Recently, Caleb Wilde (of Confessions of a Funeral Director fame) featured the Top 20 Pop Songs Requested at Funerals list based on requests made at 30,000 services during 2012. Compiled by The Co-operative Funeralcare of England, the list has a decided British bent to it. Here it is:

1. Frank Sinatra – ‘My Way’
2. Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli – ‘Time To Say Goodbye’
3. Bette Midler – ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’
4. Eva Cassidy – ‘Over The Rainbow’
5. Robbie Williams – ‘Angels’
6. Westlife – ‘You Raise Me Up’
7. Gerry & The Pacemakers – ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’
8. Vera Lynn – ‘We’ll Meet Again’
9. Celine Dion – ‘My Heart Will Go On’
10. Nat King Cole – ‘Unforgettable’
11. Tina Turner – ‘The Best’
12. Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton – ‘I Will Always Love You’
13. Monty Python – ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ (Caleb didn’t think this song would make America’s top 20).
14. Luther Vandross – ‘Dance With My Father’
15. Louis Armstrong – ‘Wonderful World’
16. Daniel O’Donnell – ‘Danny Boy’
17. Eva Cassidy – ‘Fields Of Gold’
18. Righteous Brothers (and various) – ‘Unchained Melody’
19. Westlife – ‘Flying Without Wings’
20. Eva Cassidy – ‘Songbird’

The list got me to thinking about how funerals and music have always been intertwined. One of the most famous pieces of funeral music isn’t even on this list. That would be Chopin’s Funeral March.

You know the one. DUM DUM Da DUM, DUM da DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM.

I love classical music. From the age of 12 or so, instead of buying pop records, I was browsing the classical music section at Record Bar at the mall. Those of you old enough to remember Record Bar probably remember it was back in the far corner most of the time.

You know when you ask your parents for an album of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 for Christmas (and they buy it), you’re a genuine geek.

Chopin has always been one of my favorites, mostly because he wrote some amazing piano work. His nocturnes are especially dear to me. But I don’t think I truly appreciated him until I saw Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, an autobiographical film about Polish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman. Chopin’s music is prominently used in the film.

The story behind Chopin’s Funeral March is that he was moved to write it after the 1830 Polish uprising against the Russians. Then traveling through Western Europe, Chopin was worried about the fate of his friends and family he was forced to leave behind. He never returned to his homeland.

The piece is actually the third movement in Chopin’s Sonata #2 in B-flat minor. It was apparently a very emotional expression of his angst because he found it difficult to play in public.

According to Chopin scholar Jeffrey Kallberg (in a 2010 NPR piece), “His colleagues said that he often played in salons, and the only way to get him to stop playing was to ask him to play the March,” Kallberg says. “He was so caught up in the emotions of it.”

When Chopin died in 1849, Mozart’s Requiem was played at his funeral service. But Chopin’s Funeral March was played later at his burial service in Paris at Pere Lachaise Cemetery. If I ever get to Paris, that’s going to be my second stop (after the Eiffel Tower).

Since that time, Chopin’s Funeral March holds a prominent place in history. It was used at the state funerals of President John F. Kennedy, Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. It’s been played at the funerals of Soviet leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev.

Chopin’s Funeral March has also been parodied often over the years. According to Kallberg, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

“Chopin’s march is modeled after a Rossini opera, La Gazza Ladra, and that served as the basis for parodies,” says Kallberg, who points to one such parody written by Charles Gounod. It’s also notable that one of Chopin’s friends, Charles Valentin-Alkan, wrote a piece called “Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot”.

Monty Python would have been proud.

Beetlejuice, Loony Tunes and even comic duo Abbot and Costello have parodied the famous dirge. A 2002 TV ad for Pilot Pen’s erasable ink pen featured it. You can even download it to use it as your ringtone.

I’ve always wondered if any funeral directors have done that. Probably not a wise PR move.

I’m not sure yet what music I want played at my funeral. Definitely “I’ll Fly Away” and “Old Rugged Cross” because they’re close to my heart. I have a running list that I add to from time to time.

And while I do like Led Zeppelin a lot, “Stairway to Heaven” isn’t on it.

This is a repost of an article I wrote in November 2013. Enjoy!

In 1947, a woman named Frances Gerety coined the phrase “A Diamond is Forever” for DeBeers. She may have been right but for the Victorians, hair was more eternal (and affordable) than glittering gems.

Mourning jewelry, or jewelry worn when one is mourning the loss of a loved one, has been around for centuries. But the Victorians truly embraced it when Queen Victoria took mourning to a new level in the 1800s. Last year, I wrote about how the death of her beloved Prince Albert initiated a very detailed code of dress for ladies. The Queen was partial to mourning jewelry, especially if it was made out of jet (which is not a true mineral but actually a very old form of decayed wood).

The curious practice of making mourning jewelry from human hair became very popular. In other words, jewelry that literally contains hair from the deceased. This might seem incredibly bizarre (and to some, downright creepy), but the act of keeping someone’s hair as a memento of them was quite normal. The hair could be placed in a locket or even in an elaborate piece of jewelry.

It may seem like a strange way to remember someone but it’s actually quite practical since photography was not affordable for most people. Hair has chemical qualities that enable it to last for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. (Contrary to popular belief, hair does NOT continue to grow after someone has died.)

Of course, not everyone could afford jewel-encrusted lockets like the one pictured above. More often, it was simply a lock of hair stashed behind a painted miniature or inside of a ring. The jewelry’s owner knew it was there but didn’t necessarily flaunt it.

However, the Victorians took hair out of the darkness and into the light. Rings, pendants, pictures, wreaths, you name it and they did it.

Located in Independence, Mo. (not far from Kansas City), Leila Cohoon operates the only hair museum in the U.S. to truly feature this art form. She says that often, a family member would collect hair from several generations of relatives and weave the hair into a wreath. More often than not, the wreath included intricate hair-woven flowers and were shaped like a horseshoe, always pointed up to keep luck in the family. Her museum features hundreds of examples of hair art. You can find them up for bid on eBay from time to time as well.

The Northampton Historic Museum and Education Center in Massachusetts has a fantastic virtual exhibit of Victorian hair art. They do a better job at explaining the history behind it than I can.

For mourning accessories, jewelry items made from the hair of a deceased friend or loved one became hugely popular. Pamphlets featuring hairworking patterns assisted Victorians with creating their own hair jewelry, if they so desired. The jewelry designs are surprisingly complex and varied for consisting of such humble material as human hair. The pieces could incorporate jet, gold and diamonds for later stages of mourning or lockets for hair or photographs.

There was also a large market for mass-produced gold fittings that could be personalized with engraving or monograms, so the jewelry items could be commissioned as well. There was some distrust, however, of professional hairworkers; there was a widespread problem of hairworkers neglecting to use the deceased person’s hair. Instead, they would sell “custom-made” pieces actually made from purchased bulk hair.

Looking at some of these examples, I have to wonder how on earth this was done. And how long it must have taken. Then it occurred to me that during the Victorian era especially, most gently bred women did not work. And if their children were grown or away at school, they had ample time on their hands. If they truly were in early mourning, they weren’t allowed to go out except to attend church services.

According to artist Sandra Johnson (who uses hair to make jewelry and other items), there are four main techniques involved. They are:

Palette
Palette work is the most versatile of the techniques. It can make pictures and designs both large and small. The hair is used in a “cut and paste” manner to create designs. The third picture on this page is an example of palette work.

Sepia Painting
Sepia painting uses the hair as a painting medium and spread thinly on the background. The sixth picture on this page is an example of palette work.

Tablework
Tablework is created using a table and bobbins with weights. The hair is woven around a form in order to make the shape desired. The fifth picture on the page is an eye-catching example of this style.

Hair Flowers
Hair flowers are created using much longer hair than is needed for the palette or sepia technique. The hair is wound around a rod and secured with a wire making long lengths of looped hair. The hair is then shaped into petals or leaves. When several are wired together a flower can be formed and many very large wreaths were made using the hair of many people. Sometimes a church would make one of all their members, or a family would make one of all the members of the family, these could get very large and ornate. The fourth picture on this page is an example.

Then there are those works of art that aren’t jewelry and defy explanation.

There are actually dozens of Pinterest pages devoted to the art form. Many artists like Sandra have revived the tradition and are selling their pieces online.

In the end, while it does seem a tad freaky, the sentiment behind using hair for mourning jewelry makes sense. If you couldn’t have a photo of your loved one to put in your wallet or purse, wearing one of these pieces of jewelry could make you feel close to your deceased loved one in an intimate way. It would never fade or be destroyed by the ravages of time. As seen in the pictures featured here, many examples survive today.

So maybe the Victorians were onto something after all.

When my husband told me we’d been invited to his childhood best friend’s wedding in Portland, Oregon, my first thought was about what cemeteries I’d visit. It’s a cemetery hopper’s first instinct.

We only had a weekend so I quickly settled on Lone Fir Cemetery, the jewel in the crown of the 14 cemeteries managed by Metro (the regional governmental agency for the Portland metro area).

I can safely say that Lone Fir is just as quirky as the town it’s located in. And in a good way.

Located in Southeast Portland, the 30 acres that make up Lone Fir are well tended. Much of that is due to the Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery, a group dedicated to education, preservation and restoration efforts. They not only give monthly tours but hold special events such as headstone cleaning workshops and a Halloween Tour of Untimely Departures.

According to Friends of Lone Fir’s web site, the cemetery’s first human occupant was Emmor Stephens. His burial was in 1846 in what was then privately owned land, which was later platted as Mount Crawford Cemetery in 1855. Then, Portland existed only on the west side of the Willamette River. Because of the marshy ground, several city graveyards were closed and many bodies were then re-interred at Mount Crawford.

Mount Crawford was renamed Lone Fir in 1866, for the once solitary tree in its northwest corner. Lone Fir is Portland’s oldest continuously used cemetery and is now a de facto arboretum, with 500 trees representing 67 species. More than 25,000 people are buried there.

Reflective of the real trees is the large number of Woodman of the World tree-shaped monuments sprinkled throughout the cemetery. You’ve probably seen them before but never knew what they were. The symbol of the cut tree signifies a life cut short.

In its early days, Woodman of the World insurance policies provided a death and monument benefit. That means they provided gravestones to members for free and later for those who bought a $100 rider.

In the 1920s, the Society stopped doing this when the costs got to be too great and some cemeteries began to not allow above-ground markers for maintenance reasons. But for several years after that, members and lodges arranged for markers and monuments on their own.

Lone Fir also has many examples of one of my favorite type of monument, white bronze. In reality, white bronze is actually zinc. If you tap one, you can hear a hollow metallic sound. I could do an entire blog piece on this style of monument alone but for now, visit A Grave Interest to learn more about these hardy markers.

Later, I had the pleasure of encountering a fellow Find a Grave volunteer who also happens to be a Friends of Lone Fir member. She was washing a gravestone to get a better idea of the woman’s name. I rarely meet fellow Find a Grave members in person so it was a treat to do so that far away from home!

Linda was very helpful in explaining the history of the cemetery since she’s also a tour guide. She talked about the large open corner of the cemetery that is devoid of trees or markers, known as Block 14.

This unassuming plot has a great deal of history. At one time, it was not only where the Chinese workers who had come East to work on the railroad and in the mines were once buried but also patients of the former Oregon Hospital for the Insane.

According to Chinese custom, immigrants were buried here for a short time, with their remains later dug up and returned to China, to be reunited with their ancestors. This went on until Multnomah County (the land’s owner) wanted to use it as a maintenance building/yard for the highway department. In 1948, this block was excavated with a bulldozer. All remains found were packed off to China and the building was built shortly thereafter.

In 2004, Multnomah County made plans to raze the maintenance building on the land and sell the property to the highest bidder (mostly likely for condos). Many locals who knew the history of that space fought the move.

Ground-penetrating radar showed that two graves were still buried on the property, which meant it was still very much a cemetery. While the building was razed as planned, the land was deeded to Metro to be part of Lone Fir as a historic landmark. Plans are now in the works to turn it into a memorial garden to remember those who were originally buried here.

Linda also told us about the striking black monuments with recent dates on them. Portland is home to a large Russian immigrant population. Some years ago, a few of the local Russian churches bought up a number of cemetery spaces at Lone Fir for their congregants to purchase.

When I saw these very life-like faces staring back at me, I almost felt as if I were in a different country. The Cyrillic print made it even more vivid. Most of the expressions are rather solemn. The one of an infant grave was incredibly poignant.

At the same time, some of the modern markers I encountered were inventive and more lighthearted. The best example of this would have to be Joel Weinstein’s grave. A long-time publisher of a Portland magazine called Mississippi Mud, Joel was a huge fan of Puerto Rican art. His marker reflects his colorful life perfectly.

Another eye-catching monument is the one for Dr. Minh Van Tran. I’m not sure if EJ and PJ Dragonhorn are the artists who created it.

The last example I will share is a sad story in that what was once a beautiful monument has been vandalized to the point it’s now a shadow of what it was once intended to be.

Paul Lind loved to play Scrabble. He died at the young age of 31. His fiance, Heather, wanted to create a monument that reflected his personality. Along with Paul’s father, she came up with this. She said, “He was a big time scrabble fanatic. I never was able to beat him on one-on-one.”

Unfortunately, by the time I was able to see it, vandals had torn the colorful tiles off to leave the shell behind. I read an article that said a Scrabble tournament was held in 2013 to raise funds to help restore it to its former glory but that hasn’t happened yet.

One thing I noticed while we were there is that Lone Fir, in some ways like Oakland in Atlanta, is regarded as a valuable greenspace that many locals use. We saw several joggers. Linda said that the nearby high school’s track team uses the cemetery for running practice during the week.

Another bit of information she passed along to me is that in some cases, when students are given detention at the high school, they must draw from a jar containing the names of selected people buried at Lone Fir. The student then researches that person and write up a report about them. That’s certainly different!

As always, visiting cemeteries in a different state opens my eyes to the variety of grave stones, wildlife, and flora/fauna that exists outside my small world of Atlanta, Ga. Lone Fir provides that in spades, probably more than most cemeteries do.

I’d like to come back and see it again some day.

I grew up watching a lot of TV. Dad was in charge of the remote, so what he wanted to watch, we all watched.

As a result, I spent many evenings watching Jack Klugman (best known for playing Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple) on Quincy, ME. Quincy’s job as a medical examiner in Los Angeles always drew him into fascinating whodunnits that were neatly wrapped up in an hour. He always solved the mystery just as his naysayers were about to lower the boom.

Television in the 70s and early 80s was often an exercise in suspended reality (Remember The Six Million Dollar Man?). Quincy is one example because all the ladies he met seemed to think ‘ole Quince was a real catch. Frankly, I think they were just after his houseboat.

Watching Quincy gave me the impression that autopsies were a common procedure. With current TV shows like CSI and Law and Order, this impression has not only been upheld but encouraged. In reality, that’s not the case at all.

The word autopsy comes from the Greek “autopsia” for the act of seeing with one’s own eyes. It’s an examination of a body after death to determine the cause of death or the character and extent of changes produced by disease.

Autopsies are not done only on murder victims but to determine what disease or health factors led to a person’s demise. They often turn up nothing unusual at all. Or they can discover something major.

Laws vary from state to state but in most cases, with consent from a patient’s next of kin, a doctor can order a clinical autopsy to determine the disease process in the body and determine cause of death. That was the norm 50 years ago and in Quincy’s era.

“Much of what we know about medicine comes from the autopsy,” said Dr. Stephen Cina, chairman of the forensic pathology committee for the College of American Pathologists, in a 2011 article. “You really can’t say for sure what went on or didn’t go on without the autopsy as a quality assurance tool.”

So why are fewer autopsies being performed?

In 1971 The Joint Commission, which accredits health-care facilities, told hospitals they were no longer required to conduct autopsies to keep in good standing. Before, mandated autopsy rates of 20 percent were in place for community hospitals and 25 percent for teaching facilities. Now, some hospital autopsy rates are down to zero.

Hospitals also have considerable financial incentives to avoid autopsies. An autopsy can cost anywhere from about $1,500 (performed by the hospital at the medical examiner’s request) or if it’s done privately at a family’s request, $2,000 to $5,000. Medicare and private insurers don’t pay for them directly, typically limiting reimbursement to procedures used to diagnose and treat the living.

In addition, autopsies can be difficult to perform, physically demanding and time consuming. Many hospitals would rather their time and money be spent elsewhere.

As a result, it can be difficult for a family to get an autopsy performed on a loved one if the medical examiner won’t do it. The cost then falls to them to have it done privately.

Such was the case in 2013 when the family of Arizona woman Jessie Tolly demanded answers after her sudden death. The medical examiner blamed Jessie’s death on her obesity and refused to authorize an autopsy.

Tolly’s family hired a private pathologist to perform the autopsy at the cost of $2,000, which revealed the cause of death to be a defective heart artery. Tolly’s mother was furious when she later discovered the medical examiner’s office contacted that pathologist for a copy of the report, bypassing the family entirely.

“We’re not rich, we don’t have a lot of money and we’re just middle income, you know, I felt in many respects that, in their minds, she just didn’t rate,” said Tolly.

Another reason doctors are requesting fewer autopsies is because of their reliance on today’s diagnostic tools like CT scans and MRIs, which can identify ailments while patients are still alive.

But according to the previously mentioned 2013 article, studies of autopsies have revealed that doctors can still make a number of diagnostic errors even with increasingly sophisticated imaging equipment.

A 2002 review by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality showed that when patients were autopsied, major errors related to the principle diagnosis or underlying cause of death were found in one of four cases. In one of 10 cases, the error appeared severe enough to have led to the patient’s death.

The importance of autopsies goes beyond determining cause of death. They can also be a critical tool for evaluating and improving medical care.

Dr. Elizabeth Burton, deputy director of the pathology department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said performing autopsies on patients who have died of hospital-acquired infections helps save others. Doctors have used her research as a basis for changing antibiotic regimens.

Finally, autopsies can help family members learn whether a relative died from an undiagnosed or misdiagnosed illness or disease that may be hereditary.

Dr. Gregory J. Davis at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine (according to a recent Frontline documentary) said 40 percent of autopsies performed in the U.S. reveal disease states previously unknown to physicians, largely because the autopsy involves techniques that can’t be used on the living.

There continue to be a variety of opinions on the value of autopsies today. Because I am nothing close to a medical expert, I can only share what I’ve learned. But I hope it gives you a clearer picture of why autopsies are now increasingly rare but can still be incredibly helpful when they are performed.

I hope Quincy would be proud.

“I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.” 

— Groucho Marx

Someone in your family chose to be cremated after they died and you now have their ashes. It raises the inevitable question.

What do you do with them now?

Some people purchase a wooden box, metal urn or some other container to hold their love one’s ashes in, which they keep in a special place in their home. Or you can have the ashes (in a cineary urn) interred in a columbarium at a cemetery.

Another option is scattering the ashes at a place special to the deceased, perhaps a lake or mountaintop. Some cemeteries have “scatter gardens” for that purpose. Afterward, the loved one’s name is engraved on a memorial tablet in the garden. Maybe you’d prefer to scatter the ashes at sea, a popular choice.

But what if you really want to do things differently? The possibilities are many but here are a handful to think about.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass

Long ago, I watched NBC’s Days of Our Lives (I quit when Marlena supposedly became possessed by the Devil). The show always starts with long-time cast member McDonald Carey intoning, “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” So when I found out you can have cremation ashes placed in an hourglass, I was intrigued.

California-based In the Light Urns has been providing hourglasses and other items like jewelry (even rosaries) to put cremation ashes in since 2001. Their hourglasses enable you to put a small portion of ashes in it so you can keep them your home (or wherever you choose). The deceased’s name and birth/death dates are engraved on it.

They even suggest how to incorporate putting the ashes into the hourglass during a special ceremony remembering the deceased. The cost for an hourglass is $399.95.

Tattoo You

Maybe you want to truly make your loved one’s ashes a part of you. You can go much further than tattooing “Mother” on your bicep by having a tiny amount of ashes added to the tattoo ink used. “Ashes are essentially carbon and carbon is the main ingredient in black ink,” said Trish Rodgers, then artist/manager of Toronto’s Body of Art tattoo parlor, in a 2013 article.

While the process has been around for close to 30 years, it’s not widely done and some tattoo artists won’t do it. Some health officials question the safety of it because a foreign substance is being introduced into the body. But several people who’ve gotten a “Morbid Tattoo” (as one American academic called it) have said they suffered no ill affects in the years after they had it done.

Portrait of a Life

Perhaps you like the artistic notion of a tattoo but prefer a less invasive (and physically permanent) approach. Missouri artist Adam Brown uses cremains sent to him by relatives and mixes them with paint pigment to create a “lasting memory” composition.

In a recent ABC News piece, he said “Having ashes in an urn on a mantle somewhere is a good way to constantly remind yourself that person died, but when you use them in an artwork it’s a good way to remember someone lived,”

Sending cremains via the U.S. Postal Service is legal, Brown said. The ashes are mixed in with paints, craft glues and resins to incorporate into the design of a memorial portrait, landscape or abstract piece (depending on the deceased’s favorite colors and interests).

“Out of respect, I still wear gloves when handling the ashes. Whatever is left over, I am careful to return,” Brown said. “I only need about four to six ounces, depending on the canvas.”

The paintings range in size and price from $300 to $700, depending on the use of color.

The Rockets’ Red Glare

Want to send your loved one off with a bang like late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson? You can have cremation ashes made into fireworks for a spectacular show family and friends will never forget. British company Heavens Above Fireworks can arrange the display for you, or you can order your own rockets for self-firing kits, which come with instructions on how to incorporate ashes into the rockets.

Detailed tips on how to create interesting displays are included. There’s a Youtube of video with an example of one of their shows.

Prices vary according to how grand and how lengthy you want the show to be, but it can cost from around $125 for a kit into the thousands of dollars for a lengthy fireworks show.

A few companies here in America will do it, too, but Heavens Above has one of the most detailed websites I’ve seen.

A Diamond is Forever

A diamond can be your best friend (not just a girl’s), if you want. Illinois-based LifeGem will turn your loved one’s ashes into an actual diamond.

According to their website, “LifeGem diamonds are molecularly identical to natural diamonds found at any high-end jeweler. They have the exact same brilliance, fire, luster, and hardness (the hardest substance known) as diamonds from the earth.”

Basically, you send them a small portion of your loved one’s cremation ashes (or even a lock of their hair) and they take it from there. Or you can work with one of their certified funeral home/mortuary partners, they have several (including one in Atlanta). LifeGem can even create a diamond out of your pet’s ashes if you wish.

LifeGem offers a long list of carat sizes, cuts and colors so prices vary widely. The smallest LifeGem diamonds (the red .10 – .19 carat) are just under $3,000 while the largest ones (1.5 carat or larger) can run you $19,000 and higher.

According to their website,  they expect to be creating diamonds of up to 3.0 carats in the very near future.

What About You?

As you can see, if you’re not content to put your loved one’s ashes in an urn on the mantle, there are countless other options. Too many to talk about in just one post. But these can get you started.

Maybe the process will get you thinking about your own funeral plans. What do you want done with your ashes if you choose cremation?