You're told you must accept the old adage "You can't take it with you" at life's close. That's probably true, but to borrow another popular phrase, you can "have it your way" when the time comes.
Enter the self-customized funeral. At a cursory glance, it seems to personalize yet trivialize the traditions of death, turning the grieving process into a circus act: A service for a departed "ladies' man" features exotic dancers; a die-hard Harley owner is on view with his beloved "hog" motorcycle by his side; a farmer's grand finale involves a tractor procession.
But these self-designed farewells don't resemble carnivals at all, really. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, many Americans have a new perspective on dying. The customized funeral, a trend that was on the rise before 9/11, now has emerged as a testament to an American ideal: that one's life should be a celebration, especially after death.
In the past, our loved ones perhaps picked out their caskets or grave sites. Today, people are writing their own funeral scripts, selecting the music, providing the decor and doing whatever else it takes to design their official goodbye. "This takes the funeral service and makes it a thumbprint of our existence," says Pat Moore, director of Moore's Home for Funerals in Wayne, N.J. "As for what I'm willing to do for people, anything goes. It's their life, after all, isn't it?"
A year ago, Moore oversaw a funeral for a gentleman named Ben Felice, who died at 81. It was a shining tribute to Felice's proud years in the Army. The guest book was red, white and blue. The casket displayed the Army crest with the bald eagle in front, as well as eagles with American flags at all four corners. Sgt. Felice went out with his old uniform on, the one he had worn fighting alongside Gen. George S. Patton in World War II.
So it seems right that Felice's son, Frank, is now planning his own final statement, even though he's perfectly healthy. Well before Sept. 11, he envisioned his funeral as a tribute to New York, the city he loves. Now, his intentions are even more poignant. "This is like planning my own going-away party, more or less," says Felice, 51, of Haledon, N.J. "I'm going to have the skyline of New York City above the casket. Yes, I realize I'm not taking my life here on Earth to the next world, like the ancient Egyptians believed. But I want it around me when I'm gone."
How prevalent is this practice of orchestrated homages? Today, as many as four out of five funerals maintain some kind of customized element. Not all are grand productions. It could be as simple as the family selecting photos to display near the coffin. But more and more people now opt to design their own service themselves, as opposed to leaving the task to loved ones.
"The day of the funeral where everyone wears black is going away," says Ken Camp, president and chief executive officer of Batesville Casket Co. in Batesville, Ind. "People are being specific about this: They don't want tears -- they want a Dixieland band." Batesville Casket now often provides drawers in which to tuck away items of sentimental value.
Even with built-in storage, "a lot of times, we don't have enough room for everything people want to put in there," says Peter Teahen of Teahen Funeral Home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "We've had baseball jerseys, a father's winning poker hands, bingo markers and, of course, golf balls for a golf fanatic. We couldn't fit golf clubs in there, so we put them next to the casket -- the putter and the No. 1 wood."
Anticipation of one's own grand goodbye can lead to joyous moments. Those with terminal diseases start coming up with ideas, as if for a wedding or a birthday bash. An artist-musician turned a funeral home into a gallery of his life's work, with his guitar at the head of the casket. A woman dying of cancer arranged for her casket to be painted lemon yellow, to match the exterior of her cherished Volkswagen Beetle. One widow gave Teahen a small object to place in her late husband's casket and confessed: "I never knew how to work this thing. He did."
It was their TV remote.
Sometimes, attendees take something home with them, like a party favor. Camp recalls the time "a teacher who wore a different necktie every day of his life set up a rack displaying his storied collection. Students and loved ones at the service picked one for themselves and wore it."
