Looking Forward To Your Funeral is a book that has been written to enable you to record what you want to happen at your own funeral. Hopefully this will be a long time off in the future, but recording what you would like should give you peace of mind. (And if your family and friends think you are being unreasonable and unrealistic then they will probably give you a piece of their mind!)
It is aimed at addressing a great taboo: Elderly people and those with longstanding illness do not raise such matters because they do not wish to cause distress to their family and friends, and when the inevitable becomes imminent they may simply be too unwell to talk about it. Similarly, family and friends don’t want to talk about funeral arrangements with someone who is frail or ill, or may fear that mentioning the subject may somehow hasten their demise. As a result, the family and friends are often left behind trying to second-guess their wishes when the funeral arrangements have to be made. As if being bereaved isn’t stressful enough!
The aim is to help you to “look forward” to your funeral – it is assumed that no-one will actually be “looking forward” to their funeral! It is to encourage you to think about what you would want at a point in time when the subject of your funeral is far enough in the future that it will not be seen as a doom-laden task. The accent in Looking Forward To Your Funeral is on humour and it should be fun to complete, perhaps sharing the process with friends and family. They might want to know if there is a story behind your choice of music, reading or type of ceremony, which they might never otherwise get to hear.
It is not a legal document and is quite separate from a will. So if those left behind do not fulfil your wishes, as stated, you will not be able to sue them – but you will not be able to sue them anyway, for obvious reasons!
Arguably everyone should have their own copy, given that everyone’s wishes will be different. Therefore, Looking Forward To Your Funeral can be a useful gift for appropriate friends and family.