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The
Gaffer 2008 Archive |
When I Die, Part 4:
By Willie Gaffer
Januaryv21, 2008:
The Final Celebration:
I wrote this essay back in 1996 for my book, “The
Gaffer’s Shorts.” Now I want to update it and make it part of the
“When I Die,” folder for my heirs. This says, as well as I can what
I would like to happen at my final celebration. To be sure, this can only be my
wishes since I will have no control whatsoever over what actually takes place.
I can only hope those who knew me will honor the central theme.
Life is an interesting adventure. We know we come into this
world totally dependent. If not for other folks, we would die shortly after
birth. What I had not considered until recently is, that will also be how most
of us leave the world. We start with diapers and end with diapers. I have seen
enough once strong and proud men in diapers. I don’t like it at all. For
the lucky ones, there will be a loved one there to “Attend” us.
All this has caused me to think about the final arrangement.
I have attended many funerals and thought a great deal about the process. A
majority of the funerals I have attended were botched in some way. Of these,
bible thumpers with an agenda achieved most of the botching. It should be as
difficult to botch a funeral, as it is to botch a bowel movement. Both should
be very natural things.
So far as I can tell, there are only two goals which a
funeral must achieve to be successful. One is to celebrate the life of the
person just passed. Second is, through that celebration, to allow the survivors
to make closure. Nothing else is important.
To be blunt, a funeral is not about the church or God.
It’s not about an agenda. It’s not about bible thumpers. It’s
not even directly about the dearly departed. A funeral is a final celebration
of a completed life wherein the survivors can make closure and begin the
healing process for an enormous personal loss. If each and every participant
does not make this closure, the funeral has failed in its purpose. The final
celebration is for the survivors.
Since it is possible I will die someday, I have made this
outline about how I would like things to be for the folks I love. The very
first thing I want to be sure of is to exclude professional holy people from
speaking at my final celebration. I have found too many of them who are either
frauds or fools and sometimes both. The people who love me, and there are some,
do not need someone to feed them a line of bull about everything being all
right. When someone you love dies, everything is not all right. It’s
shitty. It’s enormously painful, even if it was expected.
In order for everything to be all right, you have to mourn
your loss. You must weep, curse, piss, and moan until the pain is bearable.
Then, gradually, things will get better and you will come to know that it WILL
be all right and that death is natural and it will come to you also. You
don’t need any damn bible thumper to tell you about it. You don’t
need anyone with an agenda at all. You need a gathering of friends to share the
final celebration of a life completed.
The purpose of the celebration is to experience the
separation process, to experience the grief and sadness and to honor the
achievements of a human life with others who cared. After the celebration, you
should be able to go about your business, while the healing continues without
making a career out of mourning. You should be able to remember a friend with
fondness and humor. You should avoid the kind of silliness that causes some
people to gather once a year and stand around the highway outside an airport
where a plane once crashed. I get fed up to puke with people who make a career out
of public mourning and with the maudlin deviant media which sucks them on.
The manner of death is really very irrelevant. Whether we
had an accident or just got old and wore out; whether someone made an error,
which caused our death, or it came as the result of some deliberate act of a
demented person, what does it matter? If someone killed me, or if you think
someone killed me, forgive them. If you can’t do that, at least forget
them. Minerva will take care of that detail. Just comfort my friends and celebrate
my life.
Most people who come to a final service don’t come for
the deceased. They come to offer whatever support they can to those who are
most devastated by the loss. Those people are welcome at my celebration. They
must be thanked on my behalf. Even clergy may be welcome as silent supportive
friends of the survivors.
Don’t listen to anyone who says, “It’s a
shame. He could have lived a lot longer if he ...” There are two things
to know. No one who really knows me would say that and the person saying it is
someone with an agenda. It’s some kind of reformed sinner casting for
converts; trying to save someone. Ask them to leave even if it’s a
relative.
As to children, I am firm in the belief that they should not
be forced to attend funerals. They may be invited. If they are up to it they
will come. If they are not up to it, it is a heinous thing to make them attend
and traumatize them forever. It is beyond heinous to force them to view a
corpse or to kiss a coffin containing a corpse. It is an emotionally violent,
evil act.
The final celebration must have two parts. The first, formal
part is a time to get in touch with what you feel by hearing music and words.
For the words, someone who knew me well should be asked to speak. You will want
someone who can get through it without breaking up. There may be others who
will feel the need to speak. This should not be more than three or four people
who knew me and they should, out of kindness to the assembly, limit their
speaking to five minutes or less.
I think it’s appropriate to have music for the
occasion. I believe the Ashokan Farewell is the best for me and my friends. I
cry every time I hear it. It’s soulful music. It must be done, however,
just as it was done on The Civil War sound track. If you cannot find a group
who can perform the piece, the CD must be used in a way that only the Ashokan
Farewell will be heard.
The second part of the celebration is the sharing of food,
drink, and music in the honoring of a life completed. People, at this time,
will begin to remember and share what they knew of me. There will be anecdotes.
Some of them may even be true. For food, I believe a buffet with pizza,
antipasto, raw vegetables with dip, bread and crackers. Except for the pizza,
kind of what we would have on Christmas Eve. For drink, have an open bar with
soda, beer and wine. No hard stuff! I would like a celebration, not a brawl.
And, let it be a celebration of my life! Don’t dwell
on the gloom and doom. Remember what I did and how I did it. Remember, I
enjoyed life. Viewing the remains is not an essential part of the healing
process. Sitting around with a corpse is not emotionally healthy even though
it’s traditional. In addition, an embalmed corpse, while not a medical
threat, is simply an insult to the environment. Once the spirit has left, you
have only a dead body. When I am done with this body, there will be no useful
parts left, but if the medics want parts that is fine. One could question,
however, what they would do with a stone heart, a beer soaked liver, or a
decayed brain. Whatever works for the survivors is fine with me.
Once the surgeons get what they want, whatever is left
should be cremated. Gravesites just take up real estate for no good reason. And
they can be a source of future conflicts among people. Look at the silliness of
some early Americans over, so called, sacred mounds. Dead is dead for goodness
sake. The spirits are not there. They are with the Great Spirit. My ashes can
be mixed into the ground somewhere where they can reintegrate into the
environment. Around our flowers would be OK. Everything should be useful.
As to where the funeral should be, it’s a celebration. Have it in the same kind of place you would have any other celebration. A banquet facility or hall; and let it last long enough for each participant to make closure. This does not mean a spouse or offspring must stay all day. A trusted friend can do it. Everyone should be able to leave when they are ready. When it’s over, the survivors should be able to say, “Willie knew how to live and he knew how to die.”