My Funeral
Thoughts on living and dying
I’ve been to a lot funerals here lately. Unfortunately, I know I’m not the only one. In some respects, I’m fortunate that I’ve only been to a relatively few compared to some. That little bit of reality doesn’t do much to alleviate the pain of loss.
Of course, going to these funerals and surviving the loved ones that have passed makes one face their own mortality and death. As you’d imagine, I start thinking a lot. This is going to be a fairly heavy post, so if you’re currently grieving and/or not in a mental space to really think about death, then I recommend you not read further. But this is how I cope. I have to deal with it bluntly and honestly.
Breath is life. The constant in and out, feeding our body with energy. It’s that first push/pull that drives the heart and every other rhythm of the body. At first we depend upon our mother’s breath, but then we have to breathe on our own. I have no idea what happens to our consciousness when that breath stops.
Ethically, I’ve always made it a point to not live my life around assuming that there is an afterlife or that it’s of a particular nature, simply because I don’t know. I won’t make decisions based on an assumed reward or punishment on the “other side”.
It should be no surprise then, that I’m not very concerned with what happens when the breath stops or after it stops. I’m more concerned with dying well. In order to die well, I must live well, or at least living well makes it easier to die. It makes it easier to say that I’ve done what I’ve come to do and now it is time to rest.
At least I imagine it that way. Who knows what I might feel when I’m grasping for that last breath? If I am to follow the Tao or the Buddha, then I should not grasp, not even for that last breath. Right now it’s so easy to breathe. It’s what I return to, over and over again. How would I respond if it wasn’t so easy? Will I fight for that last breath or just let it go?
I wonder what it’s like for those on ventilators, who don’t actually have to move their diaphragm to fill their lungs. The machine does it for them. Their human body machine is too weak to make the breath move, but there it is. Deus ex machina, indeed.
What does their body tell them?
“Hey, I know there’s oxygen coming in, but we’re not doing anything to make it happen and there’s this weird thing shoved down our throat!”
It sounds horrific. It seems like the body would be confused.
“Why am I not dead? I’m not breathing!”
Talk about trust. How can you trust that you’re actually alive when you’re not breathing? That constant in and out that’s always been there since you first cried outside your mother’s womb. I reckon the heartbeat came first, so there would be that indicator.
Yet, most people who are put on ventilators don’t actually survive the ordeal. They die there in that suspended state of no breath but the heart still beats. It has to feel like death because it’s so close…
Funerals aren’t for the dead. They’re for the ones left behind. They provide closure and finality to a life as perceived by others. It’s a time to celebrate that life. It’s a time to share the stories and for everyone that loved the deceased to come together and remember. It’s a time to share grief.
Unfortunately for some, it’s a time of regret. Time not spent. Words not said. Entire possible futures that will never happen now. Their possibility forever erased. We thought we had time. For those of us left behind, all we have left is time without them. So many questions of could, should, would… At least we have a definitive answer now, “not anymore”.
Funerals rarely help me with my loss or my feelings. I’ve never believed in Heaven or Hell. Yet every funeral I’ve been to has been predominantly Christian and everyone talks with such faith and certainty of “seeing them in Heaven” or “they’re with Jesus”. Sometimes I wish I could have that certainty, but my mind won’t let me. I won’t let me. The only thing that I’m certain of is that the deceased is no longer suffering and we’re going to miss them.
I especially find it distasteful when pastors try to use a funeral as an “altar call” or “come to Jesus” moment. The last thing I need while mourning a loved one is to have my only chance of being with them again be held hostage by an entire structure of religious dogma. “Believe these things and you’ll be with your loved one again! Don’t and you’ll burn in fire!”. I don’t find that particular messaging appropriate at funerals.
I know I’m in the minority in those cases. I know that those words and those beliefs comfort a large number of people. I know it’s not about me. I do wish more people would think outside of themselves and recognize that not everyone believes the same things. Just because your beliefs are in the minority doesn’t mean that you still don’t need some sort of spiritual comfort and guidance through the loss.
I’ve had to deal with death in my own way. I’ve had to build and refine my own beliefs. I don’t think death is final for the deceased. It’s only final for us and our relationship to them. I can’t claim to know anything about the fate of their consciousness or personality.
I do believe in a soul, but I don’t think it’s what everyone else thinks it is. My definition of soul or spirit is far more natural. It’s the air we breathe. It’s the dust that makes our body. My soul is not my own. We share one soul and it’s this bit of wet space rock spinning around a star. When this star explodes and melts our world, our soul will melt with it and then be flung out into space, to become new souls. Or was there ever really only one soul, one thing, to begin with? I don’t know.
Obviously, for our intents and purposes, this conception of the soul definitely survives our individual deaths. It is both me and not me. So I will both survive and not survive my passing.
One message I’ve received from our soul is “nothing is ever truly lost”. I take this to mean that we have not lost anyone. They’re still here. They’re just spread out in the wind and rain and earth. They didn’t spread out only when they died, but were doing so their entire lives. They shed their tiny bits of soul on us while they were alive, so they’re still with us in our memories. They shed their tiny bits of soul wherever they went, wherever they ate, wherever they pooped, wherever they laughed and wherever they cried. Those tears fell to the ground or onto a handkerchief. The salt in those tears nourished the earth. The water in those tears evaporated and have been in countless clouds and rainstorms.
We constantly shed parts of our soul and take on new substance and form. We leave ourselves everywhere. The air I’m breathing now is the same air that my ancestors breathed while on the mammoth hunt. My bones were once in a dinosaur and a rat. I have been recycled, created, destroyed, changed, over and over and over again. Now I am me, here, thinking and typing.
I don’t know how I’m going to die. Will it be tragic or heroic? Will it be swift or slow? Will I be surrounded by loved ones on some great drugs in in-home hospice care? Or will I be fighting for my breath on a ventilator? I won’t know until I know. I do have a preferred way to die that speaks to me spiritually, but before I describe it, I have to tell you about my funeral.
I don’t want a funeral. I want a going away party. I don’t want anyone to know it’s a going away party either. To everyone present, I just want them to experience it and know it as a party. To me, I’ll know that I’ll never see them again nor will they see me, and I will cherish that short time left with each and every one of them (except maybe that one guy… who invited him anyway?).
The day after the party, I will pack a few supplies, a rifle, and a knife. Maybe I’ll take a hatchet too. I hear they’re useful. Then I will go out into the woods somewhere. Preferably, I’d find some sizable chunk of wilderness in the southeast US where I can roam and never see anyone. I prefer this region simply because it’s where I’ve lived the majority of my life and it’s the land that has nourished me. It always has and always will be a part of me, and I part of it.
There I will live out the remainder of my days in solitude, close to the Mother.
I will hunt and survive as long as I can. Eventually, as my body fails, nature will take its course. Maybe I’ll be taken out by a pack of coyotes or a bear. Maybe I’ll die peacefully in my sleep under a tree. Maybe I’ll get bitten by a snake and its venom will stop my heart. Maybe I’ll break my leg and starve to death where I lay.
No matter how it happens, I will return to the Mother in the most intimate way. I want to feed the carrion birds. I want mushrooms to grow out of my skull. I want to house bugs and worms and nourish them. I want to be ripped apart by coyotes and turned into the milk that feeds their pups. I want the calcium in my bones to feed the trees and bushes and flowers. I want to become bird’s nests and beaver dams. I want to be ground down and return to the dust from where I came.
This is a far more spiritual way to go than dying in a hospital or hospice care, having a funeral, and being buried in a casket. Being cremated is only mildly more preferable. Society (or my wife) probably won’t let me go out the way I want. I’m sure there’s laws against dying unrecorded in the woods, and that’s a shame.
Funerals are for others however. They’re not for the deceased. As stated above, they help people with finality and closure. I really don’t want there to be any closure with my passing, because I’ll never be lost. I don’t want to close my book, I want it to become legend.
Time will tell how much choice I get in that matter. For now, I know this… If I want to die well, then I must live well. If I want to die a legend, then I must live a legend.
May we always remember the legends that loved us and that we loved. They never left us.
