Real Stories: Renée Brack
Holograms, fireworks and the Rolling Stones. We loved hearing Renée’s wild funeral plans and learning more about the documentary she’s working on about her experience supporting and learning through her artist-father’s dementia journey.
THE FUN OF A FUNERAL: embracing death helps us love our lives
I’ve been planning my funeral and visiting cemeteries like a tourist looking for a place to enjoy a long lunch with a view. It going to be a colourful event that will cost around $50,000 allocated in my estate before I die to ensure it all goes according to plan. I’ll produce it while I’m physically capable.
Embracing death is freedom. Avoiding it is not. Accepting that it’s a vital part of life reduces fear. When we are afraid, we have less joy in the present and less appreciation of the wonder of life, moment to moment.
I love funerals and have been going to them since I can remember from age four. As an adult, I love the opportunity to show the real emotions we feel – to laugh one minute and cry the next – to say what needs to be said. If more people went to more funerals and learned to employ this process in personal and professional situations, I believe we’d be more open and honest with one another and ourselves, particularly in this current COVID and post-capitalist world.
MY FUNERAL
The festivities start at 6pm at a venue TBC where I’ve enjoyed great times with friends. I’ll edit my own funeral video with highlights from my life of amusing survival. For example – I had a loaded .44 Magnum pointed in my face and the trigger pulled. I went to the biggest war of my generation in the Middle East and came home alive. Being a rural girl, I regularly stroll across the road assuming traffic will stop because they don’t want to damage their cars or their no claim bonus.
I’ll create a life-size hologram of myself so I can attend my funeral and pre-program interactions with people I love whom I hope will be there – plus a few witty jabs and stabs for people who may turn up with whom I have old scores to settle. I will have the last word.
The script for the service will start with a pun: the first three letters of the word ‘funeral’ are ‘fun’ and that’s what we’ll have tonight. Songs I want are lyrically appropriate in ironic ways and will be licensed to allow usage during the event. They include:
Gypsy – Fleetwood Mac
The Last Day of Our Acquaintance – Sinead O’Connor
Out of Time – The Rolling Stones
At the conclusion of my fabulous life and funeral, fireworks timed to the songs will fill the night sky. My hologram will be there too, marvelling and commenting on the display. I need a balcony or outdoor area for the spectacle then guests can enjoy the Wake at the same venue with outdoor and indoor catering. In the event of inclement weather – the date will of the funeral event will be changed. Nothing and no one rains on my final parade.
MY GRAVE
I cannot be incinerated - no cremation for me and here’s why. As a kid, I used to sneak out of bed, crawl under the couch and secretly watch the TV shows my parents were watching. As an eight year old, I saw the World War 2 holocaust and was deeply traumatised. I didn’t tell anyone about the nightmares (that persist to this day) because I didn’t want to get into trouble for sneaking out of bed.
The happiest time of my life was living among nature in a little rural hamlet on the NSW south coast. There are two little cemeteries there and the Anglican one is the prettiest.
I need a ten-year battery to be buried with me (Maybe Elon Musk can help?) so that three songs play softly on 24 hour rotation. The slab on top of my grave has to be set askew so that if by some freak accidental I’m buried while still a little bit alive, I can escape or be ready for the Zombie Apocalypse. Now before anyone scoffs – a zombie after-life is a possible reality (plenty of movies have documented it) and if Christians believe the Jesus ‘resurrection’ story then they must agree he was one of the original zombies. The notion of returning for another life as a zombie is appealing because it’ll be normal to not care about what I look like, what I wear or what I eat. Bliss!
The slab askew also allows three songs to be heard by people visiting the cemetery:
So Alive – Love & Rockets
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? – The Bee Gees
Come Up & See Me Make Me Smile – Steve Harley & The Cockney Rebels
I think this is deliciously dark and funny which is who I am – alive and/or dead. The Bee Gees song is a little sad because my love life is littered with heartbreak.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
In my Will, there is an allocation for a PR company to maintain my digital presence for ten years via my three websites and social media. There are plenty of writings I have not published that can be shared. Because I have no children and no heirs, I don’t have immortality via DNA and future generations. So my home will be converted into a writers’ retreat for women who need to finish works-in-progress. Mentors will ensure recipients of three and six month in-residence opportunities adhere to a schedule of progress deliverables with outcomes to be published or destined for the screen. The rest of my estate will be allocated for writing and scripting awards for women in Australian and international festivals, until the money runs out. This is my legacy.
I am doing death my way. I’m embracing the funeral as a last big hurrah full of colour, fun, my typical humour and - I’ll be there.
I hope it freaks everyone out.
If the funeral doesn’t, my grave will.
See you on the other side ;)
Renée is developing a documentary that explores how we best care for loved ones with dementia, reflecting on her father’s journey;
Ticketyboo is a social impact documentary exploring the deeply personal story of my artist-father's dementia. How I did and didn't cope sparked new awareness, activism and advocacy. Becoming aware of what we can do to keep connected to loved ones with dementia is an ever-changing process full of mixed emotion and opportunity to evolve as a human being. I investigate what people from various cultures and nations do to make the most of life with a dementia diagnosis in the family and explore the world for global innovations in care.
Find out more here.