Are you dead? Or just faking? Tell me true.

Here’s some good advice for anyone considering faking their death:

Nope. The answer is:

Skip the memorial service.

Actually … find another church! One more caring, less kooky. Perhaps, this one. Read on …

Alison Matera of New Port Richey, Fla., should have done just that last Friday, but instead her ruse was exposed when she sat among mourners, listening to friends and family celebrate her life.

Celebrate? You’re kidding. They never visited her or, seemingly, carried on a serious conversation with her. [SERIOUS: an archaic word meaning the opposite of ridiculous.] Much less even noticed the chirping birds circling their heads!

It all started, the St. Petersburg Times reported Friday, when the 27-year-old told members of her church choir that she was dying of cancer, and that she soon would start receiving treatments.

Matera then started giving her friends regular updates during her “treatments.”

Then, near the end of last year, she told them she was giving up her fight and entering a hospice so she could die, the newspaper reported.

Y’all? Let me repeat:

Y’all?

This sounds fishy. How many people do you know …? Oh, never mind. Read on …

She “left” the church, but choir members said they continued to receive calls from a “hospice nurse” with updates on Matera’s health. The same “nurse” then called choir director Timothy Paquin on Jan. 18 to say Matera had died. Paquin said he then received a call from someone identifying themselves as Matera’s sister, detailing the family’s arrangements for the body.

Does this church not have a priest? Why are these folks being called? I mean this is a heckofa ministry for a choir!

The strange thing, according to a report filed with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, is that all the choir members said the callers all sounded exactly like Matera.

🙂

I’m starting, I fear, to lose a grip on reality. Please. Join me in a moment of madness, won’t you?

Paquin said he called the hospice and local funeral homes, but none had ever heard of Matera.

So … what? You scheduled a memorial service? Without, forgive me, a body? And … people came?

Then, when the church family gathered to mourn Matera’s death, a woman looking exactly like Matera showed up [actually, that doesn’t look anything like her!], claiming to be her sister, they said.

Choir members called the sheriff’s office for help, and when deputies went to Matera’s apartment she confessed the hoax, saying she needed to separate from the church community.

Good grief! (Oops, sorry about that.) This is the nuttiest story! I hope she doesn’t leave the church. Bloom where you’re planted? Right?

Read it all here.