Most Unique Final Funeral Requests | Funeral Stationery 4 U
A lot of people like to make funeral requests and plans whilst they are still alive to have control over the ceremony, and very often these arrangements are found in a person’s will.
In many cases, these requests whilst making a will can be somewhat general requests to have the ceremony take place in a particular church or tradition, whilst others can be specific down to the type of funeral stationery used and the readings they want to be performed at the ceremony.
Some final requests, however, are significantly more unusual and often allow a person to achieve something in death that they could not necessarily achieve in life.
- I Knew Him Horatio
One of the most famous soliloquies in all of theatrical history is the tale of Yorick as told in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, where Hamlet lifts the skull of Yorick, a dead court jester that he knew as a child.
As might be expected, in most performances the skill is simply a prop. However, the last wish of the composer Andre Tchaikowsky was that his skull be used as part of this historic scene, being donated to the Royal Shakespeare Company as per his will after his death aged 46 in 1982.
The RSC tried for decades to use the real skull, but most actors and directors felt uncomfortable doing so until 2008. Actor David Tennant held Mr Tchaikowsky’s skull aloft in a series of performances at the Courtyard Theatre, as well as secretly during a run in the West End.
- Living On The Page
Mark Gruenwald, a longtime Marvel Comics editor who had a nearly two-decade-long run with the company in nearly every major creative position, gave his life to the company and as part of his last wishes wanted to contribute in death as much as he had in life.
When he died in 1996 at the tragically young age of 43, his last wish was to have his ashes used as part of a comic, and as such the first printing of Squadron Supreme’s trade paperback compilation uses ink mixed with his ashes, ensuring that he lived forever in the pages of the comics he loved so much.
- Where No Man Had Gone Before
Gene Roddenberry captured the audience’s imagination and made them dream of space like no other person has before or since, and his influence on the world we live in is almost incalculable.
When Mr Roddenberry died in 1991, his final wish was to be part of The Final Frontier he had long written about and conveyed through his creative works.
A year later, his ashes were taken on a mission on the space shuttle Columbia, and in 1997 a spaceship carried some of his ashes into the stars he loved so much.
He is not the only person connected to Star Trek buried this way; James “Scotty” Doohan was launched into space in 2008, and there are missions planned to do the same for Majel Berrett and Nichelle Nichols.
Outside of Star Trek, Leiji Matsumoto, the author of several popular science fiction anime such as Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999 has requested that his remains be launched into space once passes.