Woman pens poignant post about planning her own funeral

A patient with cystic fibrosis, who previously took to social media seeking advice about a funeral-planning spat she had with her parents, had her husband share a final update with followers, which she penned just before she tragically died.

Reddit! If you’re reading this, I am dead,” the 25-year-old patient wrote on March 19. “Pretty crazy to be talking to a dead person, eh? It feels a bit strange to be writing this. If this feels a bit disconnected, I’m sorry. I have to take frequent breaks as I get tired pretty quickly now. My husband offered to write these words (such a sweet ham, I know. Be nice to him, okay?). But, I wanted my last words to be written by me.”

The heartbreaking post was meant to update the thousands of people following a post she made a month ago, asking if she would be in the wrong for taking over the planning of her own funeral from her “very religious parents.”

“My issue with this is…well, everything.”

After two unsuccessful lung transplants, the patient said she was told by doctors there was nothing else that could be done for her besides keeping her comfortable in her “last few weeks.”

Looking for any source of solace, she said she began looking into organizing her own final arrangements to keep her mind busy.

“I’ve begun my preparations for my funeral and such, and while I was thinking it would be a breath of fresh air in this whirlwind of death, I could not have been more wrong,” she wrote.

She continued on to explain that both of her parents were strict Southern Baptists and wanted “a very traditional funeral” for their daughter, including a casket, viewing, graveside ceremony, and memorial service with hymns, prayers and scripture readings.

“My issue with this is…well, everything,” she wrote. “I am the complete opposite of my parents; not religious, curse like a sailor, drink like the Irish, you name it. Everything they are wanting and attempting to plan is not me as a person.”

“I want my service to be one full of laughter.”

The patient described how she wanted a service that reflected her personality — particularly, her and her husband’s love of fun and cats.

“I want my service to be one full of laughter, funny stories and pictures, upbeat music, cats (my husband and I are avid cat lovers), I want confetti!” the 25-year-old wrote. “But, more importantly, I want to be cremated and put in a f*****g cat-shaped urn.”

Naturally, the woman’s parents were less than thrilled with the tentative plan and, instead, planned to take their daughter “shopping” for a traditional casket and have her pick out flowers, hymns and Bible verses to be read at her memorial.

“They had been losing their faith”

After seeking out help on Reddit with how to handle the rather unusual issue, the woman said she and her husband made the decision to seriously talk to her parents, where she finally began to understand their point of view.

“Honestly, my parents didn’t take the news of my passing to come well and I suppose their closure was to try and take control of what they could,” she later explained, in the post published after her death. “I’m not angry at them for it, I understand … it was a s*** hand they were dealt.”

The open and frank conversation about her funeral arrangements ultimately ended up with a compromise — and “lots of tears.”

“They admitted that they had been losing their faith with everything that had happened and their way to attempt to find it again was to take control and ‘guide me’ into the afterlife,” she said. “I explained that I am not them, but their daughter who wanted to live her last weeks in peace, not the turmoil they were putting me through.”

“While a lot of people stated that funerals are for the living (true true), I firmly believe that a funeral is for the living to remember that person as WHO they were, not what anyone else wanted them to be,” she explained. “My parents seemed to understand when I told them that.”

The patient ended her poignant post by thanking readers for their support and their over-1,000 comments and suggestions, all of which she said she read before her death.

“I was moved to tears and I wish I had had the chance to meet every single one of you,” she wrote. “You all be good now, (alright)? Take it one day at a time and f*****g enjoy yourself! I love you all. I’m resting easy now. This disease sucks and I’m happy to be rid of it.”

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