Illustration by Doug Fuchs
I first started planning my funeral when I was 11 years old. I wanted everyone to wear orange — no black clothing allowed. I wanted my friend Kendra to sing and coconut shrimp to be served. Beyond my early attempt to confront my own death, I’ve felt a need to live a life of meaning, to make sure I’m remembered after I’m gone.
It’s a common to want to control our narrative, to decide how we are remembered. I come by it honestly; my grandfather planned his elaborate Catholic funeral down to the minute. He frequently rewrote his obituary in his final years. Others may have asked why he cared if I sang “On Eagle’s Wings” instead of “Ave Maria” at his funeral or why he felt the need to painstakingly chronicle every job he ever worked in his obituary, but even as a teenager, I understood: Each of us only gets one life. When we are gone, we can no longer contribute to our family’s history or our own legacy. We are no longer writing our story — others are writing it for us.
Unless we have taken some steps ahead of time, that is. Although it can be hard to face, planning your own funeral can be a service to your loved ones and help you forge deeper connections with your friends, family members and even your personal history.
My funeral plans are in writing and stored with my will, but some people choose to visit a local funeral home to help solidify and visualize their wishes. Kourtney Poznanczyk, a planning specialist at Bliley’s Funeral Homes in Richmond, notes that documenting your wishes at a funeral home can help ease the burden of end-of-life planning.
“When I am meeting with someone to preplan their funeral, I often ask, ‘Who will be around this table when you pass away? What’s important to them? But also, what’s important to you?’” Poznanczyk says. She explains that people are often unaware of the options they might have when planning their burial or cremation, their funeral or their obituary.
Some people want their funeral to be somber, while others wish for a vibrant celebration of life. “There are trends in funerals,” says Poznanczyk, who’s been in the business nearly 15 years. “Now the trend seems to be shifting to, ‘I don’t want to be a burden. I just want to float away.’” No matter the trends, Poznanczyk encourages the people she meets with to use their personality as a guiding force in making their arrangements.
Poznanczyk’s role as a pre-planner for funeral arrangements gives people the chance to know their wishes will be honored and teach people that they have at least a modicum of control and influence, even after they have departed this life.
“As part of my job, I love to educate people on their options. Allowing people to have that information to make choices and create meaning in a time that’s just so hard is really important. I love to share information and then let people do with it what they wish,” Poznanczyk says.
The more you communicate with your loved ones before your passing, the better they can focus on remembering you and experiencing postive grief.
Funeral homes can also help enact your wishes for burial or cremation after death, an element that can add to the grief for your next of kin. “People don’t often know that you get to say what takes place with your human remains,” Poznanczyk says. In Virginia, you can include that choice within your funeral plans and have it notarized at a funeral home free of charge.
Obituaries also are part of funeral planning, and despite being intensely personal, they can often be overlooked and left for others to pen. Consider starting early, but remember that it should be a living document. Poznanczyk points out that in the coming years and decades, you may change the tone, add family members or do something you want to include in a new draft. “When I meet with families, I do give pointers and ask questions. ‘What is the message? Is it going to be autobiographical?’ You can make it whatever you want, and in the age of the internet, you can make it as long as you want for free,” she notes.
Since planning my middle school version of a funeral — you know, the one where I envisioned everyone wearing bright orange shirts and noshing on coconut shrimp — I’ve changed drastically. My funeral plans are updated to include a variety of hors d’oeuvres now, and I’d like “The Office” theme song to play. Even if you’ve been thinking about it from an early age like me, the unfortunate taboos around discussing death in the U.S. can make sharing our wishes with our loved ones a lot harder. But one of the kindest things we can do is discuss the inevitable. The more you communicate with your loved ones before your passing, the better they can focus on remembering you and experiencing positive grief.
Christine Suders learned to write by exchanging letters with her grandfather, who sent them back bleeding with corrections, throughout her childhood. She resides in Varina with her high school sweetheart and two spirited daughters.
