Friday Funeral Funny: Four Husbands

Friday Funeral Funny: Four Husbands Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®

So many folks send funeral jokes my way, it’s time to start sharing!

The local news station was interviewing an 80-year-old lady because she had just gotten married for the fourth time. The interviewer asked her questions about her life, about what it felt like to be marrying again at 80, and then about her new husband’s occupation.

“He’s a funeral director,” she answered. “Interesting,” the newsman thought. He then asked her if she wouldn’t mind telling him a little about her first three husbands and what they did for a living.

She paused for a few moments, needing time to reflect on all those years. After a short time, a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she had first married a banker when she was in her 20's, then a circus ringmaster when in her 40's, and a preacher when in her 60's, and now – in her 80's – a funeral director.

The interviewer looked at her, quite astonished, and asked why she had married four men with such diverse careers.

She smiled and explained, “I married one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.”

Thanks to the folks at the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Vermont for passing this one along!

Got a funeral joke you want to share? Please send it to Gail[at]AGoodGoodbye.com and I’ll give you credit and a link to your site when it’s posted!

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Friday Funeral Film: The Way

Friday Funeral Film: The Way

Today’s Friday Funeral Film is The Way, starring Martin Sheen in a film directed by his son Emilio Estevez. It looks at the journey of life and making the most of this lifetime. The film also shows cremation scattering scenes, which can open the door to discussion of what to do with the cremated remains of loved ones before there’s a death in the family.

Cremation is a growing disposition choice for Americans, now reaching about 42% of the national average (higher in the Western states, lower in the East). However, the U.S. lags way behind countries like Japan (over 99%) and Great Britain (approximately 75%).

If an American dies overseas while on travel, it can be very expensive to have the body returned to the U.S. You will spend much less money having the body cremated and bringing the cremated remains back yourself, or having a funeral home ship the remains to you. It’s worth checking into insurance that will pay for body return, especially if you travel abroad frequently.

The Way actually uses cremation to open up a father’s conversation with his son on how one lives life.

In The Way, Martin Sheen plays Tom, a typical busy American who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son (played by Emilio Estevez). His son was killed in a storm the Pyrenees mountains while walking the Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Tom had argued with his son about his life choices while taking him to the airport for this trip.

In a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to journey on this historical path of pilgrims, to complete the journey his son did not.

While walking The Camino, Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives. Along The Way, Tom discovers the meaning of one of the last things his son said (in a flashback) to his father: “There is a difference between the life we live and the life we choose.”

From the high mountains in France to the edge of the sea in Spain, Tom remembers his son and catches glimpses of him all along the Way. In special spots, he scoops out handfuls of his son’s cremated remains.

Gradually the experience of the Camino works its way into the spirits of the pilgrims. They become mirrors for each other, helping to strip away the protective layers that have preserved their pain and isolation, and with their new vulnerability, freeing them to feel and connect once more.

In the end, the message of this poignant film is that opening our hearts to others is the real miracle. Connecting with them through kindness and laughter and joy is the magic that invites the presence of God.

By the time Tom and his companions reach the end of the journey with his son’s remains, he himself is a changed man. He scatters the rest of the cremated remains at the shore of the sea, and sets out to explore the world as his son had done.

The Way (2011 rated PG-13) is available on Amazon.com. It’s a great story – check it out!

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Friday Funeral Film: Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED

Friday Funeral Film: Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED

In honor of this weekend’s Frozen Dead Guy Days, today’s funeral film is Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED. This is a documentary that traces how Norwegian Bredo Morstoel became the Frozen Dead Guy at the center of this wild and wacky winter festival.

As a funeral film, Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED offers insights into what happens when you don’t plan – like your grandson hijacking your body and putting it in a deep freeze for later reanimation.

I’m showing the film throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday at the Black Forest Restaurant in Nederland, supplementing with cryonic video clips from television and films. With a big snow storm predicted for Saturday, I’m glad I’ll be inside!

Bredo Morstoel died in 1989 at the age of 82 (according to the documentary – he was actually 89) while back country skiing alone in Norway. By the time he was discovered, he was already pretty well frozen.

Trygve Bauge

His grandson, Trygve Bauge, was living in Boulder, Colorado at the time. He was a big supporter of the idea of cryogenic reanimation and life extension techniques. In 1983, he started Boulder’s annual New Years Day polar plunge, a tradition of jumping into freezing cold water.

In February 1990, Trygve (pronounced Trig-vay) had his grandfather’s body cryogenically frozen by a company in California. Grandpa was moved to Nederland a few years later.

In 1993, Trygve built a fire-proof, earthquake-proof, wind-proof, bomb-proof concrete castle in Nederland, unlike anything anyone had seen. He was going to tunnel into the hillside next to his home to house cryonic chamber pods. The Colorado Life Extension Center was going to be the name of his business.

Aud Bauge

Trygve was a character. When taking his mother Aud to the airport for a trip back to Norway, he was arrested for joking about hijacking a plane and became a fugitive from the law. But he would always call the local media while he was on the lam and ask them to put a story in the newspaper.

In 1994, Trygve was deported back to Norway.

Aud, concerned that she was going to be deported next, confided to Barbara Lawlor of the local newspaper The Mountain-Ear, saying, “I’m just so concerned the bodies will melt. My father’s body is in a shed behind the house.”

Panic ensued. The marshal’s office called Clay Evans with the Boulder Daily Camera to ask him if he knew anything about frozen bodies and he said, “I do now, and I’ll be there with a photographer in 30 minutes.”

There were originally two bodies in the shed. Al Campbell, Trygve’s first paying customer, was shipped back to Chicago for burial. Grandpa was kept in a metal box, surrounded by dry ice.

The town board held a hearing and outlawed the keeping of frozen bodies on your property in Nederland. However, because he predated the ruling, he was… grandfathered in!

Grandpa has almost thawed out a couple of times, but the family continues to send money to keep the dry ice replenished. The 750 pounds of dry ice is replenished every three weeks. Some of the locals report ghostly events in Nederland. Could it be Grandpa’s spirit haunting the area?

A few years back, the TUFF SHED corporation donated a new shed for Grandpa’s resting place, as the original one was falling apart.

The corporation is a major sponsor of the annual Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, usually held the first weekend in March. The festival started in 2000 and continues to this day. The festivities include a parade of hearses, a costumed polar plunge, coffin races, frozen turkey bowling and salmon tossing, and The Newly-Dead Game® (provided by yours truly). There are locally produced special themed drinks and ice cream flavors for the festival. The event draws thousands of people, with as many as 15,000 attending one year.

At the end of the film, as with many true stories, we learn the fates of the main characters:

Trygve and his mother Aud are still living in Norway.Trygve has opened a life extension center that features ice plunging and coffee enemas.Grandpa is still in the TUFF SHED, an unwitting champion for the rights of the temporarily dead.According to the Boulder psychics who have visited the shed, Grandpa Bredo had a message for us all… Grandpa Bredo Morstoel

Unfortunately, Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED is NOT available for sale on DVD. However, the 60-minute follow-up documentary, Grandpa’s Still in the TUFF SHED, is available through the Frozen Dead Guy Days online store.

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, is author of the award-winning book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die.  A 13-episode TV series of the same name is coming soon. She also created The Newly-Dead Game® that tests couples on how well they know their partner’s last wishes.

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Friday Funeral Film: Little Miss Sunshine

Friday Funeral Film: Little Miss Sunshine

Yes, the delightful comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006 – rated R) does have funeral film lessons. It shows some of the paperwork involved with death, transporting a body in your own vehicle (illegally) and how prearranged funeral plans can be transferred to other funeral homes. And it starts out in Albuquerque!

Here’s some of the synopsis from IMDb.com:

In Albuquerque, Sheryl Hoover brings her suicidal brother Frank to the breast of her dysfunctional and bankrupted family. Frank a homosexual and expert in Proust, tried to commit suicide when he was rejected by his boyfriend and his great competitor became renowned and recognized as number one in the field of Proust.

Sheryl’s husband Richard is unsuccessfully trying to sell his self-help and self-improvement technique using nine steps to reach success, but he is actually a complete loser. Her son Dwayne has taken a vow of silence as a follower of Nietzsche and aims to be a jet pilot.

Dwayne’s grandfather Edwin (Richard’s father) was sent away from the institution for elders Sunset Manor and is addicted in heroin. When her seven-year-old daughter Olive has a chance to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, California, the whole family travels together in their old Volkswagen bus in a funny journey of hope of winning the talent contest and making a dream come true.

Though Olive is not of the typical pageant ilk (an average-looking, bespectacled child), she adores pageant work and had won second place in a regional contest. During dinner, the family hears a phone message from Olive’s aunt, informing that them that the winner of Olive’s recent pageant had to forfeit, and that Olive now has a place in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. The challenge: they have to be in Redondo Beach by 3:00 p.m. in two days.

There are lots of adventures on the road the first day. The family checks into a motel somewhere in Arizona for the night; Richard and Sheryl in one room, Frank and Dwayne in another, and Grandpa and Olive in a third.

Olive confesses to Grandpa that she is scared about the pageant the following day. Grandpa, who has been coaching Olive on her dance routine, reassures her that she is a beautiful person and will ‘blow ‘em outta the water.” Then he goes into the bathroom to snort some heroin.

Olive wakes her parents in the morning because “Grandpa won’t wake up.” Edwin is rushed to the hospital where he is pronounced dead. A “bereavement liaison” named Linda comes to the waiting room to go through the paperwork needed to process the death.

“My consolations for your loss,” she begins. “Okay, these are the forms you need to fill out: a death certificate; a report of the death; an ME [Medical Examiner] pink slip, please try and be as detailed as possible; this is a brochure for a grief recovery support group that meets on Tuesdays; and if you like at this time I can refer you to a funeral home so you can begin making your arrangements.”

“Actually,” says Richard, “prearrangements have already been made in Albuquerque. We’re actually on our way to California right now.”

“Albuquerque?” she says. “If the body is crossing state lines you are gonna need a Burial Transit Permit from the County Registrar’s office.”

“Okay, but we’re trying to get to Redondo Beach by three o’clock,” says Richard.

“Three o’clock today? Ain’t gonna happen,” says Linda to herself.

All of those paperwork items, including the Burial Transit Permit, are actual paperwork requirements for death in most states. If you were on a road trip with your family and someone dies en route, would you have all of the needed information available? Key things to know about the deceased: full name, Social Security number, place of birth, mother’s maiden name, and military service information.

Richard, determined to honor his father’s memory and get Olive to the pageant on time, has the family smuggle the body out of the hospital and into their VW bus.

After a driver cuts them off on the road the horn on the VW bus won’t stop honking. A state trooper on a motorcycle turns on his siren and lights.

As they are being pulled over, Richard says, “Okay, everybody just pretend to be normal, okay? Like everything’s normal here.”

The trooper nearly uncovers Edwin’s body in the trunk, but is sidetracked by a collection of Grandpa’s porn magazines that falls out first. He lets the family go in exchange for the dirty magazines, and the road trip continues.

Now, if you were transporting a dead body in your vehicle and did not have a Burial Transit Permit to prove you were not involved in some criminal activity, you would be in a heap of trouble. Might want to consider carrying a few distracting porno mags, just in case.

Once they get Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant (barely in time) Richard finds an undertaking service to remove Edwin’s body.

The outfit, Muraoka & Greene “Purveyors of Fine Undertaking,” take Grandpa out of the VW bus and drive away, leaving Richard sadly holding a small box of his father’s personal effects.

One lesson from this scene is that prearranged funerals can be transferred to other funeral homes. I’m guessing they were going to cremate Grandpa and the family would pick up his remains after the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

If they were going to have a funeral back in Albuquerque, the funeral home would arrange to fly the body back. This would of course incur additional expenses on top of already paid-for goods and services. Body shipment currently may cost in the range of $1,500, more or less, depending on how far the body needs to be shipped.

While sitting in on a prearrangement conference with a client recently, she was offered travel expense insurance to return her body to Albuquerque should she die while away on a trip. The insurance cost a one-time fee of $285. Something to think about if you travel a lot.

Little Miss Sunshine stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin. It’s a really funny, heartwarming movie, in addition to its funeral film lessons. Available from Netflix and for sale (as available) on Amazon.com.

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, is author of the award-winning book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die and host of A Good Goodbye TV. She speaks to groups using clips from funny films to illustrate funeral planning issues and help start serious conversations. Her website is www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

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Friday Funeral Film: Hannah and Her Sisters

Friday Funeral Film: Hannah and Her Sisters

Woody Allen’s classic comedy Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is an unlikely funeral film, as no one actually dies. But it’s instructive about living and dying. Allen shines at his hypochondriac best as Mickey, who obsesses about death and whether there’s an afterlife.

Mickey is bothered by a ringing in his ear and undergoes numerous tests. He’s convinced he has a brain tumor. When it turns out to be nothing, he’s relieved, but experiences an existential crisis. He confides his fears to fellow producer Gail, played by Julie Kavner.

Mickey: “Do you realize what a thread we’re all hanging by?”
Gail: “Mickey, you’re off the hook. You should be celebrating.”
“Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything! I’m talking about our lives, the show, the whole world, it’s meaningless.”
“But you’re not dying.”
“No, I’m not dying now, but, but. You know, when I ran out of the hospital, I was so thrilled because they told me I was going to be all right. And I’m running down the street and suddenly I stop, ‘cause it hit me: Alright, I’m not going to go today, I’m okay; I’m not going to go tomorrow; but eventually, I’m going to be in that position.”
“You’re just realizing this now?”
“Well, I don’t realize it now, I know it all the time, but I manage to stick it in the back of my mind because it’s a very horrible thing to think about…”

He confides that he bought a rifle and was going to kill himself if it turned out he had a tumor. He decides that he has to get some answers as to the meaning of life and if there’s a God. He takes a leave of absence from his position as a TV show producer to find some answers.

This nice Jewish boy from New York visits a priest to explore converting to Catholicism. Mickey wants to believe in God, otherwise, he says, life is meaningless. His parents throw a fit.

“I thought that you’d be happy,” says Mickey. “I haven’t thought in God all my life and now I’m giving it serious thought.”

“But Catholicism, why not your own people?” asks his dad.  Dad suggests becoming a Buddhist, and Mickey says that’s totally alien to him.

Mickey: “Look, you’re getting on in years, right. Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
Dad: “Why should I be afraid?”
“Because you won’t exist!”
“So?”
“That thought doesn’t terrify you?”
“Who thinks about such nonsense? Now I’m alive. When I’m dead, I’ll be dead.”
“I don’t understand, aren’t you frightened?”
“Of what? I’ll be unconscious.”
“I know, but to never exist again?”
“How do you know?”
“It certainly doesn’t look promising!”
“Who knows what will be? I’ll either be unconscious or I won’t. If not, I’ll deal with it then…”

Mickey’s fear of dying and not existing drives him to explore Catholicism. The priest sends him home with a huge stack of books to study. He stops at a religious store and picks up a crucifix, a picture of the Virgin Mary, a loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise.

Later in the film, the seasons have turned from winter to summer. Mickey asks a Hare Krishna in Central Park about their beliefs. He explained that he tried, but “Catholicism for me was die now, pay later.” He especially wanted to know about reincarnation.

Toward the end of the film, he is desperate for answers about God and what happens after you die. He almost shoots himself with his rifle, and the accidental discharge of the gun really shakes him up.

He wanders the Upper West Side, and goes into a theater to try to clear his thinking and put things into a rational perspective. He winds up watching a Marx Brothers film. As he explains to Hannah’s sister Holly:

“I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself? I mean, isn’t it so stupid? I mean, look at all the people up there on the screen, y’know, they’re real funny and…”

“And what if the worst is true? What if there’s no God and you only go around once and that’s it? Don’t you want to be part of the experience? Y’know, what the hell, it’s not all a drag and I’m thinking to myself, Jeez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I’m never going to get and just enjoy it while it lasts.”

“And y’know after, who knows. Maybe there is something, nobody really knows. I know ‘maybe’ is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that’s the best we have. And then I started to sit back and I actually began to enjoy myself.”

And why not enjoy yourself? Life is short – enjoy it while you can.

Hannah and Her Sisters (PG-13) won three Oscars and is chock full of stars, including Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Max Von Sydow, Barbara Hershey and Carrie Fisher. It’s available on Netflix and for sale (as available) on Amazon.com.

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Friday Funeral Film: Get Low

Friday Funeral Film: Get Low

“The Real Story Behind the Movie Get Low” is one of the most-visited posts here at The Family Plot Blog. While the true story is fascinating, as today’s Friday Funeral Film, Get Low offers vital lessons on funeral planning BEFORE there’s a death in the family.

The basic story: Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) is a Tennessee hermit with no regard for anybody in the nearby town. No one in town wants to get to know him. They are scared by his gruff demeanor and stories of evil history. One day, after he hears that a contemporary has died, he goes into town. People are afraid of him. Bush decides that he needs to get his affairs in order and find out what stories people are telling about him.

He recruits Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), the local funeral home director, to host his own funeral. This way he can hear what everyone is saying about him, and get the truth about his mysterious past out in the open.

The film story does not reflect the real story in many aspects. In real life, Felix “Bush” Breazeale’s funeral party took place in the summer of 1938 with eight to twelve thousand people attending. In the film, the event took place in the winter with a hundred or so people. Nonetheless, let’s look at the story for its funeral planning lessons.

“Everybody Dies”

Felix Bush first visits a local preacher to arrange his funeral. “‘Bout time for me to get low,” he says, meaning “get down to business.” The preacher asks, “Are you sick?” “Everybody dies,” Bush replies. He wants to know what the preacher would say about him and the preacher admits he doesn’t know much about him and asks if he has made peace with God.

“I’ve paid,” says Bush. “You can’t buy forgiveness,” replies the preacher. This sends Bush out of the church in search of a way to do his own funeral his own way.

Lesson number one: Religious dictates can drive people away from funeral planning. At least Bush is facing his mortality and starting to take some steps for his own goodbye in his own way.

Funeral Party Planning

Before Felix shows up at the funeral home, Frank Quinn bemoans the lack of business saying, “What are the odds of a funeral home going broke? You have a business that everyone on earth needs, and yet, I don’t know. What do you do when people don’t die?”

His comments show that funeral directors do want people to come in and plan. They are hungry for your business. When Felix Bush shows up with his out-of-the-ordinary request for a funeral party, Frank says yes.

Most funeral homes want your business. If you’ve got ideas for a truly different event, they are willing to work with you to make it happen. If a funeral home won’t work with you to create the kind of event you want, it’s a good bet there are other establishments in town that will.

Funerals and weddings have similar elements. Yet, if brides and grooms planned their weddings the way most people plan their funerals, they’d be scrambling to pull everything together in three to five days. When Quinn shows Bush his caskets, Bush says, “Forget the box. What else?” Quinn names flowers, burial plot, and a service. At their most basic, both weddings and funerals call for a place and time to hold an event, and a list of people to invite for attendance.

The recent cable program “Best Funeral Ever” showed the extent to which some funeral directors will go to make a life celebration out of a funeral. It was interesting that Quinn’s assistant Buddy said, “The whole thing about making a carnival out of someone’s death, I just don’t know if it’s right.”

Let’s look at some of the steps Frank Quinn took in Get Low to create Felix Bush’s funeral party:

He had Mr. Bush’s picture taken to create flyers advertising the funeral party.He outfitted Bush in a new set of clothes.He placed ads in newspapers and posted flyers in four counties (public invitations).He arranged to have Bush interviewed on the radio, to alert everyone in a four county area about the event.He collected the money raised by the raffle of Bush’s property.He had a stage set up in a field for the event and brought in a band to play music.He set up a public address system powered by a generator for the funeral party.He managed the money and all the event elements.

Lesson number two: Funeral directors are event planners. Funerals are simply the party no one wants to plan.

Lesson number three: Having a funeral party for yourself (before one is deceased) is perfectly appropriate. Why not draw everyone together to celebrate your life while you are still around to enjoy the party? It’s especially good for those on hospice care, when a limited life span is officially recognized.

We can stop pretending that life as we know it will never end and celebrate the days we have. Get Low shows one way to get out there and take a stand.

Get Low was released in 2009/2010 and is rated PG-13. It is available on Netflix and for sale (as available) at Amazon.com.

The Doyenne of Death® Gail Rubin helps start serious conversations by presenting talks that use funny films to illustrate funeral planning issues. More information at http://www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

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Friday Funeral Films: My Mexican Shivah

Friday Funeral Films: My Mexican Shivah

By Gail Rubin

My Mexican Shivah is a very funny comedy funeral film that illustrates highly traditional shivah Jewish funeral traditions in an entertaining manner. It contrasts contemporary Mexican Jews living in Mexico City and shows the clashing cultures of secular versus religious.

At the very opening of the film 75-year-old Moishe drops dead of a massive heart attack during a celebratory dinner with a group of theater friends. Moishe’s family and friends gather in Mexico City for the seven-day Jewish mourning ritual known as “sitting shivah.”

A crazy collection of characters come together to make a delicious comedic stew flavored with Jewish traditions many less-observant Members of the Tribe may not know about.

Moishe (played by Sergio Kleiner) had been living with a Catholic girlfriend before he dropped dead. Daughter Esther (played by Raquel Pankowsky) is a typical Jewish mother who worries about her daughter not getting married. Son Ricardo (played by David Ostrosky) butts heads with his son who has become Orthodox and sports a black hat and payas side curls.

According to Jewish belief, from the moment a Jew is born, he or she is accompanied by two angels: an angel of light and an angel of darkness. The spirit angels Aleph and Bet (only visible to the camera) watch over the family and calculate which angel will accompany Moishe’s soul to the afterlife. They speak in Yiddish. The rest of the film is in Spanish and Hebrew (for the prayers) with subtitles.

My Mexican Shivah shows a number of Jewish funeral traditions before during and after a funeral. During the opening credits we see these traditional actions taken when someone dies:

Closing the eyes of the deceasedSaying the Shema prayer and the repetition of the Hebrew phrase “The Lord is God” seven timesCovering the body “so his Soul can start the Journey”Candles and a glass of water at head of deceasedTurning the feet to point toward the doorThe living apologizing to the dead for any awkwardness of handling the bodyThe tahara ritual – washing the body for both physical and spiritual cleansing

To make sure the proprieties of mourning are observed there’s a Chevreman on the scene. He is a member of the Jewish Burial Society (a.k.a. the Chevra Kaddisha) who guides the family through many of the funeral rituals.

He asks for Moishe’s prayer shawl so it can be buried with him (no one thinks he had one)He conducts the keriah ritual where the mourners tear their clothing just prior to the funeralThe burial shows dirt landing on the rough wood of the simple casketHe helps the domestics set up the house of mourning. That includes:Clearing out flowers, covering mirrors and family photos and lowering the seating

When one of the domestics tells the Chevreman that “Mrs. Esther likes to show off the mirror,” he replies with the rules of the seven days of mourning. “Mrs. Esther knows that for seven days she can’t show off… she can’t work, bathe, wear leather shoes, have sex, study the Torah, greet people, wear clothing with starch, sit in normal chairs, shave or express joy in any way.”

In a comedic twist, over the seven days this guy is milking the family for all they’re worth by charging for kosher food, slippers and various shivah goods. Some of the elements of shivah portrayed in the film include:

A seven-day candle is lit to mark the start of the mourning period right after the funeralA glass of water and napkin or towel is placed next to the seven-day candle (a very old tradition designed to appease the Angel of Death)Visitors to the house of mourning kiss the mezzuzah as they enterMoishe’s son and daughter eat a hard-boiled egg as the first food they consume after the funeral (representing the cycle of life)Prayer services are held daily in the house of mourning (the film depicts the men praying and the women observing)Mourning is suspended during ShabbatAt the end of the seven-day period the family leaves the house and walks around the block to indicate they are done with the initial mourning period (there are other observances over the course of the year)

In between all the Jewish traditions portrayed there are too many comedic situations to describe. You just have to see it yourself.

I use clips from My Mexican Shivah to illustrate and discuss Jewish funeral traditions in talks at Jewish community centers, synagogues and funeral homes. Another good film option that is more widely available on DVD is Nora’s Will (also from Mexico).

Unfortunately, this film is not widely available for sale on DVD. However it is available for rent on Netflix.

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, is author of the award-winning book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die and host of A Good Goodbye TV. She speaks to groups using clips from funny films to illustrate funeral planning issues and help start serious conversations. Her website is www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

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Friday Funeral Films: The Big Lebowski

Friday Funeral Films: The Big Lebowski

By Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®

As a Friday Funeral Film, The Big Lebowski offers several good cremation lessons. The cult classic comedy focuses on bowling, White Russians, and life in Southern California, but it also offers some funeral planning tips.

This 1998 movie written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen is a story about Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an unemployed hippie who runs into all sorts of trouble when he’s mistaken for a millionaire with the same name. When The Dude seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling pals to help, all sorts of weird situations erupt.

Bowling buddy Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) is a Vietnam veteran with anger management issues. Theodore Donald ‘Donny’ Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi) also bowls with them. Together, they try to make the most of the strange situations they stumble into and to understand the bizarre people who enter their world.

Nihilists (those who believe in nothing) set upon the trio outside the bowling alley late in the film. Unfortunately, Donny meets his maker due to a heart attack. This brings us to the funeral film lessons in The Big Lebowski.

Frugal Cremation Tips

The Dude and Walter go to a mortuary to pick up their friend’s ashes. Walter peruses the bill and questions the funeral director, Francis Donnelly.

WS: “What’s this?” (tapping the bill)
FD: “That’s for the urn.”
WS: “Don’t need it, we’re scattering the ashes.”
FD: “Yes, so we were informed. However, we must of course transmit the remains to you in a receptacle.”
WS: “This is a hundred and eighty dollars.”
FD: “It is our most modestly priced receptacle.”
WS: “A hundred and eighty dollars?”
FD: “They range up to three thousand.”
The Dude: “Can’t we just rent it from you?”
FD: “Sir, this is a mortuary, not a rental house.”

The scene builds to comic intensity, ending with an angry Walter asking if there’s a Ralph’s nearby. If you’re not familiar with Southern California, Ralph’s is a popular grocery store chain. They get a can of Folgers Coffee, which makes an appearance in the next scene.

The lessons from this scene:

You do not have to buy an urn from a funeral home.You can bring in your own container to receive cremated remains from a funeral home. Use your imagination – a coffee can, a vase, a decorative box – hobby shops have lots of good options.You can take the remains home in the most basic container, a cardboard box lined with heavy plastic, which is how the funeral home receives the remains from the retort.Some folks will wrap the cardboard box in colorful fabrics and ribbons or in wrapping paper changed to reflect the season.A coffee can is just the right size for holding the ashes of most people.

A Lesson in Eulogies and Ash Scattering

In the next scene, The Dude and Walter go to scatter Donny’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean. They silently climb to a bluff overlooking the sea.

Walter says a few words about Donny, but quickly veers into commenting with anger about the lives lost in the Vietnam War. As he commits Donny “to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean” while standing on a windblown cliff, he ends up covering The Dude with Donny’s mortal remains.

The lessons from this scene:

When scattering ashes, don’t stand downwind!For disposition in the ocean, it’s better to be on a boat near the surface of the water and keep the cremated remains enclosed in a biodegradable container.Federal regulations dictate when sinking cremated remains at sea they should be placed at least three nautical miles offshore.However, there are no cremation police in the U.S. Be sensitive to your surroundings.Lastly, the eulogy should be all about the person who died, not about the person giving the eulogy.

The Big Lebowski is a fun film on its own. The funeral lessons are a bonus. Rated R, it’s available from Netflix and Amazon.com. Check it out!

The Doyenne of Death® Gail Rubin helps start serious conversations by presenting talks that use funny films to illustrate funeral planning issues. Visit her website at www.AGoodGoodbye.com.

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