain 😊
Anyone can speak, but if anyone gets up talking crazy and telling all my business, you have my total permission to sit that person down (and you don’t have to be nice about it, either)!
We were also left with instructions for the repast, which some people may remember:
Play my iPhone “Favorites” playlist as background music. Have a party…I’ll be there dancing with y’all! Be sure to play “One More Chance” by The Jacksons. Remember how I loved that intro? Play the intro over and over until people start to ask why; they’ll get a kick out of the answer. You may also do this at the funeral and/or at the repast – it doesn’t matter. Anything to make you less sad!!
And that is Mom. 💜
San’s Epitaph
Absent from the body, present with the Lord.
“I’m Singing & Dancing!”
“Joyful, Joyful, Joyful!”