My father, Jack A. Marshall Sr. was always remarkably fatalistic about death, much to the chagrin of my mother. She was never amused when he repeated his supposed desire to be displayed sitting in a chair, eyes open, at his wake with a metal plate in the floor in front of his casket that would trigger a recording when mourners stepped on it. Then a recording would boom out in his voice saying, “Hello! I’m so glad that you came!”

Dad was half-kidding, but only half. My father hated the solemnity of funerals and found open casket wakes barbaric. Yet I have to believe he would have been secretly honored by the send-off the military gave him when he was buried at Arlington, with the horse-drawn caisson, the riderless steed and the 21-gun salute.

Today I learned that someone actually carried out my father’s threatened posthumous prank, but even in worst taste than what he proposed. The Wills, Trusts, & Estates Prof Blog reveals that Irish grandpa Shay Bradley, a Dublin native, arranged that after his death in 2019 a recording of his voice would be played at his funeral from inside his grave. Mourners heard repeated banging noises that sounded like they were coming from the interior of the coffin. “Hello? It is dark in here! Let me out! I can hear you! Is that the priest I can hear? I am in the box, can you hear that?” his voice could be heard shouting, in apparent panic.

Hilarity ensued.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is executing such a prank at a funeral ethical?

I’ll say this: I’m sure glad this story wasn’t publicized while Dad was alive. He really did have a bizarre sense of humor: as I have mentioned here more than once, he died on my birthday and managed to have me discover him dead in his favorite chair, and I half-believe he planned it that way to show us that he regarded a sudden death at 89 as a gift to himself and his family.

Shay’s daughter Andrea was obviously in on the joke and helped set it up. She posted on “X”, “Here is a picture of the legend himself. My dad, Shay Bradley. It was his dying wish that we play this at his funeral. What a man. To make us all laugh when we were incredibly sad. He was a man for one man. Love you forever”alongside a picture of Bradley with a smile on his face and a glass of wine in his hand.

The blog tries to justify the black humor by pointing out that “Current Psychology” found that “humor is commonly used by grieving individuals and can aid emotional recovery by lifting spirits and helping cope with sorrow.” Well, sure; I got quite a few laughs in my remarks at my late wife’s memorial last year. But there’s a rather significant difference between relating some amusing reminiscences and a practical joke evoking Edgar Allen Poe’s nightmares.