There are many reasons to have a Last Will and Testament, and one of them is to leave instructions for your funeral as well as any wishes you may have regarding your remains.
When someone reaches this section of their Will, it can give them reason to pause. One might spend years planning every last detail of their dream wedding…but a dream funeral? Aside from Wednesday Addams, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has given deep thought to how they’d like for their end-of-life event to go.
Planning for our eventual demise is somewhat morbid, so naturally not a lot of people like to give their funeral a lot of thought. Other tasks related to our Wills can be methodical and relatively easy to get through, but planning our own finale is admittedly a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, it is still a very important aspect of leaving behind helpful instructions and final wishes for our loved ones.
With any subject that is heavy or uncomfortable, humor is a coping mechanism that can help ease us into the topic. With this guide, we bring you some of the strangest, wildest, funniest, and weirdest funeral requests found on the internet. Perhaps some of these ideas will strike some inspiration. Not your style? This list will help you get started by forming an idea of what you don’t want.
1. “Send My Intestines to Salt Bae” PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk (74) may take the cake for some of the oddest requests made in her Will. Among them:
Carve out and sear some of my flesh for a human barbeque
Use my intestines for sausage casings and send them to Salt Bae
Cure my skin to fashion it into a leather belt and purse
Send the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus a “thumbs-up” (of her actual finger) for leaving animal acts in the past
Newkirk’s Will and its strange requests made the news 20 years ago, but the Testator has lived another 20 years. At 74 years of age, Newkirk has made revisions to include even more inventive ways to draw attention to her life’s mission. Each line item regarding her final wishes were carefully curated to make sure that her “body be used in a manner that draws attention to needless animal suffering and exploitation.”
2. Embalming for Your Favorite Activity Do you want to show off your favorite skills or activity at your funeral? According to a funeral director, it’s actually not too uncommon for people to request a special embalming to make this possible. One decedent requested that he be placed on his favorite armchair, while “watching” a broadcast of a Steelers game on a television in front of him. Another requested that he be placed atop his motorcycle at his viewing.
3. Once You Pop, You Just Can’t Stop
Frederic Baur, the inventor of Pringles, requested for his ashes to be stored in a Pringles can. Baur’s eldest son reportedly debated which flavor to use but ultimately chose the original.
4. A Deep Love for Cats
Nancy Sauer, a Florida woman, reportedly left her 4,000 square-foot mansion and inheritance to her seven Persian cats. Apparently, her Will requested that the house not be sold until the last cat passed away, with someone visiting each day to feed them. The cats received a substantial inheritance that would help with their food, medical and grooming needs for the rest of their lives. A probate judge ultimately ruled that cats should not be left alone in an empty home and were turned over to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.
From the perspective of Trust & Will, it appears that Sauer may have been better off if she had placed her home and cats into a Trust with a Trustee appointed to provide care and make decisions. This would have ensured that her estate avoided the probate system and could have resulted in a different outcome.
5. Third Time’s the Charm
Air Force pilot and astronaut Gordon Cooper specified in his final wishes that his ashes be launched into outer space after his death in 2004.
However, this turned out to be easier said than done. In 2007, some of his ashes were sent up in a suborbital flight. The capsule fell back to Earth but due to bad weather it wasn’t found for weeks. In 2008, another portion of his remains were sent up on a rocket but were lost when the flight failed two minutes in. Finally in May 2012, more of his ashes were launched into space successfully.
6. Take me to the Holy Land Robert the Bruce, King of Scots from 1306 to 1329, died with one regret: he had never been on a crusade to the Holy Land. He asked his friend Sir James Douglas to carry his heart there instead. Douglas agreed and set out on a long and dangerous journey.
Douglas and his men traveled through Spain and Portugal, fighting battles along the way. They finally reached the Holy Land, but they were unable to reach Jerusalem because of the Egyptian army. Douglas was determined to fulfill his promise to Bruce, so he threw the heart into the middle of the battle, saying, "Go first, as thou hast always done." Douglas was killed in battle, but his heart was returned to Scotland and buried in Melrose Abbey.
7. Annual Seance, Please
Harry Houdini is arguably the world’s most famous illusionist, and eerily, he passed away on Halloween in 1926. In his last wishes, he requested that his wife hold a seance on the anniversary of his death every year. He asked her to repeat the code “Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell” so that he could communicate with her from the dead. After trying for 10 consecutive years with no luck, his wife eventually gave up on the tradition but it hasn’t stopped fans from trying to this day.
8. From Ashes to…Comic Book? Mark Gruenwald was the creator of famous comic book titles such as Captain America and Squadron Supreme. He tragically passed away of a heart attack, caused by an undetected congenital heart defect. Fortunately, he was able to make his wishes known to his loved ones prior to his death. His final wish was for his ashes to be used as a part of a comic book. To carry out his wishes, his ashes were mixed into ink in the first trade paperback printing of the Squadron Supreme.
9. Donate My Body to the Arts We all have the option of donating organs and tissue to medical research upon our passing, but some have been known to go the extra mile. Polish composer and pianist Andre Tchaikowsky donated most of his body to medicine and science, but he lent his skull specifically to the arts. His Will stated that his skull should be donated to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Decades later, in 2008, the composer's wishes were granted. David Tennant used his skull in a series of performances.
10. Chat Roulette Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara passed away in 1988. He was a wealthy Portuguese aristocrat who didn’t have anyone to leave his inheritance to. In a unique twist, he randomly picked out 70 names out of a printed phone book (similar to the Yellow Pages). Each stranger inherited several hundred Euros when he passed away.
It’s Your Funeral
It’s no secret — the internet is chock-full of reports of final wishes that are strange, unique, interesting, funny, or even grotesque.
No matter how odd an individual’s final wishes may be, they deserve a nod for taking the steps to make their wishes known. Death is a very personal and intimate thing; we cannot make the mistake of assuming that our loved ones will know what to do with your remains, or how to celebrate your life in a way that best honors your desires.
The best way to go about this is to leave your instructions in your Last Will and Testament. Of course, it can be uncomfortable and even morbid to face our eventual mortality. However, planning our own funeral can be a helpful and even healing exercise that helps us feel more in control and empowered over something so out of our control and mysterious. You may even surprise yourself with your creativity.
If for anything, keep in mind that leaving instructions for your funeral and your remains is ultimately going to serve your loved ones. When you lose someone dear to you, the shock of the loss can be devastating. Adding on the responsibility of planning out a funeral with no clue as to what direction to take can be more than what a person to bear. To leave well-detailed instructions with no room for debate can be a loving kindness, no matter how unique your take can be. They may question some of your decisions if they’re off the beaten path, but they’ll nevertheless be relieved and grateful knowing that these decisions have already been made.
It may surprise you to find out how easy it is to set up your Will! Trust & Will is an online platform that allows you to set up your important estate planning documents in a matter of minutes. Your wishes don’t have to be final, either. If you were to change your mind or want to make revisions, our platform makes it easy to keep your Will up-to-date!
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Trust & Will is an online service providing legal forms and information. We are not a law firm and we do not provide legal advice.
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