Funeral Wishes Template

Why written wishes are a gift

When someone dies, the people who love them are handed a long list of decisions at the worst possible moment. Burial or cremation. Which funeral home. What music. Who speaks. Open casket or not. What you would have wanted. Some of these questions arrive at two in the morning, and the people answering them are running on no sleep and fresh grief.

A single written page removes almost all of that. Your family does not have to guess, and, just as important, they do not have to argue. When siblings disagree about what Mom would have wanted, a page in Mom's handwriting ends the debate gently and instantly. You are not writing this for yourself. You are writing it for the people at the kitchen table after you are gone.

It does not need to be legal or formal. It is not a will, and it should not live inside your will, which is often read after the funeral. It is just your voice, on paper, saying it plainly.

The wishes form

Answer what you can and skip what you cannot. A half-filled page is still a gift. You can also write none of this matters to me, choose whatever is easiest, which is itself a clear instruction and a kindness.

What to write down

• Disposition, meaning burial, cremation, or another choice, and any feelings about where
• The shape of the service, such as religious or not, large or small, a funeral, a memorial later, or nothing formal at all
• Music you want, and any music you absolutely do not
• Readings, poems, or passages that matter to you
• Who you hope will speak, officiate, or carry you
• Where it should happen, if you care
• What you want to be dressed in, and anything that should stay with you
• The small things that matter to you, such as flowers or none, an open door for children, a particular photograph, food afterward, a toast, a song at the end
• Anything you want your people to know you did not care about, so they can stop worrying about it

Where to keep it

Do not put this in a safe deposit box. A box in your name alone can be sealed at death, and your wishes may not come out until long after the decisions have been made. The document is only useful if it can be read within hours, not weeks.

Give a copy to the person who will actually be making arrangements, and keep a copy at home with your important papers, somewhere a grieving person could find it in one search. If you have a binder or a file the family knows about, it belongs there, in the front.

Good homes for this page

• In the hands of the person who will make the arrangements
• With your important papers at home, easy to find
• A photo or scan shared with one or two family members
• Not in a safe deposit box, and not only inside your will

Tell one person out loud

Paper is necessary but not sufficient. Choose the person most likely to be in the room, and tell them the essentials in one conversation. It can take five minutes. I wrote my wishes down, here is where the page lives, and the short version is this.

Saying it aloud does two things paper cannot. It makes the page findable, because someone now knows to look. And it gives your person a memory of your voice saying it was all right to talk about this, which they will lean on later more than you can know.

Some families go one step further and record that conversation, in your own voice, telling the stories behind the wishes. A recorded Living Legacy conversation is something we help families make, when they want it.