Occupy Death

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_saul_let_s_talk_about_dying.html

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

--Gloria Steinem

I am really looking forward to being dead. From what I've read I have an idea of what being "dead" is like, and it sounds a lot easier than being alive on Earth.

I'm not in a hurry for it. I feel it would be dishonorable to die deliberately. That is not my choice to make, either. When I've finished what I've decided I needed to do here, that will be the time to go--and I don't know what I'm supposed to finish.

I am afraid of dying. I'm afraid of prolonged, uncontrollable pain; reliance on medications and/or machines; seeing people I love in pain because I'm in pain. I can only hope that doesn't happen.

I saw the lecture above on ted.com, so I thought I might write about what I'd like to have happen if I can't speak for myself in a medical situation. The lecture recommends asking a dying person two questions:

If you had a health condition that prevented you from making decisions on your medical care, who would you like to have speak for you?
Have you discussed with this person what you would want done?

I'd have to answer "don't know" and "no." I'll have to take care of that in offscreen space.

But perhaps I can write a bit about what I'd like to have happen if I were to die. The last funeral I went to was Mum's. My siblings were/are wonderful. But perhaps because it took place in Massachusetts, far from my friends, I didn't get the amount or kind of comfort I needed. At the funeral home, someone made me look inside the casket, and that did not help me. Throughout the events, on top of being sad I was very uncomfortable. Thank God Tom was with me, especially in the church. (Little did we realize that he would return to his home to discover that his love's mother's mother had died, and so he went to a second grandmother funeral in a week.)

I would like my organs to go to science, unless my body's so old it's of no value. If that's the case, cremation, please, and scatter my ashes in a pine grove.
For a memorial, play "Harold and Maude." Play Cole Porter tunes on a piano--hire someone if you must, and hand out sheet music to everyone so they can sing. I want the smelliest flowers you can find in season--hyacinths, maybe, or lilies. Recite the W.H. Auden poem that was read in the funeral in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral."
Please, no Catholic church--a Unitarian Universalist church, or a Unity church. If people speak about me, there must be at least as much laughter as there are tears. Someone, please, speak a bit about Woodstock.

Other highlights of my life are the day Tom was born, 5.5 weeks early and in 3 hours, 15 minutes; the day I held Lucy for the first time and knew she was just what I wanted; life in San Francisco; selling 128 boxes of Girl Scout cookies; the fireworks at the Brooklyn Bridge Centennial; the seven weeks I studied film at USC and met Alfred Hitchcock; the five days I spent in Rutland VT and Tom's wedding; reuniting with Abeer in Paris under the Eiffel Tower; ice skating in the woods behind Karen Callahan's house; the Dance Camp in Claymont, WVA, when my tears washed me clean; the afternoon in my home when the trance medium Rita Chippy and someone else visited.

I know there are more. I'll be back.