Dear LFTP: a dying father's last wishes

• How important are a dying person's last wishes?

A listener asks how important a dying person's last wishes are: their father, a WWII Navy veteran, wanted to be buried with his first wife in a distant state, but the estate and his current wife can't comfortably afford it — would it be horrible to do something else, like scatter his ashes in the ocean? The 'secular advice' suggests wishes in writing, notes the current wife would legally hold the ashes, and offers dividing the ashes into thirds. The hosts joke about cremation lockets and urns, and conclude with lighthearted advice about keeping a shirt or his cologne for memory's sake.