21st Century Mourning (and Immortality)

Credit:  WuMo by Wulff & Morgenthaler
License:  Fair Use/Education

The "Fun" in Funeral

Taking another break from newsworthy estate issues, the NYT reported about the beginning of a funeral trend primarily in New Orleans where the deceased is not in a coffin but is posed as if alive.  A 53 year old woman was recently posed at a table holding her cigarette with a can of Busch beer in front of her. In April, a socialite was posed sitting on a bench on a downtown theater greeting guests.

Several points:

1.  Although the Big Easy boasts of putting the fun in funeral, spectacles are not always fun but can be morbid.

2.  I suspect that the beer and cigarette depicted might have contributed to the woman's death at 53.

3. I know they were going for authenticity, but the woman was posed with a Busch beer instead of a nice microbrew as her final beer?

Movin' On Up? Not Quite.

The late Sherman Hemsley, who played George Jefferson on "The Jefferson's" remains unburied six weeks after his death while his manager/partner and alleged brother engage in a will contest over his $50,000 estate.  The alleged brother is contesting the validity of a will executed a month before Hemsley's death from cancer.

I am somewhat perplexed about how a will contest affects the burial.  However, this problem could have been avoided if burial instructions were left in writing.  Generally, leaving the funeral instructions in a will is not advisable because the funeral has already occurred by the time the will is read.

The small nature of the estate compared to the legal fees to contest the will is the one factor that could quickly resolve this dispute and allow Mr. Hemsley to start "movin' on down."  My apologies for that, but I could not resist.