Why Celebrate Someone’s Life After They’re Gone — When They Won’t Enjoy It?

Handling funerals and being “PC” can be unnerving when you’re dealing with cultural, socio-economic, and political concerns.  I’ve been fortunate not to have many funerals to attend, but I have lost close friends and family.  At every funeral, wake, or service I have attended, I’ve wondered why we wait until our loved one passes away before we celebrate their lives.  Breaking long-standing traditions is difficult – and inevitably it ruffles a few feathers – and sometimes I just want to stop the old tradition and start something new. 

When my grandfather Kunio passed away in 1992, I sandblasted his granite marker with the family crest and the image of my favorite marble sculpture that he made in his retirement. My auntie Michi and I worked together to create his program that was filled with photos and a timeline of his fascinating and successful life. I know Grandpa would have loved the creativity and collaboration that went into his gravesite marker and program, and wished he could have seen it all. 

In 1995, my close friend Tom died at age 49, and I put together a 20-minute slideshow of his life that included his family and all of his friends. At his funeral, for the first time ever, all of his friends and family were there and we all mused about how this would have been the best party of his life – but instead, we had the party without him. 

In 2008, all of my cousins, aunts and uncles gathered for 4 days to organize a 79-year history of my Uncle Harry’s fascinating life. Besides the fact that he was the family historian and we probably got many dates and places wrong, he still would have loved to see his life in photos that we collected from all of our albums. The compilation was both interesting (he was one of the engineers that sent the Apollo to the moon!) and heartwarming.  So why do we wait until after loved ones die before celebrating their lives?

I’m thinking about all of this AGAIN, because last weekend, I flew to LA with my entire digital photo library to create a slideshow of my auntie Emi’s life.  She is in perfect health but is beginning to suffer from dementia, and I just didn’t want to sit by passively waiting for her to pass to celebrate her life. So my cousin Jeff and I agreed to look through my digital library of photos of my aunt WITH my aunt. 

After we connected my laptop up to his TV, what happened next was really remarkable. My aunt stood right in front of the big screen TV and told us stories and minute details about each photo for over an hour!  We laughed together and she thoroughly enjoyed this walk down memory lane. She answered questions about who were in the photos and what they were doing. She even helped us place the photos in the correct order of events.  While some might consider this morbid, I connected with her and made her smile while she saw photos of her life.  

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to share these photos with my aunt while she still is alive and well.  After feeling remorseful after losing loved ones and wishing they could be part of the celebration of their lives at their funerals, I am convinced that this is the way I would like to handle these situations in the future.  I’ve scanned and edited over 100,000 photos and I plan to share them with family and friends while they can appreciate them.  So, if I invite you over for a slideshow, please don’t judge me… Just know that I would rather celebrate your life and share these memories with you while we can still enjoy them.  We can see them again at your funeral but I’ll be happy to remember the time we celebrated your life together.