planning my memorial....

There have been three deaths in my family since Christmas. The last two were very unexpected. The third was the only funeral I was able to attend. All of this has led to several recent conversations between my oldest sibling and my mother about memorial services and funeral music and what things honor the deceased versus what things are done to comfort and honor the relatives (or "relevants" as my young niece more aptly says.) So now I find myself thinking a good deal about the elements I would want in my own funeral/memorial service/rowdy wake. Simple things like a nice outdoor setting and burning sage, and some more specific things like the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and the first two verses of the Hymn of Promise. And someone would need to sing the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. I once sang it for a National Day of Prayer service, at my mother's instigation, and I think it is wonderful. (There's a version of it different from what I did that has a great folk music tone, done in the '60s by the 3Ds.) And if the music was canned -- which my ashes would rise up and scowl if it were -- I think Joni Mitchell singing "If" would suffice.

As crucial as music is, message is important, too. I would want someone to read the poem "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann, Oh! The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Suess, and a few carefully selected bits of Buddhist teachings, perhaps. Also, the lines

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine, "

from Whitman's Song of Myself should be printed somewhere on whatever is used for a program. That is after all one of my all time favorite poems, and I think that is an apt stance to describe me. . .
There should be some Thoreau thrown in somewhere by way of a prayer, because I like his words. And no sermon. (If my family and friends need to be preached at, they should listen closely to the Ehrmann poem.) Most of all, I want a Speaker for the Dead. I know it might seem sort of cheesy using a concept from a sci-fi series for your funeral, but I've thought since I was a teenager that it is a good one.

It's one thing to celebrate all the wonderful memories we have of a person when their life ends, but I think we do a disservice to them if we only acknowledge the good. If you honor my memory by only talking about the things you like about me, then you are only offering your version of me to the world.

I want to be remembered as a whole person -- even the parts of myself people may dislike, the parts of myself that I sometimes tend to think make me 'damaged goods.' Those are the parts that complement the good things about me, the traits I hope to pass on. Without my 'artistic temperament' I would not be such an empathic person. Without my temper I would not have such a wonderful grasp of invective. I have after all coined some interesting colloquialisms in my more irritable moments.

There is of course one other thing I think a memorial for me would need in order to be complete:

a congregational sounding of a "barbaric yawp."

Followed by a wake with wine and cheese.