Get busy living... or get busy dying.

"It is as natural to die, as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful, as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed, and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death. But, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is’, Nunc dimittis; when a man hath obtained worthy ends, and expectations. Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy. - Extinctus amabitur idem."

--Francis Bacon Of Death


Tonight will be my third wake this month alone.

....

The last time I wrote of death was several months ago, when a good friend was killed just two weeks after my 26th birthday... gunned down in front of his home without warning nor mercy. At the height of his success and the many plans that were soon to follow, he was taken away. Just like that. And I didn't get it.

It was only recently that I have finally come to terms with the concept of death and how I should start planning my own. Now I don't mean to sound morbid or depressing (and no, this is so not some suicidal "cry for help" before y'all start to worry). This is just what I've come up with with regard to the inevitablility of my passing... kind of like how I planned my wedding right down to the ring (with pegs and all).

I think we should all make a final wish before it's too late to make it. Because seriously, God doesn't normally ask you first. He's a sneaky ninja like that. And it's almost holy week so... how more timely could one get?

Ergo...

I will try not to make this sound too tragic.

....

Let me begin by saying that I hate funerals.

Like... I hate them in general.

And not just for the painfully obvious reason of a person actually being "dead" AT the funeral  or that I have a very low-tolerance for pain (despite the masochistically romantic history) --- I don't like them because I don't like seeing the living mourn... the ones who cry and cry and sob and cry and you can literally see the hole in their heart through their eyes... and you know they have to live with that hole --- the painfully operative word: to LIVE. And I know it's stupid but I don't like people crying at funerals... exposing those holes. I cry because of those holes. Then there are the ones who don't look like they're mourning but they really are but they're just too busy entertaining other mourners and they talk about other things and... oh I dunno. Strength in adversity moves me to tears.

And all the while, there's this dead body inside a casket in front of you. Surrounded by huge bouquets of flowers --- all sorts of colorful, lively, beautiful flowers made into these magnificent arrangements... flowers that body inside the casket will never see, smell, nor touch... ever again. And that, too, makes me cry at funerals. The flowers.

They're like bad jokes.

Because they too will wilt and die beside your grave and God, can we have any more "death" surrounding death. Sheesh. Wilted flowers give me the heebie jeebies.

So yeah.

I don't like funerals.

And if God willing... I will grow to a ripe old age of... oh... say... 93 and He will grant me the final wish I have decided to make now... in the day of our Lord, March 29, 2010.

Now I've given this some serious thought and I've finally decided that...

When I die...

I wish to be cremated. (But under the condition that the coffin I'm gonna be set ablaze in will have a bell just above it with the string connected to my hand --- in the event that I am actually still alive, in which I can ring that motherf*cker and escape unscathed.)

I am totally serious.

Ergo...

I don't want a viewing.

I don't want my body put in coffin, put in a funeral home, and kept there for a week. Ok now I was thinking about this at the wakes I've attended ---- and... at first, I figured... "What the heck. Look at all these people who actually care, who want to extend their condolences. That must be really flattering. I'd like to see that at MY funeral." (because seriously, funerals are like the biggest vanity showcases ever... next to weddings) ---- but then I realized...

I'd be dead. Too dead to give a damn. So why the f*ck should I care who comes and sees me save for my close family and friends... the ones who were there when I was ALIVE and breathing. Why should I make my family and friends pay so much for my death???? (Hey, those funeral homes and coffins and flowers and tombstones and mausoleums don't come cheap.) Hell, if there were an afterlife and my soul was watching down on my funeral, I'd be more pissed to see crazy money spent on my death than what could've been spent on me or my family when I was still alive. Shoot. I could've gone to this place and that place, bought this car, or that appliance --- material things that would have made me happy. Temporarily, yes... but isn't that what life is? Temporary?

I'd rather that money went to my family. My kids. My grandkids. Though I would (selfishly) want my death to be sad... I'd also want it to be beneficial. Or at least... non-invasive. Because life goes on. And if there was any way you can help promote it, even when you're gone, then by all frikkin' means, right?

That's why... I don't want a funeral.
 
And God love the people who would've wanted to pay their respects at my viewing but really... I'm not sure I want people sitting around my dead body playing tong-its and socializing, fruit juice in one hand, a wad of cards in the other. (And no disrespect to funerals and to other people's beliefs on death. We all deal in our own way, I totally get that.) I mean, I'm sure my loved ones will need all the consoling they can get... but I'd probably tell them to do it in their own time, you know? Because honestly, why would I let a bunch of people "view" my body when first of all... I probably won't have much of a say as to how I will look (and you know I gots to look helluh good), and second... I don't even let people watch me sleeping so why would I subject myself to that when I can't even argue my way out of it?

Therefore...

I would want my body exposed only to my family and close friends... so that they may say goodbye to my physical being... who I'm sure have grown accustomed to seeing over the years. After which, I would want to be cremated. I want absolute death. No burying me beside a bunch of other dead strangers' bodies. No dreary tombstones or creepy mausoleums. I don't want my grandkids to be frightened by the memory of me. But mainly, I don't want to take up anymore space than I already have on this earth. God gave me my time to tread the earth and leave my footprints... but I would like to return as the dust from which I came. And no epitaphs on how I was a beloved wife, daughter, mother, and friend. I hope that with the way I've lived my life... I won't need one engraved on stone... because it will be engraved in the hearts of those I touched... and it will be they who will immortalize my memory with how they live... and how my life was able to enrich theirs so that they may enrich others.

That is what I want.

And my ashes....

I want them buried in my massive garden or like a secret garden like in... "The Secret Garden" (God willing I have a garden in my family home). I want a flower planted just above my ashes --- maybe a rose bush or marigolds or something. I want my family to tend to my garden so that my grandkids can see that there is beauty in death...

And I can get on to becoming a supernova or something.

But we won't get into my un-religious beliefs and where I believe what happens to us when we die. =)