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>and this is a way for the dead to cut into the lives of people who now get to move on.

this is why I absolutely love this, it has a Diogenic quality. I've always really disliked how churches and funerals lull people with their bog-standard speeches and an hour after the funeral everyone's bickering about the news or who gained ten pounds of weight.

A death is a great opportunity to shock people out of their everyday stupor, and when my grandfather died who was always somewhat of a trickster, he asked to put a recorder into the coffin with a sort of knocking sound that should play when he was lowered into the grave. Obviously everyone completely freaked out and half of the people were mad but I laughed my ass off.

I think this is life affirming and when you can shock some people and have something they ought to be reminded of a funeral's the time to do it, they'll probably remember it for a long time.

I don’t disagree, and I think if a person does this on their own it’s great, I think that as a business, this kind of thing could be pathological involving folks who aren’t as awesome as your grandfather, and I assume your family was fully aware of his mischievous nature.

Ha! Your grandfather must have been a great man, Barrin92 :)

Playing a practical joke is great, your grandfather sounds awesome.

On the other hand outing someone this way is shitty. It is what a coward does.

> it has a Diogenic quality

Diogenes had the hutzpah to call people on their crap when he was alive. To me, his purported opinion of his burial was not meant to lash out, but to show us the reality of death.

> The "zing" element of it is just a way for someone to be hurtful to people who can never have closure on that...

I agree on this, it's unfortunate that the article focuses on that story first... towards the end, it mentions other stories that are more wholesome (e.g. the story about the wife who left messages around the house for his surviving husband to find) but I guess that unfortunately negativity "sells" better.

Edit - nowadays, considering our shortened attention span, that editorial choice is even more unfortunate (as opposed to 20-30 years ago when news consumption happened offline and in a different fashion - and probably a higher percentage of readers would end up reading the whole article).

I found the idea of letting some people know they were not welcome at the funeral very powerful. There's no simple way to communicate this while alive, and no way to police it while dead. But this works. In my last days I might appreciate knowing that if two-faced rival X dared to show up they would be chased out of town AND that those I loved knew it was important to me. This is for the living and the dead.