The Greatest, At Rest

A week before her husband dies, Lonnie Ali changes the plans for his funeral. The funeral she had envisioned is too big, she thinks. It is too complicated. At her annual meeting with the man who has been doing most of the planning, she says, "Sit down. I have to talk to you about something."

She is making changes because she believes she has time to make them. Her husband is not even sick. And besides ... he's Muhammad Ali. She began working on the plan a decade earlier in response to counsel, and she's come to regard it as part of his routine upkeep, not so different from helping him with his meds. There are just some things you have to do, she says. She is not planning his funeral because she thinks he is going to die but because she has known him since she was a small child -- and a part of her thinks he is going to live forever.

Her meeting with the man planning her husband's funeral, Bob Gunnell, takes place right before Memorial Day weekend in 2016. When he goes back to the office on Tuesday, May 31, he tells members of his staff that they're going to have to scrap a good part of the plan they've so painstakingly crafted. Then, after work, he gets a call from Lonnie. "Bob," she says, "I just want to make you aware that Muhammad has got a little cold. It's nothing to worry about, but as a precaution I'm going to take him to the hospital to get checked out."


http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/19409912/the-planning-muhammad-ali-funeral