SINGAPORE – Two days before Christmas in 2023, ovarian cancer patient Michelle “Mike” Ng staged an unusual farewell by hosting her own living funeral with the help of HCA Hospice Singapore.
Ms Jayne Leong, principal medical social worker at HCA, a charity supporting the terminally ill, had surfaced the idea of a living funeral with Ms Ng. “I used to get perhaps one inquiry a year in the past. But I had three or four calls last month when Mike’s video went viral,” she says, adding that she has organised a handful of living funerals over the years. These were small affairs involving the soon-to-be departed and his or her family members.
In South Korea, a unique trend has seen tens of thousands attending a different kind of “living funeral”. The Hyowon Healing Centre, run by a funeral parlour, holds mass funerals where participants write out their wills before lying in wooden coffins. This rite purportedly helps them reflect on their mortality to better appreciate life, seek reconciliation and, ultimately, live better.Ms Carolyn Too: "When I was told I only had six months, I said: ‘Okay, fine.
“It destigmatises death as a taboo and also gives the person who is dying more control and autonomy. It’s also cathartic, there’s healing and reconciliation at a different level,” she says. None of the hospice’s patients has asked about a living funeral.Interactive: Meet the givers - and recipients - of last wishes in S’pore
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