I’ll be creating my living will soon, making explicit what I’d like done in case I’m ever unable to make my own medical decisions. So let’s deal with the possibility of death full-on here. What do you want for your funeral? All I know is that I don’t want “Amazing Grace” sung, played or performed at my funeral. I realize funerals are for the living, not the deceased, so really what I want doesn’t matter at all since I’ll be dead. This kind of rumination is pure self-indulgence.
So being self-indulgent, I’ll say that I like imagining a service without “Amazing Grace,” without a priest saying, “accept your servant, Regina” and without anyone referring to their god as a “Father.” I also feel better imagining myself cremated so that there’s no need for a casket, gravesite or burial. I hate owning things and I don’t like taking up a lot of space. I don’t like the idea of leaving my body behind for people to have to present and bury and tend the grave later. That’s all too much trouble for a corpse. Just turn me into a pile of ashes, metal and teeth and scatter the ashes — oh, it doesn’t matter where. Lake Michigan? Just so long as there’s nothing left to set on a ledge and have to dust.
But since funerals are for the living, I guess I’d want people to do whatever makes them feel better. But I’d still ask this: if someone has to read the 23rd Psalm, at the conclusion of it (“I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”) I’d like those that knew me best to think to themselves, “Or not.”
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