My dad went to an 86-year-old’s funeral. She was carried out to Rod Stewart’s ‘Hot Legs’

4 days ago 6

Opinion

October 3, 2025 — 11.14am

Ages ago my mate Veronica and I hatched a business idea we still talk about: filming people delivering their own eulogies, then stashing them at our HQ until the eventual funeral.

The business had the catchy name, “If You Are Hearing This I Must Be Dead”, because that’s how clients would kick off their spiels. Then they could hail beloveds, talk themselves up, call out enemies, whatever they wanted to get off their chests.

Writing your own eulogy is the only way to ensure people get to hear about your version of yourself.

Our own lives got in the way of us cashing in on others’ deaths, but the idea of taking control of what’s said about you at your final party has stayed with me. (Melbourne filmmaker Dan Thomas had the same idea – last year he started filming people self-eulogising for $1500.)

How many funerals have you been to where the eulogy has been a wild mismatch with the dearly departed? When they die, everyone becomes a goody-goody, an Earth mother, fixer of hearts and fights, a ripper bloke to have a can with, too good for this world.

Imagine how refreshing it would be to have the more honest version straight from the horse’s mouth via the grave.

I’ll kick off with mine, if it helps: “Kate was a jealous person who overcompensated for insecurity about her looks by blowing her own trumpet too much. She could throw a banger party with 20 minutes’ notice, loved with fierce generosity and rarely vomited.”

Recently, my dad showed me the funeral order of service for his cousin’s octogenarian wife. So ace: the front cover portrait was the lady in question in a sexy red dress, ascending a photoshopped staircase with the help of giant angel wings.

She was carried out, Dad reported, to Rod Stewart’s Hot Legs. The personalisation fascinated my parents, maybe in part because at age 86, doing death your way is something they think about a bit. So much so that last year my son Felix sat them both down and filmed their farewell speeches for when their big day comes in 20 to 30 years’ time.

If they were confronted by the exercise, it didn’t show. Both Helene and Bri were upbeat, reflective, positive. Both ended with messages of love to each other and the family they’ve built from scratch.

Love was also a theme when writer Linda Brossi Murphy made headlines this week for leaving one last piece of work: her obituary.

Published on a US funeral home website before being picked up by global media, Brossi Murphy wrote she was “way too young” to die at 60 after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“My advice is to say ‘yes’ to the party, the trip, the adventure,” she said.

“Please be kind to everyone: the telemarketer, the grocery clerk, the tailgater, your family, your friends. Make people happy, that is the best way you can honour my memory.”

Her last act? Brossi Murphy “swung by” a hospital to donate her brain and spinal cord for ALS research. “So to my earthly existence, I say farewell. It was a blast while it lasted. We sure did have fun!”

Comedian Sammy J interrupts final rehearsals for Fiasco: A Burke & Wills Musical when I text to ask what message he’d deliver at his own send-off.

“Please eat all of the sandwiches in the foyer afterwards,” he says. “Don’t add to my family’s grief by making them regret their catering spend.”

My friend Gaz: “Until the last day, I believed humans are capable of so much more than they think.” My brother Sammy: “I was terrible at relationships, fun to be around and always put my kids first.”

Broadcaster Libbi Gorr: “I sacrificed much for many. But n’er carbohydrates for myself.”

In 1997, I worked with Shelli-Anne Couch on the Who mag cover story about Michael Hutchence’s death. Nearly 30 years on, the Victorian farm-girl-turned-LA-writer and entrepreneur dashes off her own obit.

“I sped through life with the throttle wide open,” she texts. “I leave a legacy of witty one-liners and at least three farm animals named after pop bands.”

Your turn. Unless you want to risk being perfect and cliched as well as dead.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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