Funeral Wishes – What, Why and How?
Deciding and making known what you would like to happen to your body after you die and the type of funeral service you would prefer are your ‘funeral wishes’.
A lot of people who have the task of organising a funeral are not confident about making even the most fundamental decisions. These include whether to bury or cremate the body of the deceased and whether or not the funeral service should be religious. The benefits of making advance funeral wishes are clear cut and fall into two categories.
- On an altruistic level, they ease the burden on family at a stressful time by removing uncertainty and giving them peace of mind knowing they are doing the right thing.
- It can avert disputes among family and friends about what to do when opinion is split.
Many funerals will, by default, be carried out in keeping with family tradition or to conform to established religious practices. However, for those who are able to choose, there are an increasing number of options including, Green or Natural Burial, direct cremation or burial followed by a separate memorial service.
The increasing number of different options mean it is becoming more important than ever to record and convey your wishes especially if you would prefer something less conventional.
Funeral wishes tend to be associated with funeral plans but the two are not inextricably linked and it seems there is a distinct need to provide ways to convey funeral wishes for those for whom a funeral plan, for whatever reason, is inappropriate or undesirable.
If you are one of those people, what are your options?
- Talking about funeral wishes with loved ones, while not essential (some people prefer to be secretive), should be encouraged but not relied upon as the definitive guide. The spoken word can easily be misinterpreted or forgotten and without documentary evidence, it is possible for disputes to occur.
- For your funeral wishes to be recorded in a written or printed format or stored electronically online.
Taking the latter first. In keeping with the technological advances of the past decade there are an increasing number of services which offer the capability of storing funeral wishes online and they are often linked to a marketplace of other services and products such as will writing. As with most things, there are both positive and negative considerations. The wishes can usually be easily updated but a (hopefully) long lasting affiliation with the provider is required that comes with concerns about security issues and the longevity of the business itself. Accessing the wishes at the appropriate time, in some instances, isn’t necessarily straightforward and, of course, requires use of a suitable device connected to the internet by someone who has access codes to hand.
There are several possibilities. They can be drawn up by a solicitor and incorporated into a ‘letter of wishes’ which can accompany a Last Will and Testament. There are also a number of other services and products that provide the opportunity to record funeral wishes in a paper format, often in the form of completed paper questionnaires where appropriate boxes are either ticked or completed in handwritten form. While these documents do the job, they can look untidy and have a great deal of superfluous content.
My ‘After Dying Wishes’ is a service that records funeral wishes in a paper format in a way that addresses these shortcomings. Choices are submitted online or as a completed paper questionnaire and are then incorporated into an unambiguous and personalised statement. A high quality document is posted back for safe keeping.
Whatever method you use to record your funeral wishes, you need to bear in mind that they are not legally binding. However, in most circumstances the person(s) responsible for arranging your funeral is likely to adhere to them as closely as possible.
Martin Carette
This article was orginally published in More to Death, the official magazine to The Natural Death Centre.
