Bernadette Després, designer of “Tom-Tom and Nana”, organized his “preparatory funeral” 34 years ago.
DEATH – The illustrator Bernadette Després, died at 83has been making young people laugh for nearly 50 years thanks to the turbulent characters “ Tom-Tom and Nana », sketched through more than 300 stories in comic. After a ceremony this November 27 at the church in the small village of Givraines (Loiret), she will be buried right next door, in the cemetery of Yèvre-le-Châtel. But as the story goes Releasethis is not his first funeral.
34 years ago, when she was approaching fifty, she organized with her husband, Denis Charignon, a “preparatory burial”. “For their first burial, they saw the big picture. He had disguised himself as a cardinal, she as an angel. A requiem was played for them and they immediately went off to admire their brand new tomb. beautifully relates Emmanuel Bourdier, children’s author, in Release.
According to our colleagues, the couple had had a “ huge sculpture representing two lovers hidden under veils » by the artist Jean Anguera, who with summer “paid with a car “. Her husband, a painter, left a few years before her and is already buried under this original tomb. This Wednesday, Bernadette Després will join him there.
“A living funeral”
More and more people are organizing and preparing their funerals before they die. But the real ones living funeral ceremonies of the person and in their presence remain rare. They mostly allow people to say goodbye to their friends and family on their own terms and celebrate their lives while they are still alive.
“ Living funerals began to gain popularity in Japan in the 1990s, where they are known as seizenso (“living funerals”), the idea being to relieve family members or friends who are arranging the funeral. funeral of a deceased person. The practice has also gained momentum in South Korea “, explain The Guardianwho devoted an article to it last January.
The British daily listed the reasons that could push someone to organize a ceremony during their lifetime: being in the terminal phase of an illness, getting older or wanting to celebrate their life and relationships… Georgia Martin, founder of A Beautiful Goodbyewhich offers a living funeral service, then explained: “ People think it will be morbid. They imagine a funeral in a church, with a coffin and everyone in black. With a living funeral, nothing is set in stone. You can do whatever you want. »
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