Work Fish Notes

A Funeral Manifesto

I am bossy and sentimental, and rather Too Much. It lives on in spirit.

0: The Body

  1. I’d like my body to be donated, if possible. Preferably to help other people live, but for science is okay too. We’re all stardust in the end.
  2. I’d still like to have a funeral! Just put up a little description of what my body’s been donated for.

1: The Funeral

  1. If my body isn’t of use, I’d like to be cremated in a simple eco-friendly coffin with farewell messages and love notes written on it.
  2. Play all the slow soppy stuff I love: Frank Ocean, Sufjan Stevens, Kelsey Lu, Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird, Rachel Yamagata, Cigarettes After Sex, Damien Rice, The Velvet Underground, slow Mandopop.
  3. Lay my books out for guests to bring home, and then donate the rest to a book-selling charity. I’d like the people closest to me to get first pick, of course.
  4. Bring your favourite flowers, loads and loads, for other guests to bring home. A flower swap! Life is short and brutish but we still have each other.
  5. I don’t really need any of the religious rites or vegetarian dinner things. Have some sort of dessert bar. Crying is very tiring, and I’m already dead; let my people eat cake.
  6. Bonus: Bit tight, but if Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese could be typeset in big, lovely font onto a wall-sized piece of cloth or paper and hung up? Chef’s kiss.

2: The Cremation

  1. None of that walking barefoot on the road nonsense, please. Asphalt in Singapore is very hot.
  2. Play the raging music of my teenage years: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park. Blast it at full volume when I enter the furnace so nobody can hear each other wailing; it’s the part of a funeral I hate the most.
  3. If there are leftover bone bits, feel free to make it into jewellery.
  4. I’d like my ashes to be scattered at sea, please. If the weather’s any good, try to enjoy the sea breeze after. I would.

3: The Anniversary

  1. Hold an open mic night, a chill evening gathering by the sea, wherever you may be. Bring your favourite poetry or prose to be read aloud.
  2. Play some wordless wonders: Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Philip Glass, Vivaldi, Ennio Morricone, Joe Hisaishi.
  3. If you love someone, tell them.


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