In Memoriam

It's the final countdown

This morning the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, a nice breeze is blowing cool temperatures and a cute little chipmunk has been scampering around our back patio. So, naturally, my thoughts turn to death.

Hey, not to get all morbid or anything but that’s where this great waterslide of life leads, right? You’ve got your arms crossed over your chest as you slip down the spiraling tube, squealing with delight as the chilly waters inexorably lead you down, down, down to…what, exactly? We’re not quite sure. We hope it’s a giant pool filled with other sliders who have gone before us, and maybe even a swim-up tequila bar. Is that too much to ask?

As I said, we’re not certain what awaits us at THE END, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to make one last impact upon this world of the living. That’s why we have wills drawn up; we confide in our family and friends our last earthly desires; we pay in advance for a plot or a headstone or a plastic bag into which the crematorium can deposit our ashes.

The funny thing is, none of that makes any sense. When you’re done, you’re done. Gone, baby, gone.

When I was younger, and the prospect of dying was a distant fantasy, I got to attend the odd funeral or two, usually grandparents. They were horrible affairs, with lots of sad, crying people and a corpse in a coffin that didn’t look much like the person who had been, until recently, laughing at your jokes, mowing the lawn, and making a third trip to the hamburger bar at Golden Corral. In other words, funerals are bummer.

An actual (blurry) corpse reposing in the Vatican. DID HE JUST MOVE?!?

So, I determined early on that I didn’t want that when I died. I wanted a party! Where everyone would dance and sing and there’d be a New Orleans jazz band and THE SHINING would play on loop in the background. Heck, maybe I’d even have had the foresight to brew a beer that was conditioning all that time, and could only be drunk at my funeral. Come hell or high water, the attendees at MY event wouldn’t be all misty-eyed, shaking their heads sadly, wondering how in the world a jet airliner engine could have fallen directly on me as I strolled to the mailbox that fateful Tuesday afternoon?

Well, that was very naive of young me. Nobody wants to hang out and actually celebrate someone’s life. They want to look at each other with pity and mostly-real sorrow, commiserate with each other about how it was all so sudden. While, inwardly, they’re each celebrating the fact that it wasn’t them in that overly-ornate oblong box with brass handles that would surely tarnish with five months of being underground.

Now, my philosophy is: just burn me up. Get sentimental if you want to (you can leave your friends behind), but make me a pile of ashes and then do with them what thou wilst. Because it doesn’t matter, does it? These survivors we call wife, husband, child, or friend are going to do exactly what they want anyway.

Oh, I know the old saw: memorials are not for the dead, but for the living, so they can cope and move on. Well, that’s all fine and good, but what about those vaunted “Final Wishes”? Do they mean squat all? Yep. That reality might make us a tad irritable now, while we’re still breathing, but trust me, it won’t matter to us either once we reach that bright, white opening at the bottom of the waterslide. Especially when we realize there was a concrete block on a chain around our ankle, dragging us down the entire time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go out and enjoy a little of this nice weather we’ve been hav— Hey! Hey, chipmunk! Get the fuck out of my herbs! Those aren’t for you!