My friend Jonathan’s mother died Friday and we went to the calling hours yesterday.  She was quite old and had been terribly sick for sometime so, while it was sad for the family, it was not devastating.  My spouse and I took turns at the calling hours at a very fancy New York city funeral parlor.  We took turns because I noted in the Times that there would be a viewing and I didn’t think that my kids were ready for real life dead bodies that had not been killed by aliens but just by old age.  I went in first and Rich wandered Madison Avenue with the boys and bought them expensive candy.  Then Rich went in and I sat with the boys in the sun on a swank storefront ledge and taught them how to identify facelifts vs injectables.  They were quite good at it by the time we headed home although the six year old could really only spot a bad lift not an artful one and the ten year old felt that most women were walking too fast to really assess the likelihood of Botox assistance.

I had only met Jonathans mother after she had suffered strokes and other debilitating illnesses but I knew people who had known her when she was younger and they always cited her great beauty.  And she looked pretty darned good in the open casket.  Although not nearly as good as she did in the pictures of her glowing with life.  And, as I glanced at her, not really ever having been comfortable with the open casket thing, some thing struck me. She was wearing a Chanel suit.  Now I have never actually coveted a Chanel suit but I do know what they cost.   Jonathans  mother was going into the ground swathed in $5,000 or so of yellow, orange and cream Chanel suiting that, even if sold on ebay, could have fed a family for several months.  And it would, once deposited in the ground, no matter how nice the casket was(and it was a very nice one) disappear in a blur of whatever happens once a human is boxed and begins it’s return to the dust.  I know this seems callous but Jonathans wife, my friend Jane, made the same point.  She also pointed out that the deceased was a very clear-eyed, generous and practical woman who would NEVER want to waste a perfectly good Chanel suit by burying it underground to return to dust.  Particularly since the Bible never, ever mentions ashes to ashes, Chanel to dust.  And this got me thinking again about an issue that has bothered me.  What is the right thing to wear to your own funeral and how do you make sure that your wishes are followed? 

One of my best friends from childhood died at 41.  She had been diagnosed with bone cancer when we were 16 but had lived an amazing life minus a leg, eventually minus a lung and plagued by endless amounts of medical interference, dealing with it all by getting on with her fabulous life. She became a renowned poet, travelled the world dragging her unwieldy prosthesis and buckets of pills and developed an incredible sense of style that involved black, drapey architectural clothing with perfect jewelry accents.  She had strayed far from her working class overtly religious parents and simple roots and had become a woman of her own making, of taste, of culture, of the world and not, loudly NOT,  of any sort of religion.  She and I often laughed about the land of fashion “Don’ts” we grew up in.  So, after years of too much medical meddling, Micheles heart just plain gave out when she hit forty one, while sitting alone in a chair reading a book.  No one saw it coming.  I was asked to give the eulogy at her funeral and showed up in our home town, devastated with grief, new baby and toddler in tow and a wicked stomach flu.  My parents met me, we had a cry and they took the kids so that I could go to calling hours.  And there, laid out in a box, was the most horrifying sight I could imagine.  My dear, dear friend. Dead.  But worse than dead, this beloved fashion conscious woman I loved, she was dead and wearing a purple polyester dress, pink lipstick and her hands were wrapped in rosary beads.  I didn’t know what to do.  First of all, I realized then and there that there was NO afterlife because if there was Michele would have come back, I guarantee, just long enough and while no one was looking because she didn’t like to upset people, to fling the rosary beads across the room.  And purple and pink.  Polyester.  It had never occurred to us that she was going to die.  She’d fought so long and hard and beaten every odd that I think we thought we’d have her forever.  Sure she had a DNR in place for surgeries and other medical emergencies that were her life.  She’d done that years before.  But she had never contemplated, really, what might happen if she died and so she had issued no directives for post death fashion.  Here she was, one of the most Audrey Hepburn-esque women I know, lying in a box, swathed in polyester in a tone that brought out the yellow in her skin and pink lipstick that made her look, well, dead.  “I am so sorry” I whispered.  “I don’t know how to help you out of this mess.”  And it was then that I began to think about what to wear when you’re dead, imagining the laugh that she and I would have had over this, and the directives you need to leave in place to ensure that well meaning parents or color blind spouses don’t pick their favorite thing, that very thing you would not be caught dead in.  Literally.  I have always said, forget the open casket unless I look really good but my experience is that that is unlikely.  But I think we should all think about this, those of us who care about our appearances and like to wear attractive clothes.  What do we want to go out in?  And I mean, really OUT.  What message do we want to send.  Some things seem clear.  No dead cleavage.  Or mini skirts.  Although if your legs were REALLY good there might be an exception.  Keep the jewelery for the kids, grandkids, daughters, daughter in laws.  Do NOT put expensive jewels in the ground to exist with the worms.  We are NOT ancient Egyptians.  I mean, can you imagine, post death, having the family dog killed to go to eternal rest with dad?  Have the same attitude toward jewels.  The ancient Egyptians were simple.  We are not.  Never let the funeral parlor do your makeup.  My GOD.  The only people they have ever given a make-over to are dead.  And they got their training at undertaker school.  Which is a much lower level than Cosmetology School.  Don’t do it.  I don’t know the alternatives but a plain scrubbed face would be better than the Undertaker look.  Even if he is called the Bobbie Brown of Undertaking.  I say skip shoes.  They only open the box halfway.  I say, heck, skip underwear.  Right?!  Particularly your really good French underwear.  Although it’s not like you’re going to hand it down to your grandkids?

I’m not saying you have to do these things.  I’m not even saying that, once you’re dead, anyone will let you.  Or certainly that you’ll care.  I am, however, suggesting you give it a shot and leave an approved wardrobe options list, or a DNDB directive (Do Not Dress Badly) somewhere prominently displayed just in case (buses move fast and without notice).  It’s never too early to contemplate and even in the end, it would be nice to be in control and to look good.  My husband still remembers that his father was wearing makeup in his casket.  My husbands father was a tough guy from the mean streets of Pittsburgh who would sooner beat to death a man wearing makeup.  And how did he go out?  See what I mean.  Looking like he was about to burst into a refrain of “I Feel Pretty”. The dead are, yes, dead, but they should have some dignity.  Who knows whether they are clinging to the ceiling staring down in horror at everything that’s happening to them.  We need to acknowledge that.  And acknowledge that it will one day be a part of our life and one for which we should be prepared.  And well dressed.

And that brings me to my other idea.  My friend Christina has recently been bothered by dreams about all these people in her life who died young.  Her uncle, her dad, some other folks.  I know other people who have those dreams, too.  My husband often dreams of his father, sans makeup, of course.  My mother dreams of her parents.  I sometimes wake up and realize I dreamt that Michele was weeding my garden, something she often did.  It is as though these people are reaching back to remind you they are there.  Just trying to get in touch.  Find out where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.  And that’s when it struck me.  Facebook for the dead.  Think about it.