The Pact (Living Funerals) Symbol in The Celebrants

What the pact is and where it comes fromnThe pact is a private agreement among five college friends — Jordan Aarón Vargas, his husband Jordy Tosic, Naomi Ito, Craig Scheffler, and Marielle Holland Scheffler — to hold living funerals for one another. The novel establishes its origin in the death of their friend Alec Swigert before graduation: after Alec died, the five formed the pact so each member could hear what they mean to the group before death rather than after it. The pact lives in a group text chain named NANA'S HUNGRY LITTLE PIE EATERS, a name that traces back to Craig bringing a pie to Marielle's — a joke the members themselves can barely recall by the time Jordan needs it. The mundane, almost silly name contrasts with the weight of what the chain is for, suggesting the pact is less a formal institution than a running inside joke that has become a lifeline.nThe epigraph that opens the novel — a quotation from Joanne Harris's Chocolat — frames the pact as a celebration of the full span of life, including its end. The living funeral is the novel's concrete expression of that sentiment: a ritual that treats death not as something to be mourned in advance but as something to be acknowledged while the person is still present to hear it.n## Where the pact recursnThe pact has already been used once before the novel's present action. In chapter 4, Jordy reminds Jordan of a trip to Mexico, telling him he was meant to have nine lives. Jordan's reply — eight, after that trip — confirms that Naomi's living funeral took place there, and that the experience cost her one of her metaphorical lives. The exchange is brief, but it establishes that the pact is not hypothetical: it has been enacted, and it left a mark on everyone involved.nThe pact resurfaces in the novel's present as Jordan's cancer returns. In the waiting room at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Jordan scrolls back to the group text chain and holds it up for Jordy. Jordy recognizes it immediately. Jordan asks if Jordy remembers how it started, and the question hangs over the chapter — the origin story is something the characters themselves are trying to hold onto as the end approaches.nJordy's own turn remains unused. In chapter 3, the narration notes that Jordy had yet to take his turn and that, as far as the pact was concerned, the two of them were playing a game of chicken. Neither wants to be the one to pull the trigger, even though both know the pact exists for exactly this moment.nThe pact's most significant recurrence comes in chapter 6, after Jordan announces he wants to discontinue his cancer treatment. Jordy challenges him to trigger the pact, offering it as a trade: call for your funeral and you can stop your treatment. Jordan initially deflects, suggesting Jordy trigger it himself if he thinks they need reinforcements, but by the end of the chapter — drunk and hallucinating that the bartender is Alec — he opens his phone and begins texting Naomi, Craig, Marielle, and Jordy. The activation is not a clean decision; it emerges from an argument, a martini, and a hallucination of the friend whose death started it all.n## How the pact's meaning shiftsnThe pact begins as a youthful response to loss. Formed after Alec's death before graduation, it is a way for five young people to seize control from a mortality that has already touched them. Alec, as Jordy puts it, is the embodiment of their younger selves — the version of themselves that is forever young. The pact is, in part, an attempt to keep that version alive by giving each member the chance to be heard while they can still hear.nBy the time Jordan faces his own terminal diagnosis, the pact has acquired a different weight. Jordan resists it at first. In chapter 4, he doesn't want to be seen in his current state, doesn't want the pity, and doesn't want to sit through a fake funeral when a real one looms over both of their heads. The pact, which once felt like a way to cheat death's silence, now feels like an admission that death is coming.nBut the pact also becomes a site of negotiation between the two Jordans. Jordy uses it as leverage — a way to make Jordan sit through his own funeral and listen to how his death will make his friends feel. Jordan counters that it only matters how it makes him feel. The argument reveals that the pact means different things to each of them: for Jordy, it is a way to make Jordan confront the impact of his choice; for Jordan, it is a way to assert that his ending is his own.nThe Ouija board Jordan gives Jordy in chapter 3 sharpens this shift. Jordan presents it as a way to continue the conversation after he's gone — a darkly comic attempt to extend communication beyond death. Jordy is not amused and slams the bedroom door. The gift is the inverse of the pact: the pact exists to have the important conversations before death, while the Ouija board is a joke about having them after. Jordan's willingness to joke about the afterlife he says he doesn't believe in suggests a man trying to control even the parts of death he can't reach.n## Character connectionsnThe pact binds the five friends together, but it operates differently for each of them. For Jordan Aarón Vargas, it becomes a tool of self-determination — a way to have some say in how his ending unfolds. His requests to Jordy in chapter 6 — keep swimming, stay in touch with his parents, eventually settle down with someone new — are the kind of things a living funeral is meant to make possible: leaving nothing unsaid.nFor Jordy, the pact is both a lifeline and a source of pain. He wants Jordan to use it, but he also resents what it represents. His sarcastic response to Jordan's requests — and his insistence that he will survive without the pact — suggests that the ritual, for him, is bound up with the fear of what comes after.nNaomi's funeral in Mexico is the pact's prior enactment, and it lingers in the text as proof that the ritual works — and that it costs something. The nine-lives exchange suggests the pact is not a neutral ceremony but an experience that changes the people who go through it.nAlec, though dead before the pact was formed, is its absent center. The pact exists because of his death, and Jordan's recurring thoughts of Alec — picturing himself with twenty-two-year-old Alec in heaven, hallucinating the bartender as Alec — show how the pact is haunted by the friend it was meant to honor.n## Theme connectionsnThe pact is the novel's concrete expression of confronting mortality through planned farewells. It turns death from something that happens to you into something you can shape.nIt is also an exercise in autonomy and control in the dying process. Jordan's decision to activate the pact — and his earlier resistance to it — is part of his larger struggle to control how his illness unfolds, from choosing to discontinue treatment to sorting his belts so his family can't take everything.nThe pact is fundamentally an expression of chosen family as a support system through terminal illness. The five friends are not related by blood, but the pact makes them responsible for one another's endings.nJordan's desire to return to Bogotá — to see where it all began — connects the pact to cultural heritage and the meaning of home. The living funeral is a way of honoring where a life began, even as it acknowledges where it ends.nFinally, the pact is built on the principle of leaving nothing unsaid. Its entire purpose is to ensure that each member hears what they mean to the group before it's too late.n## Study questionsn**1. Why does Jordan resist the pact at first, and what changes his mind?nJordan resists because he doesn't want to be seen in his current state, doesn't want pity, and doesn't want to sit through a fake funeral when a real one looms. He changes his mind in chapter 6, after the argument at Joe Allen's. When Jordy challenges him to trigger the pact, Jordan initially deflects, but by the end of the chapter — drunk, hallucinating Alec — he begins texting the group, activating the pact. The activation is not a clean decision but emerges from conflict and vulnerability.n2. How does the pact function differently for Jordy than for Jordan?nFor Jordy, the pact is leverage — a way to make Jordan confront how his death will affect the people who love him. He uses it as a bargaining chip, offering it as a condition for stopping treatment. For Jordan, the pact is a way to assert control over his ending and to say what needs saying. The argument reveals that the pact means different things to each of them: for Jordy, it is about impact; for Jordan, it is about agency.n3. What does the Ouija board gift reveal about Jordan's attitude toward death and communication?nThe Ouija board is Jordan's dark joke about continuing conversations after death. It is the inverse of the pact: the pact exists to have important conversations before death, while the Ouija board is a joke about having them after. Jordy's reaction — slamming the bedroom door — shows that the gift lands as painful, not funny. Jordan's willingness to joke about the afterlife he says he doesn't believe in suggests a man trying to control even the parts of death he can't reach.n4. How does the pact connect to the novel's epigraph?**nThe epigraph — a quotation from Joanne Harris's Chocolat about celebrating life in its entirety, even its end — frames the pact as a celebration of the full span of life. The living funeral is the novel's concrete expression of that sentiment: a ritual that treats death not as something to be mourned in advance but as something to be acknowledged while the person is still present to hear it. The pact turns the epigraph's philosophy into practice.