Your Dying Spouse 60 - FUNerals

We're linked with Wedded Wednesday, hosted my the terrific Messy Marriage site.

Some people take the Klingon view of death - it's a transition to eternal life, and the body can be disposed of in the most efficient way possible.

But others like to plan ahead, to the point of taking advantage of prepaid funeral arrangements, and take an active role in the 'program' for their own memorial service.

I take the former view, personally. I don't want people talking about the man I never was, and presenting a Powerpoint show of a life I never had.

The truth of a life is found in the way it's lived, and not in the way it's remembered. I'd rather let the legacy of what I tried to do right be the only memory.

That may be an extreme view. I have a lot of them, so it's not lonely.

But if your mate is a planner...even if you're not, try to join in, because they're trying to tell you something that's very much in their hearts, something they can't directly express.

They're afraid of being forgotten, of being just a picture in a scrapbook that one day just won't be opened.

So they plan...and the funeral is really a way for them to say, "I was here. I mattered."

And sometimes, they want to have a bit of fun with it. Music's often a big issue, and when I dying person thinks about what songs will be sung at his or her funeral...the sad ones are usually shown the door.

No 'Memory 'from Cats.

Van Halen is likely to crash the party with 'Jump'.

Or perhaps it'll be AC/DC taking the stage, with one of the top five memorial-service songs...wait for it...'Highway to Hell'.

This may sound perfectly dreadful, but please, don't through cold water on your mate's plans. This individual is faced with something that's frightening even with the strongest reserves of faith...and isputting a brave, and laughing face on to get through the moment.

You're not going to get renounced by Jesus because you went along with putting AC/DC or Motley Crue on the playlist.

For one thing, if you change it at the last minute, your spouse isn't exactly going to call you on it.

Second, even if you let it stand...so what? Music may have a particular resonance with a person's life; knowing, for example, that it means something to an Iraq War veteran to have the unofficial anthem of that conflict played at his or her memorial service won't place you in the position of an accessory, sending them to hell at the last minute. (The Iraq anthem is 'Bodies', by The Drowning Pool.Here's the link to Youtube, if you're curious, but don't say I didn't warn you. Just remember that this is what resonates with the kids who we sent to die to make the world safer for us.)

It'll mean you understood, and understand, and that you have a sense of humour.

Even in the face of death.

Let the FUNeral begin.