Ever think about your own funeral?
Many of you know about my being a movie buff, and I just watched one with John Lithgow and Morgan Freeman about the problem of burying a black Vietnam vet who won a silver star for heroism in an all-white cemetery. Although I really have nothing in common with the situation of the movie, it did make me think about impending death and funeral. At my age, and somewhat failing physical condition, I guess the topic becomes a little more pertinent.
So I kind of wondered, who would I want to give a eulogy when that time comes, and who would I want to sing on the occasion? Of course it is just fantasy, but I do have choices (notwithstanding that it will never happen - I might as well say Queen Elizabeth to make the eulogy and Frank Sinatra to sing - neither of which could or would ever happen) even if my choices are mere conjecture.
Okay, I want the eulogy to be delivered by Morgan Freeman, and I want Leonard Cohen to sing - not sure if it should be Hallelujah , or Closing Time . I suppose if I had wanted someone to sing Amazing Grace , it would be Joan Baez. I just think Closing Time is more appropriate.
So I ask you, who would YOU want to deliver your eulogy, and who to sing what song? I know many of you are kind of in the same situation in life as I am. I really don't want to die yet, but I'm kind of approaching the time when statistics indicate I'm eligible.
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Okay, I'm sure many of you don't want to think about it, and others are too young to be concerned about it, but I guess your choices of persons to eulogize you and sing at your funeral are just a matter of thought and my macabre curiosity.
I just want to be deleted.
Surely that's a perfect response if a person happened to be a computer geek.
Being late is one possibility, but what about not showing up at all?
I want my ash laden can tossed over the side of whatever ship the Navy has that bears the name Enterprise. You can send me to Davy Jone's locker with nothing more than a salute from someone wearing a pair of Aircrew wings, blowing on a Boatswain's pipe. I'll be happy as a clam!
An electric crematorium sounds like a good, clean, and space-saving way to be disposed of, in my humble opinion...and my children shall determine whether I deserve a eulogy or not, they could cherish my ashes in an urn or an empty wine bottle (indeed, I have told my one daughter to empty out her favorite bottle of wine for the purpose) and set it up above the kitchen cabinets or someplace "I" can watch her cook (which she loves to do) and partake of the wonderful aromas of her culinary creations, or if I do not deserve to be cherished, simply scatter my ashes at a to-be-determined spot! Whew, that was a long sentence, wasn't it?
How about THIS Enterprise?
Make that a Dom Perignon bottle (vintage year, of course).
I forgot to say "contents included". LOL
Heck yeah, I've pondered my demise and how the symbolic drifting away ceremony should go. I've been mighty close to the edge a number of times over the decades due to my own stoopidity or random events of which I had no control. Consequently, I've considered the end.
Here's how I've got mine scoped out. First, burned to cinder. Don't lay me down in that cold cold ground. I've got my daughter on board to carry my ashes, hopefully in a Yuban Can, and spread half of em cross the Blue Ridge and the other half cross the Cascades. I figure it'll give her a mighty fine road trip. That's that. No muss. No fuss.
Since music has been my metaphysical muse and companion during my time on this ball of dirt I have a few tunes I'd like played at the ceremony. My step daughter has graciously agreed to sing em. They go as such:
As far as a Eugoogly, I don't much care. Somebody can say something or not. Here sits a likeable assclown goober who never intentionally fucked anyone over in life....or whatever.
The thang of most import is The Wake. I do want a fine party to be held and a few friends with different bands are willing to play. Heck, were I a richer feller I'd hire The Drive By Truckers or Scott H Biram to play. In another lifetime I guess. Anyhow, a going to who knows where or nowhere at all party for friends and fambly. Music and libation. Dancing and whooping.
That's all she wrote.
Unfortunately I'm not able to see the videos (if that's what they were) that you posted in your comment, so I can't say anything about them, but the idea of the Yuban can reminds me that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman had their ashes put in Chock Full 'O Nuts cans in the movie The Bucket List.
I have told my son to have me cremated and then to dump me out someplace nice. He said where, I said I don't care. No funeral. If my d-i-l, a devout Catholic from Spain, wants a mass to provide closure for her, my son and grandsons, I told her that would be ok by me. No funeral necessary.
As an alternative to that, stick a big old soup bone up my ass and let the dogs carry me off.
Absolutely, we must have our priorities right and people need to eat and drink. No service, no eulogy, no tears. Although, something must be done with the prison that was my body, I'm not opposed to cremation. Sneak the ashes to my favorite fishing hole and let them fly. You'll need a boat, so there will be no crowd. Oh yeah, one more thing, at some point play "You can't always get what you want". Vaya con dios.
Come to think of it, and after reading your plan, it might be more realistic for me to just stagger out to the compost heap, expire, and have my daughter shovel debris over my body. I guess she could whistle "Lost Highway" while she toils.......
Debris is an important element in being laid to rest apparently .
Grump, ROFLMAO.... but not yet ready for the soup bone!!!
My Dad was Lakota, my Mom Cherokee/Choctaw. I want to be cremated, no eulogy, and my grandsons to scatter my ashes from a rock ledge that overlooks the river here, while my granddaughter sings the Cherokee Morning Song.
Then I want them to drive back home remembering the great times we had swimming, horseback riding, camping... just being together, while they play at full volume Rod Stewart's "Forever Young."
Gee Buzz, I got to be honest, but this personally upsets me. First, I'd like you to live to see the day, that you can come home to Canada and meet your grandchild (and yes I know your son lives in the US).
I don't think about death so much as I think about the time I have left on this earth and what I want to do with it.. I guess I am a bucket list kind of gal. My family knows what I want done with my body, which is to donate my organs... and the what is left of me, they can do as they please. I don't want anything expensive, and I hope that someone would have something nice to say about me.
And this would be the song I would like.
Never saw "Stand Up Guys", but I note that it has a great cast and the concept seems to be worth watching.
What song is that, Perrie? (I can't open the youtube.)
If I don't get to return to North America, my wife will probably bury me on a mountainside, which is the usual thing here. They have a great traditional custom called "Jing Ming Jie" which means "Grave Sweeping Day". On that day of every year the family of the deceased go to the grave site to clean it up, light off some firecrackers to chase away the evil spirits and burn some fake paper money to provide for the spirit of the deceased.
Buzz,
I had to do a lot of searching for you... and I found one that I think you will be able to open up. It's just the perfect song.
This iframe is not allowed
Louis Armstrong-What a Wonderful World by redhotjazz
Perrie: Although I still cannot open the site you posted, I am very much familiar with Louis Armstrong's version of What a Wonderful World, as it has been used in many movies.
However, my article is about LEAVING that "Wonderful World". To me, Frank Sinatra singing "My Way" is more the kind of song I thought would be more appropriate.
Many of the comments to this article refer to cremation. In order to alleviate the hunger suffered by many in this "wonderful world", the concept of Soylent Green" would be more appropriate (and I know you are very familiar with that movie).
In the novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land", it is suggested that we should partake of the flesh of our friends and family when they die, in order that their spirit will live on within our own bodies. Back in my weekend hippie days in the 1970s, a good friend of mine who was a folksinger died from lung cancer - she was a dedicated smoker and her death was one of the reasons I gave up smoking, especially after many visits to the hospital to see her waste away. I was her executor, and according to her wishes she was cremated and her ashes dumped into the lower Niagara River which she had lived next to, and had spent much time on its banks in meditation and the composing of music. A number of her friends were present at her funeral on the banks of the river, and I was asked to speak. What I spoke of was that by scattering her ashes into the river meant that they would flow into Lake Ontario, from which Toronto draws its water. I said that when we drink water in our Toronto homes (Toronto water can be drunk from taps, bottles are not necessary) we might be drinking a molecule or two of our deceased friend's body, and with it ingesting some of her spirit to carry within us for the rest of our lives, just as Michael, the protagonist in the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, had noted. (Besides the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the "bibles" of the hippies in those days.) After the ceremony, an elder of the hippie community declared that I had become an "elder" with them - which at the time I considered to be a tremendous compliment.
I would like any and all money that would have been spent on all of that to be spent on my family and friends however they wish. If they want to buy tickets to Cedar Point (which is a big deal here in Ohio, an amusement park about 1/2 hour from our town), or go out to eat, or go to the movies, redecorate, whatever would make each person I love really really joyful. It will be my little "thank you" for being in my life and giving me the honor of being a part of yours.
And I want everyone to be having so much fun that they forgot why they were even there....and think, "Oh, Stephi loved me and said, 'I'll see you when you get to Heaven!"
Then bury me in the woods where I love to be, surrounded by all the woodland animals that I love.
That beautiful doe was just peeking right into our bedroom window one summer morning!
Shades of "The Ginger Man" ... He wanted to be pickled in a keg of stout & served up throughout greater Dublin .
Buzz, I think you have missed my point about using that song and my personal desire to have any and all parts of me used for organ donation. I happen to think that life is pretty wonderful. If my death helps someone else enjoy life longer, then they can enjoy the wonderful things there is to being alive. And in that way, a bit of me goes on, in a useful positive way.
Sorry the video didn't work. I am a bit confused since it's not youtube.
Sorry Perrie, I DID miss your point. Now I understand.
Some websites show videos that work for me, and some don't. It is not just YouTube. You previously showed me one that did work. However, things change. For a while I could open IMBd, then I couldn't, and now I can open it again.
I hope I did not cause a death tonight. While driving a small fawn suddenly appeared in my headlights at very close range as it tried to run past the front of my truck. I panic stopped with screeching, anti-locks pulsating, and still felt an impact on the front of my truck. With only about maybe 5 feet to stop a full size truck.....no matter the amazing brakes on these vehicles....STILL I could not stop from hitting it.
I could find no evidence of the fawn and I hope it just got bumped a bit and is still going to be OK.
I have a doe that comes and has fawns in my yard and feel a connection to "my deer" as as I see each succeeded generation grow up and anew one replace it.
Like that fawn..we may all meet our time suddenly without prewarning.
I am now at a life crossyards. The default position is leave my trail almost completely erased with only a death certificate filed with the authorities and no trail at all leading to it.
If the other road is where fate sends me I'll let whoever may survive me do as they wish..as I will be gone and nothing but my body and examples will remain.
Death is an inevitable part of life and I don't think discussing it is a bad idea.
I'm glad you are ok, USC!
You are right, you just never know. And so we live out our days, hoping that we leave behind a spirit of good.
That doe is now on the sexual predator registry ...
Sounds like the Burning Man festival ...
Exactly.
My father recently died. (Not passed away.) His body went straight from the hospital to the crematorium. No service or anything. The memories of his life are more important than memories of a funeral service that takes money and gives nothing in return.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my father, but we loved life and all that went with it. I'm now almost 64 years old and I can see my end approaching. Sometimes slow and sometimes fast. But it will come. Appreciate what you have now and let others worry about you when you die. Because you wont know about it.
Granted that no ceremony is required, since your father will live on in your genes and your memories, and the stories you tell to those who follow you.
i'd rather have Morgan freeman set up the ring tone on my phone (see Two and a Half Men episode).
I can only get to see snippets of episodes. Which episode is it?
Now that's my kind of funeral.