Legacy Matters

Personalizing Funerals

An interesting article on the BBC on personalizing funerals
where I learned that one firm of glassblowers in London have produced an egg timer using a gentlemen's cremated remain!

What a way to remember that time's passing and life is brief.

Coffins are becoming a popular medium for expression. A coffin made from cardboard indicates one's environmental concern and there is an expanding market for these, for both burial and cremation. The surface lends itself to decoration with painting, collage or signatures that can impart a truly individual style.
Wooden coffins are sometimes painted, for example, in the colours of a football club. Coffins can also be shaped like boats, cars and planes or other items reminiscent of a person's lifestyle, occupation or hobby.
More conventional personalising can be achieved by presenting an eulogy, readings or playing music. Many crematoria (as well as churches) have an organ, and they also increasingly have facilities for playing tapes and CDs. There's even a top ten chart of favourite tunes chosen for services at crematoria.
Musicians can play during a service, at the graveside or at the gathering. Scottish pipers, New Orleans-style jazz bands and string quartets quite often perform at funerals.
----------
Horsedrawn hearses, many of them beautifully restored antiques, offer an impressive and charming way of personalising a funeral that's enjoying a significant revival.
Or if the deceased was a motorcycle enthusiast, you can have a motorcycle and side-car hearse.

Motorcycle funerals promise a dignified final ride and slow, fast and very fast funerals.