WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – When the sheet-bearers brought Phil McLean’s coffin to the chapel, gasps appeared before a wave of laughter crept through the hundreds of mourning.
The coffin was a huge cream donut.
“It has overshadowed the sadness and hardships of recent weeks,” said his widow, Debra. “The final memory in everyone’s mind was that donut and Phil’s sense of humor.”
The donut was the latest creation from Phil’s cousin, Ross Hall, who runs a business in Auckland, New Zealand called Dying Art, which builds custom colored coffins.
Other Hall creations include a sailboat, a fire truck, a chocolate bar and Lego blocks. There were shiny coffins covered with fake jewelry, a coffin inspired by the movie “Matrix” and lots of coffins depicting people’s favorite beaches and vacation spots.
“There are people who are happy with a brown mahogany box and that’s great,” Hall said. “But if they want to shout, I’m here to do it for them.”
The idea first came to Hall about 15 years ago, when he was writing a will and contemplating his own death.
“How do I want to go out?” he thought to himself, deciding that he would not be like everyone else. “So I put it in my will that I want a red box with flames on it.”
Six months later, Hall, whose other business is a signage and graphics company, decided to get serious. He approached several funeral directors who looked at him with interest and skepticism. But in time, the idea caught on.
The room starts with blank coffins and uses fiberboard and plywood to add details. A digital latex printer is used for the designs. Some controls are particularly complex, such as the sailboat, which included a keel and rudder, cabin, sails, even metal railings and pulleys.
Depending on the design, the coffins retail for between $ 3,000 and $ 7,500 in New Zealand ($ 2,100 and $ 5,400).
Hall said the tone of the funerals has changed significantly in recent years.
“People now believe that it is a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death,” he said. And they were willing to throw clogged conventions in favor of something unique.
But a donut?
Debra McLean said she and her late husband, who was 68 when she died in February, used to tour the country in their motorhome, and Phil liked to compare cream donuts in every small town, considering himself a connoisseur. .
He considered it a good donut, crispy on the outside, airy in the middle and certainly made with fresh cream.
After Phil was diagnosed with bowel cancer, he had time to think about his funeral and, along with his wife and cousin, came up with the idea for the donut coffin. Debra said they even received 150 donuts at Tauranga’s funeral at Phil’s favorite bakery in Whitianga, more than 160 kilometers away.
Hall said his coffins are biodegradable and are usually buried or cremated with the deceased. The only one he has ever returned to is his cousin’s, he said, because he used polystyrene and modeling foam, which is not environmentally friendly.
Phil was changed into a simple coffin for cremation and Hall said he would keep the donut coffin forever. For now, he stays behind his white 1991 Cadillac stroller.
What about your own funeral? Hall said he changed his mind about those red flames. He emailed his children saying he wanted to be buried in a clear coffin, wearing only a leopard-shaped cord.
“The kids say they’re not going,” he says with a laugh.