A carriage pulled by four horses with black plumes parades through the streets of Triana, amidst applause, flamenco claps, and cheers. Upon arriving at the church of Santa Ana, the coffin, covered with peacock feathers and a black Manila shawl, is greeted by the singing of the Sevillian song Tiempo detente by the audience. Next, Ricardo Miño picks up his guitar and Los Alpresa sing Por el bulevar de los sueño rotos. It was September 8, 2023, and the funeral of the singer María Jiménez was being celebrated. "It was done as she wanted," the farewell chronicles of the great Sevillian artist reflected.
Her farewell was reminiscent of that of B. B. King, who after passing away in Las Vegas requested to be buried in his native Mississippi. During his transfer to the Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church, festivity took over the streets of Indianola, with all the blues venues open with live music to bid farewell to the legend. Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul, also bid farewell in style: a golden coffin, performances by Chaka Khan and Ariana Grande, and four wardrobe changes. Before them, Frank Sinatra requested to be buried with his favorite whiskey and cigars... and a lot of partying. But what was once exclusive to artists and celebrities is now accessible to all budgets thanks to funeral planners.
"My mother had everything organized. We didn't have to handle any paperwork, just call the organizing company to carry out the service as she had planned. Everything was very efficient, and they took care of every detail: the transfer to the funeral home, the wake, and the ceremony with catering that included Manchego cheese and local wine, just as she had requested," recalls Lucía. Her mother, a native of Ciudad Real, always said she wanted to say goodbye to life "with flavors that reminded her of her hometown" to make the final farewell more bearable. One of her granddaughters gave the finishing touch by reciting her favorite poem, Caminante no hay camino by Antonio Machado.
Alejandra, on the other hand, is currently preparing the future farewell of her great-aunt Mariluz. And she has a clear theme in mind: it will be a Viking funeral. "She has always been a great lover of Viking culture. She fell in love with it when she was young after traveling to Scandinavia with friends and has continued to delve into the culture," she explains. There is not a family member without runic necklaces, leather belts, or furs. And when her last wishes are fulfilled, they will have the opportunity to wear them: her idea is for her farewell to be a grand Viking celebration, with a wake where her wooden coffin with inscriptions in Old Norse stands out. Then, after the cremation, they want her ashes to be scattered at sea, a process being studied by the legal team of Pazy, the Spanish company in charge of this funeral and Lucía's mother's.
"Mariluz requested a 'purely Viking burial,' which involves shooting fire arrows at a wooden boat with the coffin inside in the middle of the sea to burn and sink, but that is currently illegal. However, a boat trip will be organized to scatter the ashes in a legalized and designated location," reveals Alejandro Nieto, CEO of Pazy.
It's not the most unique funeral he's had. "I remember the case of Lucas, a man from Valencia who wanted to mix his ashes with fireworks powder so that upon exploding, he would end up in the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air." Today, it is also illegal, so the company offered him the alternative of turning the ashes into a falla. Maria's funeral was luckier: she asked for her weight in liters of wine so her family could toast to her at the wake. "And that's what we did, furthermore, with the leftovers, each family member could take a little bottle as a keepsake," recalls Nieto, who got the idea to incorporate personalized funeral options after his grandmother passed away. "After calculating everything she had paid with the insurance and experiencing the confusion, decision-making, unexpected costs, and paperwork, I thought: Why can't we say goodbye in a more humane way?"
Throughout Spain, religious funerals are the majority choice, representing 88%. But the percentage of secular funerals continues to grow. According to the latest report from the National Association of Funeral Services, 16% of funerals are secular, a percentage that increases to 20% in large cities.
"My project was revealed to me in the corridors of a funeral home to help people who, like me in the past, do not find answers to their fears about death and our end. I don't believe in coincidences, but in cause and effect," summarizes Cristina Borrazas Rodríguez regarding her company, My Emotional Legacy, where she serves as CEO and funeral planner. "I like to mention both of my last names because it connects me with the souls of my deceased parents," she affirms. When dealing with family members, she recommends that people start treating death as if it were a wedding, with "at least a year for preparation." My Emotional Legacy offers pre-mortem services (creating a book that collects experiences and memories); mortem (a "unique and thoughtful" ceremony); and post-mortem (ranging from selecting special urns to different rituals, including symbolic ceremonies for the first anniversary).
Standard funerals cost between 3,500 and 5,500 euros, and exceed 6,000 euros if personalized services coordinated by a funeral planner are added. The treatment of the deceased has more limitations. In Spain, there are only two legal methods for handling the deceased, burial (traditional burial) and cremation. This poses a barrier to ecological alternatives for body disposition such as alkaline hydrolysis, also known as liquid cremation, or human composting.
Funeral planners have a bit more action. They are often inspired by the funeral rites of the United States, which are more festive than European ones, but they are also influenced by farewells like those in the Bolivian highlands and other Andean regions, with a communal, ritual, and festive character that contrasts with the silent Catholic mourning. They have altars, offerings, processions, and banquets, although in our country, what went viral during the lockdown were some suit-wearing pallbearers called The African Coffin Dancers. They were actually professional dancers from a ceremony in Ghana, where funerals last between three and seven days.