Why not attend your own funeral?

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By Daniel Pink, Contributing Opinion columnist

One Saturday morning in August of 2021, more than 200 people assembled in an Arlington church for the funeral of Richard Hanneman, a onetime Capitol Hill staffer and longtime trade association executive who died of lung cancer at the age of 78.

Four of Hanneman’s seven children spoke at the service. So did two of his grandchildren and his best friend. But the most compelling presence was the third speaker on the program, a white-haired man in a dark suit.

Dick Hanneman himself.

Earlier that summer, learning that he had perhaps two months to live, Hanneman decided to organize his own funeral and to hold it in time to attend. And on that August morning, with tubes stretching from a cannula in his nose to a portable oxygen tank, he told the crowd how grateful he was for the life he’d lived and the people he’d loved.

For the last year, in The Post’s Why Not? project, I’ve been proposing ideas that aim to push past the cynicism of our times and expand our sense of possibility. I’ve examined ideas for reimagining politics, education, civic life, sports, traffic and more. For my final column, I want to tackle a topic that will eventually touch us all: death.

Maybe Dick Hanneman was on to something. Why not attend your own funeral?

This is an excerpt of Daniel Pink's "Why Not?" column from Post Opinions. Click this link to read the full article.