An unfortunate fact about my life: I have spent a lot of time planning funerals. I was 21 when my mom died of stage four colon cancer. She requested a traditional Methodist service where Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam’s songs were to be played. Both of my American grandparents wanted smaller to-dos in a chapel connected to the funeral home and asked for open caskets (something I still think about to this day). And then there was my dad, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) last year; he had a remarkable-for-the-disease four years to meticulously plan his funeral. The memorandum was full of staunch requests (my fiancé was to read this exact passage from the Bible by memory, there would be a slideshow of approved photos at the country club reception), which made the planning almost too easy for somebody who was larger than life.
These experiences helped me learn something important about myself: I want people to have fun at my funeral. After all, the word does have fun in it.
Wear an outfit you think I’d like, but please remember I hate high-low dresses, skinny jeans, and khaki pants—the inspiration is Naomi Campbell at Andre Leon Talley’s funeral. A movie-theater-sized slideshow should be only hot photos of me—if I’ve ever texted you a tasteful nude, go ahead and throw it in there to remind everybody how good I looked. Let’s hire Caffè Panna to hand out ice cream cones while a Champagne tower overflows (each glass finished off with a crunched-up antidepressant adorning the rim). Maybe Sephora can do beauty touch-ups on-site, giving everybody a dab of Victoria Beckham lip gloss and a pop of Westman Atelier blush? Book the venue for the entire night, even though we all know if I was there, I would have snuck out at 9:15 p.m. sharp to be home with my cat. But I want my funeral to be a capital P party.
Last month, transgender Filipino-American drag performer Bianca Castro-Arabejo (also known as Jiggly Caliente) passed away. Instead of a traditional funeral, “Slaybill” (a play on Broadway Playbill) was hosted in her honor. The event took the idea of a celebration of life to heart—guests wore pastel colors and the run of show included eulogy-turned-comedy acts all about Caliente, as well as roasts that walked the line between dark humor and just plain dark. Fellow drag queen Karl Westerberg, known as Manila Luzon, embodied it all in his laughing-and-crying-at-the-same-time eulogy. When recalling filming Caliente's Drag Race tryout video in an Apple store, he said “it was giving a glamorous Augustus Gloop going up the chocolate tube in Willy Wonka,” but also “I’m so sad we can’t keep doing and dreaming bigger and bigger things together.”
Caliente’s funeral has opened up a conversation about what is and isn’t appropriate when you lose somebody you love. We always talk about how grief manifests differently for every person, and perhaps remembrance should be part of that conversation as well. If you want a tearful church service followed by a graveside goodbye, that’s perfect. But if something more non-traditional fits your vibe—perhaps those you love doing your favorite hobby together or meeting for a party on the beach—that’s great, too. Your celebration of life should celebrate who you were and what was important to you, and for those of us who weren’t-so-serious, that's the vibe it should take on.
Caliente isn’t alone in having a unique-to-her funeral. Singer Aretha Franklin’s hearse was flanked by 100 pink Cadillacs; writer Hunter S. Thompson shot his ashes into the sky via a cannon; and Muppets creator Jim Henson had a strict no-black dress code.
So here’s my official directive for the day, because while I don’t have any sort of crystal ball, it will come sooner or later. Tears are okay—after all, I can’t imagine what your lives will be like without, well, me. But more importantly, laughter and smiles are, too.
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