I wonder who will cry when I die.  I close my eyes and imagine my funeral.
- Will Aunt Emma actually buy a ticket and come down for the occasion?
- Will old time friends feel compelled to make the trip and join their tears with those of my folks in remembrance of my life?
-How about those who once upon a time broke my heart?  Will they even hear the news, and if so, will guilt eat away at them like a flesh eating disease? And pain, will pain direct them to my grave, bring them down to their knees as they put down the flowers they never thought of getting me while I was alive?
-At the wake will mournful guests speak of my life and remember it better than it was simply because I’d joined the departed.
-Will the speeches be heartfelt and eloquent; tallying up my best moments, overlooking my flaws, maximizing my qualities while being punctuated by silent sobs? ‘An ode to who she was” could be the poetic yet tragic title of such prose.
-Will it all have ended prematurely? Would I have lived my life fully or barely chipped at a ‘to do before I die’ list?
-Would death prove to be the best party I’ve ever thrown and warrant one hell of a wake? With gift baskets holding a framed smiling photo of me, perfect conversation piece to begin inappropriate lustful chats between guests with no concept of adequacy.

Mom will be devastated, dad will be comatose and the siblings will support each other’s weight as they close my casket, and officially send me off to the land of the dead.  Somewhere in the room my soul will float around, noticing who showed up, who is holding back tears for fear of messing up their make up, and who is checking their watch to see just how much time went by.  I’ll be the queen of my own morbid get away party.  Spying and gauging just how heart felt the screams are.

 

Providing there is an after life, I suppose transitioning to the other realm must be difficult, seeing those you impacted, watching streaks of tears running down the faces of those you never got to know. I wonder if after experiencing one death I’ll opt to come back as something else next lifetime to avoid the confusion of humans parting.

Perhaps I would come back as a tree, strong and steady with green shiny leaves, my only worry would be birds shitting on my branches or dogs urinating on my roots and of course, the occasional hurricanes/tornados/earthquakes. Or perhaps rematerializing as a four legged creature would prove to be simpler. I could be a dog, one of those small rat-looking creatures that the affluent seem to cherish and carry around in Prada bags.  My dog years would be carefree; I would spend my days marking my territory everywhere, no worries, no responsibilities, no clear understanding of human tragedies.  Life as a feathered animal could however be one exhilarating ride, flying free, a nomad, my wings leading me wherever my beak points.  What would conversely be twisted irony would be to reincarnate as a fruit fly, a roach, or a bobcat, varmints which I am sure somehow are necessary to the balance of life in the universe (note to self find out exactly just how essential rodents/weird insects are to the sustenance of human well being) although most of us don’t exactly know why. 

Perhaps after experiencing life as a rodent I would reflect on how once upon a time I roamed the earth as a human being, able to feel, to laugh, to understand concepts such as passion, love, tax return season, and miss it.  Miss taking long baths with candles all around, miss owning a credit card and overcharging it on a whim, miss having a family, a network of people who care about me (for the most part), miss experiencing a complex range of emotions on any given day, and being able to rationalize and have control over my instincts. To make a long story even longer, I would miss being human. The day of my demise is not upon me yet so I reckon entertaining lugubrious thoughts and picturing morbid scenes about my funeral is unnecessary and also a tad twisted. When the day that punctuate the end of my days arrives, whenever it arrives the most important thing will be the knowledge that I have lived my life the best way I knew how.  What happens at my wake or whether aunt Emma shows up is really unimportant, and also naïve…she doesn’t do planes, but I might get a card though. Life is ephemeral; spending it envisioning death, for purposes other than philosophizing at cocktail parties, is plain bad time management.