Designing a better memorial
An artist teaches us how to celebrate our dead
Death. It involves activities such as planning for death, actually dying (often these days in a hospital), and usually having some combination of funeral, visitation, cremation, or wake. These post-death ceremonies are often standardized and prepackaged; the default “way things are done,” without much attention paid to creativity or personalization. In our grief, we let others guide us through time-honored rituals. And this can be helpful, but it can prevent us from creating experiences that are personally meaningful for us and our families.
We all have the ability to imagine, create, and design what happens at the end of our (and our loved ones’) lives. Artists can help show us the way.
Terry was a potter and artist who lived in my hometown. When I was small, he was on the periphery of my life, this freckled, redheaded, willowy man often clad in a Hawaiian shirt. He was a goof and a ham; he carried an enthusiasm in his voice and mannerisms and made up his own rules. (For flair, he had a powder blue polyester suit with oversized white polka dots that he wore to various local events.) He and his wife Rita, also a potter, were part of a tribe I thought of as ‘the artists’ — the local hippies in my small, northern Michigan manufacturing town who dedicated their lives to creating art and music and supporting progressive causes. Terry and Rita lived in an eclectic compound that housed their pottery studio, their art- (and taxidermy-) filled house, and a koi pond in which fish swam year-round.
That my mom and dad were friends with them is a testament to the bonds that could be forged in a certain time and place. A bunch of 20-somethings converged on Cadillac, MI in the 1970s and 80s: lawyers, teachers, doctors, business folks, and of course artists. In our sleepy town, the winter snowdrifts used to pile up 5 feet or more; it was a time before the Internet and before they had kids. They bonded together and invented ways to entertain themselves: gourmet food nights, theme parties, cross-country ski nights, a famous party at which a chainsaw-wielding Terry felled a large dead tree in his yard, purposely smashing a lawn chair — all as performance art. (Rita described it as a kind of ‘Letterman moment;’ let’s see what we can smash.)
As they got older and had kids, their closest friends shifted, but they always were there to support each other.
As Terry reached his 40s, he slowly came to the realization that he had Huntington’s. He’d started having undeniable symptoms, and his father had died from the disease. He started seeing doctors, and his symptoms — tics, problems walking — progressed and became more severe over time. His friends continued including him in activities. My dad has described men’s backpacking trips on which Terry’s speech was limited and his walk had become more of a lurch; they had to hold him up at certain points on the uneven, root-filled trails.
Finally, on April 20, 2017, after about 30 years of living with Huntington’s, Terry died in Florida where he and Rita were spending the winter. Rita included a few quotes from his last months in the written memorial program; this is from about three months before he died:
“I’m so happy. The sun is shining on me, I can see palm trees, and I have food.”
In Terry’s last week, music helped support and lift him, his sisters and son who had gathered, and Rita. He had always loved music, and over the years he had helped establish a program that brought musical acts to our small town. Music made him happy.
One night a friend came to their house with her ukulele and they sang songs together all evening. Rita said, “we couldn’t sing and it didn’t matter. It helped Terry and it helped us.”
Terry’s sister asked musician friends to send videos of themselves playing his favorite songs, and another night in his last week he played them over and over, staying up hours past his usual bedtime and singing along as well as he could. Rita noticed that, though his tongue had been collapsed to the back of his mouth due to muscle weakness, that night it had straightened out from all the singing. At the end of all that singing, two days before he died, he said:
“That was fun!”
I was fortunate to be home and have the privilege of attending his memorial service last summer; it was held in the congregational church but felt more like a bittersweet community celebration than a formal religious ceremony. The room was packed. Teachers, doctors, business people, artists, hippies, Trump voters, and church-goers gathered together to mourn the loss of their friend and celebrate his life.
Rita had created a display at the front of the church that contained pieces of pottery they had created, along with a special sculpture in the center that contained Terry’s ashes.
The blue polyester suit hung on a rack next to it:
The service itself was purposeful and unrushed. Rita told me, “I tried to make it a story” and she called it a Musical Celebration. She made sure that the celebration included diverse songs and readings; she wanted there to be something everyone could connect with, whether or not they were religious. Musician friends sang songs that Terry loved; he had actually given Rita a list of songs, with an implicit understanding that she could eventually incorporate them into such a service. People stood up and told stories, and a good family friend described a hilarious caper in which Terry ended up inadvertently alone in the local strip club (the 8-ball Lounge) and had to be rescued by his friends. The room laughed, sang, and cried together. I learned a lot about the extraordinary person that Terry had been.
After the service everyone got in their cars and drove out to Terry & Rita’s house on the lake, where a lawn party was waiting. Again, this felt more like a wedding reception than a death celebration. Rita had strung up a chandelier and lights in her yard near the shore of our lake (the one I grew up on). Long tables were set up underneath, where people gathered to eat delicious food — some brought by friends, and some prepared and served by Rita’s business partner’s family, who are well-known for their barbecue. There was a keg and many bottles of wine. It felt like a big family party.
A large upright board filled with photos and newspaper clippings of Terry and Rita over the years stood in the center of the yard. Rita had also put out the skull of their old pet goat, “Orchid Lawn Boy” (who, it came out during the memorial, had come to an untimely end via an accidental hanging in the barn; ‘strange but true.’)
Memorial sculptures containing Terry’s ashes stood in the yard; Rita had created them from various found objects.
Strolling around and through their house, I came across curiosities like dancing taxidermied squirrels in little suits kept under a bell jar, antique books with humorous names, tentacled sculptures made from metal scraps, nude paintings, a stairwell in which each post (a.k.a. “baluster”) was a different style and color. The effect was an eclectic yet harmonized and comfortable space.
The house, the yard, the lights, and the people created an enchanted environment where a diverse group lingered into the night.
It was a chance for meaningful community connection, and it was also whimsical and fun.
I was inspired by Terry & Rita’s approach to life; as artists, they invented and intentionally designed their lives and surroundings. But it was Rita who had designed the memorial experience and brought the details to life. The blue polyester suit, handmade sculpture, personal stories and songs, lighted yard, strung-up chandelier; it was all her, and it was beautifully executed.
The memorial was held three months after Terry died, which gave Rita time to grieve and plan this event. There were many touches that would have been impossible had this memorial happened a week, or even a month after Terry died. Rita confirmed this: “right after it happens you’re mentally and physically exhausted. That’s why people don’t do it and family members do it for them.”
After the fact, Rita said many people told her how meaningful the event was, and it made them start to consider what they might want for their own funeral or memorial. This memorial, intended as the best possible tribute for Terry, also modeled a creative approach that helped others see how they could craft their own end of life experience.
Here are a few things I learned from attending this celebration:
- Time and space can give the grieving a chance to design a more thoughtful, meaningful memorial.
- Memorial events like this can be fun and joyful while also being sad; that mixture worked well.
- Rita’s careful attention to ambiance helped slow time down and create a space in which people could comfortably linger.
- A single well-designed memorial, like this one, can inspire many others to start thinking and communicating about what they would want for themselves or their loved ones.
I’m so grateful to Rita for conceiving of this event, sweating the details and making it perfect.
I’m headed out to San Francisco this week to attend the End Well Symposium (“Design for the End of Life Experience”); I’ll be following up with more stories and thoughts about the intersection of design and end of life.
