New York, NY, March 30, 2017 –(PR.com)– As people increasingly shift their lives online, they create digital assets and memories that need protection after death. Making a will to dispose of tangible assets is no longer enough. In addition, it’s now important to secure the digital assets and to make sure person’s loved ones have access to the treasured memories stored online.
The Facebook page, Pinterest board and Dropbox account all hold memories in the form of photos, videos and documents that people want to pass on to loved ones. Bank accounts may be accessible in person with the right government certificates and permissions, but what about purely online assets held by PayPal or in the form of Bitcoin? How to be sure these assets aren’t looted or withheld after the person’s death? How to give the loved ones the access person wants them to have?
Vivala.me is a new service that helps people to protect important documents, passwords and memories. It sends access to these memories to the loved ones, following the instructions, thereby securing the digital legacy into the future.
Vivala.me provides its users with control over their digital legacy. The platform is incredibly easy to use, and it’s designed to give users complete say over what happens to their photos, videos and documents after death. By keeping the digital legacy secure with Vivala, the account owner passes on access and control to the person chosen at the previously established time. Without this control, the loved ones could easily end up with no access whatsoever to the person’s social media accounts, cloud storage services, e-commerce accounts and online banking, even with the power of attorney.
Vivala.me stores and protects digital assets with state-of-the-art, 256-bit encryption and the highest security available. All communication to and from the platform is also encrypted with 2048-bit SSL certificates, and Vivala.me security experts monitor the servers at all times to keep every bit and byte of data completely secure.
Security is vital, but Vivala.me takes a further step to move beyond just high-end password protection. Passing on emotional memories can mean as much as protecting bank accounts, and the takes that charge very seriously, making sure that all messages and content are delivered exactly as they are wanted. The users can create and send messages to their children and grandchildren to commemorate their special occasions, such as weddings or graduations, even if they aren’t there to participate.
You can visit the Vivala.me website Here Whether there is concern about a few documents, an enormous library of photos and videos, or access to online social media and banking accounts, Vivala.me keeps fees low and security high to make sure people can distribute your digital assets and presence in the way they want. As a rapidly growing service in storage and protection of online assets, Vivala.me is committed to the peace of mind that comes with preserving the digital legacy well into the future.
Contact Information: Vivala.me Martin Gnat +48535342388 Contact via Email vivala.me
Click here to view original web page at Death Ladies
There is currently a resurgence of interest, scholarship, and professional development in the death industry. A substantial portion of this work, both professionally and scholarly is created by women. Women are writing about death, women are making art about death, and women are cultivating professions and businesses around death.
Caitlin Doughty in the crematorium
This particular interest is exemplified by the media presence of women in the death industry. For example, Caitlin Doughty (of “Ask a Mortician” fame) recently opened her own funeral home, called Undertaking LA, where she offers a variety of non-traditional burial options and even provides space and support for a more hands-on funeral service. She has also written a New York Times best-selling book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, about her experiences in the death industry, and has been interviewed everywhere from O: The Oprah Magazine to Penthouse.
Joanna Ebenstein, the creative director and founder of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, is also making waves. Originally started as a blog that became wildly popular, Morbid Anatomy developed into a physical space with collections, funding, and staff. The museum, located in Brooklyn, hosts a variety of interesting and educational events, exhibitions, and shows, all related to the subject of death.
There has been a lot of press for these two women, but they are only the tip of the iceberg for incredible ladies trying to make sense of death. Goldengrove’s Maggie Cross is re-introducing memorial jewelry into contemporary culture by grounding her work in 19th-century mourning imagery. Jae Rhim Lee created the Infinity Burial Suit, a wearable outfit for the recently deceased that is embroidered with mushroom spores and assists with purifying the body during decomposition. The suit is currently in development and has been the subject of a popular TED Talk.
The president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, penned This Republic of Suffering in 2008, which detailed how American culture was deeply shaped by the mass deaths of the Civil War. There are many more that I do not have room to mention, but needless to say, women are making sense of death in new and innovative ways.
As a woman participating in this culture, I notice this pattern in the numerous conversations, lectures, and studio visits that compromise my post day-job life. Nearly every time I meet someone new, they insist on introducing me to someone they know, nearly always someone who identifies as a woman, who is actively interested in the morose or morbid. Each and every time, I can’t wait to meet her.
I am not surprised by this phenomenon. The body and its functions, including death, are within a woman’s purview. Blood is the marker of many milestones of feminine experience: childbearing, menstruation, abortion, and surgical intervention. Many women are used to visceral changes in the body in some capacity. We are often the bearers of blood and bodies, whether they are living or dead. Some women usher humans into life, while others usher them out. Many women bear the burden of bodies by handling death and its many demands.
In the mid-to-late 19th century, large-scale social and political changes in the United States made huge and lasting impacts on the death industry as we know it, and women carved out their own legacy in this sphere. In this way, women, myself included, have paved the way to today, when women are actively conversing, creating, and coalescing around death.
Let’s take a step back in American history. Even in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the task of women to handle the dead, as death happened in the home and was understood to be a kind of domestic responsibility.[1] The responsibility of cleaning the body and preparing it for burial was often assumed by daughters and mothers. In many ways, this aligned with the social assignment of the woman-as-caretaker model, which allowed for mothers to both birth and bury, from one beginning to another’s end. Social expectations of modesty in this era forbade many men from interacting with the bodies of women, thus relegating this kind of body management to women.
Death in America changed drastically with the onset of the American Civil War. Grievous loss of life was everywhere: the decay on battlefields, the missing spouses and children, and the nameless graves filled in after armies passed through. Women led the front as nurses and aided in developing the first ambulances, encountering death on a daily basis, as men fought to their demise on the battlefields. The United States lost 7% of its total population in this bloody pursuit, leaving plenty of opportunity for anyone, including women, to manage its gruesome aftermath.
Ye olde embalming barn
The origins of embalming started with herbs and dismemberment in fourteenth-century Europe, and had certainly evolved by the time this process was explored in the United States during the mid-19th century: the use of chemical injections in arteries proved to be efficient in preserving bodies for transport. [2] Dr. Thomas Holmes, a physician and surgeon working in New York, started to experiment with arterial embalming, similar to the process we know today, in hopes of safely securing cadavers for medical students to work on. With deaths piling up on the battlefields at this very same time, Holmes was asked to provide his new preservative services to the Union Army. His embalming procedures allowed some soldiers to be shipped home without the threat of decomposition.
After the Civil War came to a close, it took years for embalming to become a customary practice. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, he became the first president to be embalmed. His funeral train drove his body 1,700 miles from Washington, DC to his hometown of Springfield, IL. When Americans came out to his mourn his loss as the train passed through their city or town, they were introduced to the magic of embalming.
In this era, embalming was only exercised on the dead bodies of soldiers and military officers, the social elite, and the politically significant. It was a service that required training and education; the funeral industry professionalized to accommodate the standards and practices of technical expertise. Embalming took the funeral out of the domestic sphere and brought it into the funeral home, a recent advent of this time. Not only did preserving bodies ensure clean and safe travel for cadavers and dead soldiers, it also secured one last glance at a loved one’s body before burial. Instead of a rush to clean and prepare the body before the unsettling realities of death became apparent, there was time for the last goodbye.
The professionalization of the funerary industry created a slew of new job possibilities for those who were willing to work with the deceased and their distressed families, and this seemingly-peculiar trade was open to allowing women to be educated and trained. Many men became trained in embalming because it was associated with medicine, but nearly all medical schools were closed to women. During the Victorian era it was still considered indecent for men to handle the unclothed, lifeless bodies of deceased women and children.[3] This social predicament left many upset families seeking an embalmer to preserve the bodies of their loved ones, but coming up with nothing. There was an obvious gap in this new profession that must be filled.
Corporate Announcement of Lina Odou’s school. New York Times February 8, 1901
Madame Lina R. Odou understood this need. She was originally raised across various cities in Europe, and was hugely influenced by her colleague and friend, Florence Nightingale. The two women met in London in 1868 when Odou was beginning her training as a nurse, which provided the medical background necessary to be trained in embalming. Moving to the United States from Switzerland, Odou became trained in mortuary science, founding the “Lina D. Odou Embalming Institute” in Manhattan in early 1901 within the Frank E. Campbell mortuary facility. Her institute only provided embalming services to deceased women.[4] Odou went on to found the Women’s Licensed Embalmer Association, which provided professional support, networking opportunities, and a community to other women interested in mortuary science.
Odou’s school provided professional opportunities for women in mortuary science, some of whom would go on to open their own schools. Renowned embalmer, author, and teacher Mrs. Lena R. Simmons attended Odou’s school. Simmons then created a school in her name, which made a lasting impact on my hometown of Syracuse, NY. Founded in 1900 with her husband, Charles A. Genung, it was originally named the Genung-Simmons Embalming Institute. The school always opened its doors to female applicants and was considered a coeducational school from its very beginning. Simmons actively wrote about her embalming chemistry research in funerary publications and also served as a faculty member at the school. She also developed subcutaneous suturing in arterial embalming, also known as “the blind stitch.”
Images of Lena Simmons courtesy of American Funeral Director
Her legacy in the mortuary sciences spoke to a particular culture and trade that allowed women to practice as professionals in a job where many men flourished. The school changed hands through time; it was handed over to Maurice Wightman (a graduate of the school) in 1986. The school closed recently in 2013, amidst allegations and a lawsuit against Wightman that cited various sexual harassment complaints made by female students and faculty members. This end chapter has unfortunately tarnished the progressive legacy of the school.
Although death may be approached as a profession or subject of last resort, it can also be understood as a practice of creativity, empathy, and agency. Women have created space, as well as income, by offering support and service during the loss of a loved one. In many ways, the macabre is the wild west of opportunity for women, where there are fewer rules and gendered expectations to govern women’s behavior.
It seems fitting that the death industry is seeing a resurgence of interest by women. In the 1970s, female funeral directors only made up about 5% of the professional industry; by 2010, that number is closer to 43%.[5] Many schools of mortuary sciences have seen spikes in their female student populations, with more women enrolling now than ever before; the National Funeral Director’s Association estimates that 57% of current mortuary students are women.[6]
Death, as a subject of inquiry and also as a professional trajectory, continues to serve as a mainstay of opportunity for women. Between sociocultural expectations for women to handle death and professional opportunities for growth in the newly-developed field of mortuary science, death as a trade has become a subject for creative inquisition. Related scholarship has been taken up by more and more women. The lasting impact of women in the world of the macabre creates space for innovation, community, and exploration, ensuring support for future generations of women hoping to make sense of death.
[1] Laderman, Gary. The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes toward Death, 1799-1883. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. p.30
[2] Trompette, Pascale and Melanie Lemonnier. “Funeral embalming: the transformation of a medical innovation.” Science Studies, Vol. 22, (2009) No. 2.
[3] Bryant, Clifton D. Handbook of Death & Dying. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. p.541
[4] Schechter, Harold. The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End. New York: Ballantine, 2009. p.112.
[5] Phaneuf, Buddy. “Women In The American Funeral Industry.” NYS Funeral Directors Association.
Click here to view original web page at Death Ladies
There is currently a resurgence of interest, scholarship, and professional development in the death industry. A substantial portion of this work, both professionally and scholarly is created by women. Women are writing about death, women are making art about death, and women are cultivating professions and businesses around death.
Caitlin Doughty in the crematorium
This particular interest is exemplified by the media presence of women in the death industry. For example, Caitlin Doughty (of “Ask a Mortician” fame) recently opened her own funeral home, called Undertaking LA, where she offers a variety of non-traditional burial options and even provides space and support for a more hands-on funeral service. She has also written a New York Times best-selling book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, about her experiences in the death industry, and has been interviewed everywhere from O: The Oprah Magazine to Penthouse.
Joanna Ebenstein, the creative director and founder of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, is also making waves. Originally started as a blog that became wildly popular, Morbid Anatomy developed into a physical space with collections, funding, and staff. The museum, located in Brooklyn, hosts a variety of interesting and educational events, exhibitions, and shows, all related to the subject of death.
There has been a lot of press for these two women, but they are only the tip of the iceberg for incredible ladies trying to make sense of death. Goldengrove’s Maggie Cross is re-introducing memorial jewelry into contemporary culture by grounding her work in 19th-century mourning imagery. Jae Rhim Lee created the Infinity Burial Suit, a wearable outfit for the recently deceased that is embroidered with mushroom spores and assists with purifying the body during decomposition. The suit is currently in development and has been the subject of a popular TED Talk.
The president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, penned This Republic of Suffering in 2008, which detailed how American culture was deeply shaped by the mass deaths of the Civil War. There are many more that I do not have room to mention, but needless to say, women are making sense of death in new and innovative ways.
As a woman participating in this culture, I notice this pattern in the numerous conversations, lectures, and studio visits that compromise my post day-job life. Nearly every time I meet someone new, they insist on introducing me to someone they know, nearly always someone who identifies as a woman, who is actively interested in the morose or morbid. Each and every time, I can’t wait to meet her.
I am not surprised by this phenomenon. The body and its functions, including death, are within a woman’s purview. Blood is the marker of many milestones of feminine experience: childbearing, menstruation, abortion, and surgical intervention. Many women are used to visceral changes in the body in some capacity. We are often the bearers of blood and bodies, whether they are living or dead. Some women usher humans into life, while others usher them out. Many women bear the burden of bodies by handling death and its many demands.
In the mid-to-late 19th century, large-scale social and political changes in the United States made huge and lasting impacts on the death industry as we know it, and women carved out their own legacy in this sphere. In this way, women, myself included, have paved the way to today, when women are actively conversing, creating, and coalescing around death.
Let’s take a step back in American history. Even in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the task of women to handle the dead, as death happened in the home and was understood to be a kind of domestic responsibility.[1] The responsibility of cleaning the body and preparing it for burial was often assumed by daughters and mothers. In many ways, this aligned with the social assignment of the woman-as-caretaker model, which allowed for mothers to both birth and bury, from one beginning to another’s end. Social expectations of modesty in this era forbade many men from interacting with the bodies of women, thus relegating this kind of body management to women.
Death in America changed drastically with the onset of the American Civil War. Grievous loss of life was everywhere: the decay on battlefields, the missing spouses and children, and the nameless graves filled in after armies passed through. Women led the front as nurses and aided in developing the first ambulances, encountering death on a daily basis, as men fought to their demise on the battlefields. The United States lost 7% of its total population in this bloody pursuit, leaving plenty of opportunity for anyone, including women, to manage its gruesome aftermath.
Ye olde embalming barn
The origins of embalming started with herbs and dismemberment in fourteenth-century Europe, and had certainly evolved by the time this process was explored in the United States during the mid-19th century: the use of chemical injections in arteries proved to be efficient in preserving bodies for transport. [2] Dr. Thomas Holmes, a physician and surgeon working in New York, started to experiment with arterial embalming, similar to the process we know today, in hopes of safely securing cadavers for medical students to work on. With deaths piling up on the battlefields at this very same time, Holmes was asked to provide his new preservative services to the Union Army. His embalming procedures allowed some soldiers to be shipped home without the threat of decomposition.
After the Civil War came to a close, it took years for embalming to become a customary practice. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, he became the first president to be embalmed. His funeral train drove his body 1,700 miles from Washington, DC to his hometown of Springfield, IL. When Americans came out to his mourn his loss as the train passed through their city or town, they were introduced to the magic of embalming.
In this era, embalming was only exercised on the dead bodies of soldiers and military officers, the social elite, and the politically significant. It was a service that required training and education; the funeral industry professionalized to accommodate the standards and practices of technical expertise. Embalming took the funeral out of the domestic sphere and brought it into the funeral home, a recent advent of this time. Not only did preserving bodies ensure clean and safe travel for cadavers and dead soldiers, it also secured one last glance at a loved one’s body before burial. Instead of a rush to clean and prepare the body before the unsettling realities of death became apparent, there was time for the last goodbye.
The professionalization of the funerary industry created a slew of new job possibilities for those who were willing to work with the deceased and their distressed families, and this seemingly-peculiar trade was open to allowing women to be educated and trained. Many men became trained in embalming because it was associated with medicine, but nearly all medical schools were closed to women. During the Victorian era it was still considered indecent for men to handle the unclothed, lifeless bodies of deceased women and children.[3] This social predicament left many upset families seeking an embalmer to preserve the bodies of their loved ones, but coming up with nothing. There was an obvious gap in this new profession that must be filled.
Corporate Announcement of Lina Odou’s school. New York Times February 8, 1901
Madame Lina R. Odou understood this need. She was originally raised across various cities in Europe, and was hugely influenced by her colleague and friend, Florence Nightingale. The two women met in London in 1868 when Odou was beginning her training as a nurse, which provided the medical background necessary to be trained in embalming. Moving to the United States from Switzerland, Odou became trained in mortuary science, founding the “Lina D. Odou Embalming Institute” in Manhattan in early 1901 within the Frank E. Campbell mortuary facility. Her institute only provided embalming services to deceased women.[4] Odou went on to found the Women’s Licensed Embalmer Association, which provided professional support, networking opportunities, and a community to other women interested in mortuary science.
Odou’s school provided professional opportunities for women in mortuary science, some of whom would go on to open their own schools. Renowned embalmer, author, and teacher Mrs. Lena R. Simmons attended Odou’s school. Simmons then created a school in her name, which made a lasting impact on my hometown of Syracuse, NY. Founded in 1900 with her husband, Charles A. Genung, it was originally named the Genung-Simmons Embalming Institute. The school always opened its doors to female applicants and was considered a coeducational school from its very beginning. Simmons actively wrote about her embalming chemistry research in funerary publications and also served as a faculty member at the school. She also developed subcutaneous suturing in arterial embalming, also known as “the blind stitch.”
Images of Lena Simmons courtesy of American Funeral Director
Her legacy in the mortuary sciences spoke to a particular culture and trade that allowed women to practice as professionals in a job where many men flourished. The school changed hands through time; it was handed over to Maurice Wightman (a graduate of the school) in 1986. The school closed recently in 2013, amidst allegations and a lawsuit against Wightman that cited various sexual harassment complaints made by female students and faculty members. This end chapter has unfortunately tarnished the progressive legacy of the school.
Although death may be approached as a profession or subject of last resort, it can also be understood as a practice of creativity, empathy, and agency. Women have created space, as well as income, by offering support and service during the loss of a loved one. In many ways, the macabre is the wild west of opportunity for women, where there are fewer rules and gendered expectations to govern women’s behavior.
It seems fitting that the death industry is seeing a resurgence of interest by women. In the 1970s, female funeral directors only made up about 5% of the professional industry; by 2010, that number is closer to 43%.[5] Many schools of mortuary sciences have seen spikes in their female student populations, with more women enrolling now than ever before; the National Funeral Director’s Association estimates that 57% of current mortuary students are women.[6]
Death, as a subject of inquiry and also as a professional trajectory, continues to serve as a mainstay of opportunity for women. Between sociocultural expectations for women to handle death and professional opportunities for growth in the newly-developed field of mortuary science, death as a trade has become a subject for creative inquisition. Related scholarship has been taken up by more and more women. The lasting impact of women in the world of the macabre creates space for innovation, community, and exploration, ensuring support for future generations of women hoping to make sense of death.
[1] Laderman, Gary. The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes toward Death, 1799-1883. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. p.30
[2] Trompette, Pascale and Melanie Lemonnier. “Funeral embalming: the transformation of a medical innovation.” Science Studies, Vol. 22, (2009) No. 2.
[3] Bryant, Clifton D. Handbook of Death & Dying. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. p.541
[4] Schechter, Harold. The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End. New York: Ballantine, 2009. p.112.
[5] Phaneuf, Buddy. “Women In The American Funeral Industry.” NYS Funeral Directors Association.
Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.
Someone who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated.
And one’s heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.” “Legally dividing one account among several heirs would also be extremely difficult.”
Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files — but they don’t actually own them.
Apple AAPL, +0.79% and Amazon.com AMZN, +0.98% grant “nontransferable” rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the “White Album” to your son and “Abbey Road” to your daughter.
According to Amazon’s terms of use, “You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content.” Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the account holder.
“That account is an asset and something of value,” says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate-planning attorney at Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard in Parsippany, N.J.
But can it be passed on to one’s heirs?
Most digital content exists in a legal black hole. “The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century,” says Wheatley-Liss. In recent years, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma and Idaho passed laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking accounts of those who’ve died, but the regulations don’t cover digital files purchased.
Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
There are still few legal and practical ways to inherit e-books and digital music, experts say. And at least one lawyer has a plan to capitalize on what may become be a burgeoning market. David Goldman, a lawyer in Jacksonville, says he will next month launch software, DapTrust, to help estate planners create a legal trust for their clients’ online accounts that hold music, e-books and movies. “With traditional estate planning and wills, there’s no way to give the right to someone to access this kind of information after you’re gone,” he says.
Here’s how it works: Goldman will sell his software for $150 directly to estate planners to store and manage digital accounts and passwords. And, while there are other online safe-deposit boxes like AssetLock and ExecutorSource that already do that, Goldman says his software contains instructions to create a legal trust for accounts. “Having access to digital content and having the legal right to use it are two totally different things,” he says.
The simpler alternative is to just use your loved one’s devices and accounts after they’re gone — as long as you have the right passwords.
Chester Jankowski, a New York-based technology consultant, says he’d look for a way to get around the licensing code written into his 15,000 digital files. “Anyone who was tech-savvy could probably find a way to transfer those files onto their computer — without ending up in Guantanamo,” he says. But experts say there should be an easier solution, and a way such content can be transferred to another’s account or divided between several people.“We need to reform and update intellectual-property law,” says Dazza Greenwood, lecturer and researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
Technology pros say the need for such reform is only going to become more pressing. “A significant portion of our assets is now digital,” Carroll says. U.S. consumers spend nearly $30 on e-books and MP3 files every month, or $360 a year, according to e-commerce company Bango. Apple alone has sold 300 million iPods and 84 million iPads since their launches. Amazon doesn’t release sales figures for the Kindle Fire, but analysts estimate it has nearly a quarter of the U.S. tablet market.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Take a friend fishing. Don’t vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Buy a lottery ticket. And keep Mom away from my ashes.
These are among thousands of emotional, humorous, sometimes snarky requests inserted into published obituaries, attributed to the deceased or their families. And though complete strangers have always been among the audiences for messages from beyond the grave, digital death notices mean they now reach far beyond family and friends to people around the world.
“It takes just one funny, unusual or touching line for an obituary to go viral,” said Katie Falzone, director of operations for Legacy.com, which compiles and archives death notices.
That was the case last month after the death of staunch Republican Larry Upright of Kannapolis, North Carolina, whose obituary ended with the line: “The family respectfully asks that you do not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. R.I.P. Grandaddy.”
That bit of stumping won national attention and all kinds of comments on the funeral home’s website and on social media. News accounts were tweeted, retweeted and referenced on Facebook and viewed on YouTube tens of thousands of times.
“We got some sweet responses and we got some nasty responses,” said Upright’s wife, Colleen. “But we’re Uprights, and that just rolls off our backs.”
There have been other politics-oriented dying requests in recent years: to vote for George W. Bush and to support his removal from office; to donate to President Barack Obama and to support “anyone but Obama”; to vote Democratic and to support the tea party.
After 24-year-old Molly Parks of Manchester, New Hampshire, died last month from a heroin overdose, her obituary also spread through cyberspace, fueled by the brokenhearted pleas of her father.
“If you have any loved ones who are fighting addiction, Molly’s family asks that you do everything possible to be supportive, and guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late,” he wrote.
Most of the requests from the dead have to do with the ceremonies of death.
Bob Harrar of Orlando, Florida, who died in December, put these instructions into his obit: “Make sure you don’t give my ashes to my mother. She’ll put them in a drawer with my grandparents.”
Milton Miller of Little Rock, Arkansas, left word that anyone feeling sad about his passing should “mix a beverage of your choice and hum the Razorback fight song.”
Garland Babcock of Anchorage, Alaska, left very specific instructions to have his ashes “put in an old trucker’s Thermos and driven in a red Chevy truck to Monterey Bay, California.”
And the obituary for Larry Sajko of Port Richey, Florida, said, “Larry requests no cellphones at his service.”
When Christian “Lou” Hacker died last month in Valatie, New York, his obituary said he left behind “a hell of a lot of stuff his wife and daughter have no idea what to do with.”
So they told readers, “If you’re looking for car parts for a Toyota, BMW, Triumph, Dodge or Ford between the years of about 1953-2013, or maybe half a dozen circular saws, still in their boxes with the Home Depot receipts attached, you should wait the appropriate amount of time and get in touch.”
Hacker’s wife, Mina, said this past week that the invitation was “mostly a joke and no one has taken us up on it.”
“Actually, it will take us a while to decide what to do,” she said. “Everything is attached to a memory.”
When “in lieu of flowers” appears in an obituary, it typically requests donations to a favorite charity of the deceased.
But it’s also been attached to a variety of strange requests.
“In lieu of flowers, tune up your car and check the air pressure in your tires — he would have wanted that,” read the 2011 obituary for B.H. Spratt of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
And these:
“In lieu of flowers, the family asks that if you smoke, try quitting at least one more time.”
“In lieu of flowers, if you knew ‘Bud,’ he would want you to mix yourself a Manhattan.”
“In lieu of flowers, buy a lottery ticket. You might be lucky.”
Thomas Taylor of Durham, North Carolina, was apparently hoping to get some money back after his death. Taylor died in 2008, nine years after making his funeral arrangements.
His obituary said one of Taylor’s last requests “was to contact the Cremation Society to ask for a refund because he knew he weighed at least 20 percent less than when he paid for his arrangements.”
