In ‘Grave Expectations,’ authors offer words of wisdom on how you and your loved ones can plan that final farewell
The perfect sendoff
It all started with a “deadly funeral,” Sue Bailey and Carmen Flowers recall with sad smiles. Their friend had had an exciting journey through life, with problems, scandals, forgiveness and ultimately a bravery that led to deep healing. But the preacher who eulogized him was angry, the people who spoke didn’t really know him, “and the food was bad!” says Flowers indignantly. They left feeling empty and cheated, and, says Flowers, thinking “enough, already!”
They went to Bailey’s house, where they cracked open a bottle of champagne and began talking about how they would have made the service a reflection of their friend’s life.
That discussion has resulted in a book, “Grave Expectations: Planning the End Like There’s No Tomorrow,” a thorough, thought-provoking, useful and unexpectedly funny look at death and dying. The book, which is part informative, part pre-planning workbook and part comedy routine, covers everything from memorial services and gravestones to “a goodbye party that no one will forget,” not to mention a pre-death “rehearsal dinner.”
On a recent visit to Buffalo, where Flowers and her husband Vern McKimmey lived when they married in 2001, Flowers and Bailey enjoyed the unexpectedly comfortable carved stone loveseats that flank the Blocher Memorial in Forest Lawn. In their chapter “Marking Your Turf,” they had written, “We like the headstones that are attached to a bench. Think about it –where are your mourners going to sit? Right on top of you? Or are they just going to stand there until they get too tired? Be a good host!”
The trio – along with Flowers and McKimmey’s black pug, Duke Ellington – visited Buffalo on a publicity tour that took them across the Northeast. Bailey and Flowers, two funny, intelligent women, have been friends for some 20 years. They finish each other’s sentences. And on the rituals that follow death, they found common ground.
“We’d each had a lot of losses in our families, and we’ve also buried several close, close friends,” says Bailey. “And we were also not afraid of death. We certainly mourned and grieved, but we understand that death is part of life.”
While their quip-filled book is irreverent in places – they suggest a headstone that says, “So Long, Suckers!” or “I had no idea when I chose Door Number 3 ...” – the writers say that a smile can lighten grief.
“Life is full of laughs; a good life certainly is,” says Flowers.
A few jokes can help people through the fill-in-the-blanks portion of the book, where answers range from the practical – “What kind of coffin do you want?” – to the philosophical – “What I hoped to accomplish in my life.”
“When you are in a lighter mood it’s easier to do these things, because you are thinking of happier memories,” says Flowers.
Bailey and Flowers explore nearly every aspect of the rituals surrounding death, from what the deceased person wears to who speaks at what service.
“We are not radicals,” says Flowers. “Many people get great comfort from the old traditions. We are not against the [funeral] industry.” Bailey says, “We want to help transform it.”
Anthony P. Amigone Jr., president of Amigone Funeral Home Inc. and a licensed funeral director, says personalized services are more popular than they have ever been, but they are not new. He remembers a funeral some 35 years ago when the family of a young man who died hiking had him buried in his hiking clothes and brought in posters of some of the places he had traveled.
“People have done that for a while, but today there is more of a free feeling about it, there are no taboos anymore,” says Amigone. “There is no ‘traditional’ traditional anymore. Now the tradition is to have everything personalized,” from slide shows and photo displays to the person’s favorite music or online tributes.
Not only are Amigone’s employees open to innovation, he says, “We drive it, we like it. It’s important to us.
“Sometimes our staff will say, ‘They’re really making us work on this one!’ but it’s the key to our success. The more they get involved in it and the more we can be helpful, the better.”
Long before they started working on this book, Bailey and Flowers experienced the value of such detailed planning. Flowers’ father was a physician who had inoperable cancer. The night before he died, and long before his daughter and her friend wrote this book, she says, “We stayed up all night planning every detail that he wanted for the visitation. It was wonderful.” He picked everything from the clothing he would wear to the flowers to the food – venison sausage and cheese garlic grits with wine and “lots of bourbon.”
At a party held later for those who couldn’t make the first one, a bowl with some of his ashes and some small plastic bags were offered for people who wanted to take a bit of him “someplace he would like to go, because he was a great traveler,” says Flowers.
“At first people were hesitant, then they would grin and then they’d pick up a bag, and they said, ‘I’m going to take him to Australia,’ ” says Flowers. “He made it so easy, and I thought, ‘This is how it should be!’ ”
There is one flaw in the plan. As the book says, “The law does not protect the deceased’s wishes about anything to do with last rites, rituals or receptions, so we recommend you be really nice to whomever you choose to carry out your wishes.”
Or you could hold the ceremony before you die. Bailey and Flowers recommend what they call a “rehearsal dinner.” Rather than take time off and fly to a funeral, why not visit a terminally ill or elderly friend before the end? “Some people are not well enough to do that, but some are,” Bailey says.
Some people in good health may wish to hold their own goodbye dinner. “You might say, ‘I want to hear all those great things people are going to say about me at my funeral!’ ” says Bailey.
“This can also be a great time to make amends, to bestow some things that are meaningful,” says Flowers.
The two women admit their goals are lofty. “We are on kind of a mission,” says Bailey. “We think that doing this book and changing the way that people think is going to help people get over their fear of death. Everyone’s in denial, they push it away, so that’s why we say do it now, because it’s going to be fun. I really am sorry I didn’t have this book when my mom was alive, or my dad, because I would make them sit down with it. But so often people put it off until it’s too late.”
Grave Expectations: Planning the End Like There’s No Tomorrow
By Sue Bailey and Carmen Flowers
Cider Mill Press, 201 pages, $14.95
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