My Dad Had Some Unusual Requests For His Funeral. 3 Years Later, People Are Still Talking About It.

""If people aren't laughing during my memorial, you've done it wrong," my father told us for years, long before his death. "Funerals are inherently sad; for mine, cut the treacle a bit with humor." He thought a lot about funerals. Growing up, death was a dinner table conversation at our house almost every night, because my dad was an estate planning attorney. He always protected his clients' privacy, but would bring the lessons home: Never fight with your siblings over money."

"He often advised his clients to take a beat after a family member's death and delay having the service in order to gather their thoughts. He believed every close family member should write a eulogy. Whether they actually delivered the speech at the funeral mattered less than the process of organizing one's feelings and acknowledging their relationship with the loved one who had died. It's a therapeutic rite of passage and aids in the grieving process. He believed it put the relationship into perspective."

A father who worked as an estate planning attorney treated death and memorial planning as practical, frequent household topics. He recommended pausing after a death to collect thoughts and consider the deceased's wishes before holding a service. He encouraged each close family member to write a eulogy to organize emotions and acknowledge relationships, viewing the process as therapeutic. He wanted humor at his memorial to balance sadness and kept a home folder with handwritten wishes, hymns, poems, and songs. He died after Parkinson's disease and dementia, and his spouse used his notes to carry out his requests.

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