(Via MSCG/Flickr)
A chronically-ill Canadian man has done away with tradition and hosted his own wake – complete with pig roast, Supertramp tribute band and hearse rides.
Reg Lansdowne, from Wallaceburg, Ontario, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and fears he doesn’t have long left to live.
Knowing his days are numbered, Lansdowne decided to forgo the sad and dreary funeral held in tribute of most recently departed, and while he was still living, throw himself “the world’s best party”.
Held at the local Canadian Belgian Dutch Club, Lansdowne invited all his friends and family, and using money he inherited from his mother’s passing, put on quite a shindig.
He told the Toronto Star:
Why should everyone have to spend my inheritance and have the party without me? I got to hug and kiss everybody; we all talked, and everything else. When I die … there’s no funeral. That was it.
Guests were treated to a Supertramp tribute band, a pig roast, and Lansdowne in a suit and tie, posing for pictures in a pine coffin.
After the eulogies, the assistant funeral director at a local funeral home gave Lansdowne a ride around the block in the hearse.
Lansdowne calls it the best party he’s ever been to – that is until the next one, planned this weekend to celebrate his birthday.
“Why should everyone have to spend my inheritance and have the party without me?” Reg Lansdowne explains his wake: bit.ly/YKZh5p
— Katie Daubs (@kdaubs) March 1, 2013