Funeral Songs & Apart-Hotels | 4M #203

Welcome to the two-hundred-and-third edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #203, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

Time for the Top 10

For the last 20 years, Co-op Funeral Care, one of the UK’s largest deathcare corporations, has compiled an annual list of the top songs selected for funerals, and the newest results are hot off the press. Just curious … are any of these on your funeral home’s Top 10?

1. Time to Say Goodbye by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli

2. My Way by Frank Sinatra

3. Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy

4. You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and The Peacemakers

5. The Best by Tina Turner

6. Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran

7. Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler

8. Abide With Me – Hymn

9. We’ll Meet Again by Vera Lynn

10. You Raise Me Up by Westlife

Kudos to this judge

Welp, you win some, you lose some … and thank goodness, Jon Hallford is now on the losing side. Hallford, co-owner of the infamous Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, appeared in court on Friday to receive his sentence for admittedly abusing 191 corpses. A plea deal for these state charges would have sentenced Hallford to 20 years in prison, a stint that would run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence for wire fraud. However, the judge heard the cries of the victims’ families who protested the fact that a concurrent sentence could lead to Hallford spending less than two decades behind bars — and he rejected the plea.  “I heard an overwhelming perception that the justice that had been worked out between the attorneys was justice that did not accurately reflect the truth of the victim’s experiences,” said Judge Eric Bentley, according to 9News.com. Hallford can now withdraw his guilty plea and the case will go to trial.

Need a vacation?

Here’s a very cool video documenting a Jacksonville, Florida developer’s transformation of a 110-year-old former funeral home into an upscale 13-unit “apart-hotel” for short-term rentals.

Will? What’s that?

Here’s some food (or, actually, some statistics) for thought — a recent survey of 2,000 found the following regarding their thoughts on end-of-life and their legacy:

• 80% of Americans care more about their impression on loved ones than leaving a mark on the world (54%)
• 36% believe leaving inheritances for loved ones is a top priority, while 35% believe it’s ensuring their family’s financial security
• 59% plan to leave something behind for their families
• 50% have discussed end-of-life wishes with loved ones, despite deep family focus
• 65% don’t have a will, including about half of seniors. 
• 58% of those without will say a better understanding of how to start the process would motivate them to create these documents