Today: Plan Your Own Personalized Funeral

Have the last word!

Once people accept that life is full of ups and downs, and that death is part of life, planning your own funeral doesn’t feel like such a creepy thing to do. In fact, it can feel like you’re taking care of your last chores, and leaving your life well lived.
5 Tips For Planning Your Own Funeral The Way You Want It

1. Cremation or burial? Make the decision or it will be made for you. Many people pre-buy their own plots. There are lots of ways to pre-buy cremation services. Save your loved ones the work and the decisions and know that your final resting place will be where you want it to be. If you’d like your ashes from a cremation sprinkled in a particular place, or kept in a particular urn in a particular place, make these decisions and write them out in advance.

2. Video Memories. Celebrations like birthdays and weddings used to involve dancing and cakes, but these days everything has gone video. Leave your loved ones a video that you’ve made or had made to your specifications of all the good times and everything you want them to remember about you. Decide where and when you want it played and for whom — the whole funeral crowd or just specific family and friends. This can be a very healing and lovely parting gift.

3. Make sure your Will is as you want it. If you remember last minute things you’d like to leave to certain people, you can consult your attorney if you have a fightin’ family, or just leave a note that says what you’d like to be disbursed to whom.

4. Last words? If you want to write your own obituary and your own tombstone engraving, this is a good time to do it. You can put the obituary you want in a safe place or give it to the executor of your estate with instructions for what you want and where. If you have a terminal illness and you have an idea of how long you have, send the obit to the editor at your local paper who handles obituaries and have them store it for future use.

5. Gifts. Aside from your will, you may want to leave thoughtful words — poems, notes or items — for specific family and friends to be disbursed at your funeral or funeral reception. This is the kind of touch that leaves your loved ones crying — with a smile on their faces.