SINGAPORE – Two days before Christmas in 2023, ovarian cancer patient Michelle “Mike” Ng staged an unusual farewell by hosting her own living funeral with the help of HCA Hospice Singapore.
The 29-year-old entrepreneur gathered 30 friends in her home for a unique memorial service complete with food, music and heartfelt tributes, making it a celebration of life.
Ms Ng died 10 days later. However, her unique send-off caught the attention of many Singaporeans after it was featured by online platform Our Grandfather Story in a YouTube video that attracted more than three million views.
Ms Jayne Leong, principal medical social worker at HCA, a charity supporting the terminally ill, had surfaced the idea of a living funeral with Ms Ng.
“It is a very different experience for the living to hear things said about them when they have a chance to. It is very profound. Sharing words of appreciation, saying sorry, asking for forgiveness: a living funeral usually gives room for such conversations to take place,” Ms Leong says.
The concept also takes away the burden of funeral planning from family members, she said.
HCA has since fielded five inquiries from patients curious about orchestrating their own pre-parting bashes. In April, it helped organise a living funeral for Ms Carolyn Too. Like Ms Ng, the 48-year-old former business development manager has ovarian cancer. Her oncologist told her in May 2023 she had only six months to live, after two failed rounds of chemotherapy.
A check reveals that several funeral operators, including The Life Celebrant and Casket Fairprice, offer living funeral services, but the take-up rate is low. Things, however, may be changing.
The Life Celebrant has listed living funeral services in its advertising deck for more than eight years, says founder Angjolie Mei.
“I used to get perhaps one inquiry a year in the past. But I had three or four calls last month when Mike’s video went viral,” she says, adding that she has organised a handful of living funerals over the years. These were small affairs involving the soon-to-be departed and his or her family members.
The concept of living funerals is not new. The Japanese have a unique tradition called seizenso, where older folks get to throw their own funerals while they are still alive. In a 2004 paper for the journal Ethnology, cultural anthropologist Satsuki Kawano notes that this practice helps seniors feel more independent and shakes up old stereotypes about ageing.
In South Korea, a unique trend has seen tens of thousands attending a different kind of “living funeral”. The Hyowon Healing Centre, run by a funeral parlour, holds mass funerals where participants write out their wills before lying in wooden coffins. This rite purportedly helps them reflect on their mortality to better appreciate life, seek reconciliation and, ultimately, live better.
The idea of living funerals also features prominently in the 1997 best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie by American writer Mitch Albom. The memoir chronicles his conversations with 78-year-old sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who chose to have a living funeral after he found out that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal type of motor neurone disease.
Ms Martha Ng, Dover Park Hospice’s head of social work and psychosocial services, believes living funerals help not only those who are dying, but also those who attend them.
“It destigmatises death as a taboo and also gives the person who is dying more control and autonomy. It’s also cathartic, there’s healing and reconciliation at a different level,” she says. None of the hospice’s patients has asked about a living funeral.
Mr Tanner Tan, who used to head talent acquisition at insurance company AIA Singapore, says living funerals will probably not sit well with older and more conservative folks like his 91-year-old father.
“I’ve not thought about it, but I’m not against it. If you ask me, funerals are a waste of money. Living funerals make sense; I do want a happy farewell,” says the 57-year-old retiree.
Artist Barry Yeow, 56, is all for it. A former junkie who has served several stints in jail, he recalls the time he was released from prison in 2001 to attend his father’s funeral.
“I remember standing in front of the casket and thinking to myself, ‘I cannot ask for forgiveness any more. He’s already lying inside there. What I say does not matter any more.’”
He adds: “So whatever we want to do, whatever we want to say, we must do and say while we are still alive.”
