No.29 : Plan My Funeral

No. 29: Plan My Funeral

Now I'm not planning on dying any time soon.

But let's get real. Everyone does it eventually so might as well be prepared.

Because you know what would just kill me? Having a tacky funeral. 

And unless you make some plans and set some guidelines, the people that are still living will be left to their own devices when it comes to sending you off into the hereafter.
Do you want that?
I don't. 

Besides, it's a kind thing to do.  Bereaved family and friends want to do the appropriate thing, the perfect send off....but it's a hard time to think straight.   I know when my brother Paul passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly, it was a challenge to plan with my family and his family the best way to say goodbye. There are time constraints. So many decisions. And we wanted to honor him.

Brother Paul in the 70s. 

Best head of hair ever. 

Gone too soon.

And I am haunted by a funeral I attended in the early 80s. A wonderfully talented, slightly flamboyant friend that I worked with died of AIDS. He was one of the first confirmed AIDS deaths in Houston. There wasn't much information about AIDS but what was out there firmly (and in this case, appropriately) placed it in the realm of gay men. 

The problem came with his extremely conservative parents who held the funeral in a huge church with a very disapproving preacher. A preacher who made it known that this wonderful fun person "got what he deserved" by messing with the Lord's ways. It was awful. It was a travesty against the deceased and an insult to his many gay friends who came to say their goodbyes.   I will never forget walking out and hearing the person behind me say "If Thommy were still alive, he would have died from embarrassment today". 

So I've been doing a little reading.

There are lots of ways to go off into the great beyond.

Today I'm going to talk about some "disposal" options, Thursday I'll finish up with some ideas of my own. 

Let me just put this out there right now. I may not have all the details sorted out but I do NOT want to be pumped full of chemicals, put in a shiny metal box  and stuck in a cement lined hole in the ground.  What a waste of money and resources. 

Because a traditional funeral is expensive. Those pretty caskets lined with satin are BIG money makers for the funeral homes. And a funeral plot? Well, I guess it can be nice to have a spot to go "visit" with those that have passed on... but cemeteries take up acres of land and are filled with bodies  embalmed with  toxic chemicals.
 Nope. Not going there.

A beautiful old cemetery in Austria. 

I might not mind spending eternity here.

Eco funerals or green burials are getting popular and I like the idea. Forested areas where bodies are minimally prepared, wrapped in shrouds, placed in simple wood or cardboard caskets, planted and allowed to decompose. Fertilizer for the woods. That has a nice feel to it.

This is a gorgeous bio-degradable casket.

Again, a possibility.

I could sign up for Plastination.  That's where the liquids and fats in the body are replaced with plastics- yielding those wonderful specimens that fill up the BodyWorlds exhibits. Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of the process, has set up a body donation program in Germany. Might be a way to travel the world and I've always wanted to be in a museum.

Von Hagens with one of his bodies. 

Can we say "creepy"?

But I think cremation is my way to go. It takes a lot of energy to get the ovens hot enough to crisp up a body, but I guess I won't be concerned about that when the time comes.
I love the Indian way of cremating bodies. A fire on the beach and toss the ashes out to sea. (Or into the Ganges River which doesn't sound quite as lovely.)
Somehow I don't think that will fly in Galveston, though.  Or any other beach close to home. Probably have to be a traditional crematorium for me.

But here is what I won't be doing. I won't be emulating Mickey Easterling. Even though I have to give this woman credit for carrying on the fun into the  great beyond, I don't think my family will go for it.

And what did Mickey do?

She died last month at 83 and left strict instructions regarding her last party.  Specifically, she attended her own wake dressed in a feather boa, a "Bitch" broach pinned to her blouse,  with a flute of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other, propped up on a bench.  Really.

Apparently still the life of the party.    *

Now THAT'S a way to go.

Now just wait a minute...

Let's Just Hang on ONE Minute Here....

I will be the first to say that this is a blog geared to the more mature adult. 

And I will be the first to admit that I am a mature adult.  Most of the time.

I mean...No. 29 on my list is "Plan my Funeral".   Not an item usually found on a young person's list. Or really, anyone's list.
But it hit me that if I don't plan it, then people who love me and are responsible for me WILL- and maybe their taste isn't mine and I don't want a tacky funeral or even one that isn't me.  Not to imply that my friends and family have tacky taste- just that what is important to them might not be important to me. 

Besides. I consider a little advance planning a good thing.  I am an organizer at heart.

BUT....I'm not planning on needing No. 29 any time soon.
I don't have one foot in the grave.

*

Not needing this. Yet 

But a "green" funeral does appeal to me.

AND...  I am on good terms with my dermatologist AND my hair colorist in an attempt to stave off the advances of time.

*

Not my hair. Yet.

Which made yesterday's turn of events all the more distressing.

I was driving my girls to Best Buy in search of new lap tops. Both of theirs have died and are at the age where repairs would be a waste of time and money.

They were teasing around and then Belle said "You know, we can't help it if we have parents that are basically GRANDPARENTS."
Excuse me??
Okay. I admit. I was an older mother. I believe the technical term is "Advanced Maternal Age".
I had amnios with all three of my children.
With the third child/third amnio, the hubs and I walked into the office for our pre-amnioscentesis counseling and the nurse walked out and yelled "O! It's you guys again!! Y'all didn't need to come in for pre-counseling. You know what's going to happen."
I'm guessing they don't get that many repeat visitors in that office. I mean, we hadn't been there for two years, yet she still remembered us?
I was only forty one.  Forty two by the time Bunny arrived on the scene.

OK. I can believe my waist line exceeded 42 inches.

But not my years...

Goodness, I was enormous!

Anyway, I don't feel old.  And yes, even though the hubs is the oldest child in his family now, we have the youngest children. The youngest grandchild and the oldest great grandchild are 18 months apart. My prince of a husband has siblings with grandchildren.  Lots of them.

Soooo.  Belle hit a nerve.
And I did what any nerve-struck mother would do.
I turned the car around and went home.
They need to learn to be nice.

After I cooled down, I took Bunny back to Best Buy.  Belle wisely decided that yoga class was a better use of her time and she would be happy with just any computer that was brought home.

So we are checking out and the salesperson needed to see my driver's license.
(I actually had written a CHECK! How archaic and old person of me.)
As he handed my license back he chuckled.  "O, I accidentally entered your birth year as 1919."
EXCUSE ME???

Better get to work on No. 29.

And this brings me to something else.

The "for your age" statement.

As in "You look great  for your age."  Or as someone posted on Facebook after I put this tale online "I think you look really great for 94."

People.
This is when you need to learn to stop while you are ahead.
"You look great".
No qualifiers or modifiers needed.

Off my soap box.