But Dan had made a special request before he…

But Dan had made a special request before he died. He asked that everyone in attendance wear both a Hawaiian shirt and their finest Groucho glasses. When we all looked around at one another during the crowded service, it was as if we were all channeling Dan.

— from The Landing (Death) · Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions by M

In the book

Our rituals around the landing can look almost theatrical from the outside, but they do a serious and necessary work — they honor the one who has gone, they carry the grievers through, and they weave a finished life into the ongoing story of the family. I have seen people meet the end with astonishing grace: one man, dying, stood in a room full of the people who loved him and watched himself reflected in their eyes; another asked every mourner at his funeral to wear a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of Groucho glasses, so that grief and laughter would arrive in the same breath. And beneath all of it runs the oldest accounting there is — that in the end every hidden thing we have done, whether good or bad, is finally brought into the light. — The Landing (Death)

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