Six Months Left

I got an interesting text message last night from my friend Anne. It was a plea for help with a psych paper and it posed an interesting question. If you found out you only had six months left to live, how would you spend that time?

I called her, rather than try to type out a decent answer with my thumbs, and gave what I thought was a pretty standard answer. After the initial nervous breakdown upon hearing of my own eminent demise, I would travel to all the places I think I'll have time to see, like Ireland and an ocean. I would make videos for my daughter including some for special occasions like graduations, her wedding day, the birth of her first child, etc. I would call people who had an impact on my life and thank them and write letters to the few teachers I remember fondly, something I should do now but don't. After giving my answer, I emailed Anne the Tim McGraw song Live Like You Were Dying. I thought it appropriate and was surprised she'd never heard it.

At some point in the conversation we drifted off topic. (I know, hard to imagine two old friends, both women, could possibly drift off topic, but it happened.) I gave her my theory on what should happen after I die and told her I want my friends to laugh at me. She seemed surprised so I explained.

I have done tons of stupid things in my life. There are a lot of stories that could be told about me after my funeral. People always tell stories about the dead, but they rarely do so with the expressed intent of laughing. The people who mourn me will have their crying time and will no doubt feel compelled to share their "she was a good person" stories all by themselves. I want them to know that gathering together to have a few drinks and laugh at the many times I made an ass of myself would be a way of honoring the dead that, in this case, would be endorsed by the dead. Tell my kid all the idiotic things I've done now that it can't ruin my credibility. I figure, between Tom, Jame, and Anne, they could pretty much compile complete list of my stupidities from age 13 to my death. Like the time I bought a new pillow, and the cover had some pattern printed on it. The first night I used it I drooled in my sleep and the dye from the pattern got pulled through the pillowcase and I woke up convinced I was bleeding out of my ears. And when I got into a very heated argument with Tom about whether or not New England was a state, and he had to pull up a map of the continental US to prove me wrong. Ahhh, good times. Too many people feel guilty laughing and smiling after someone dies. I want my friends and family to laugh and smile. I want everyone to gather together at my home, pitch in to buy a weekend's worth of food and beer and wine, and relate all the memories they have the decency not to remind me of while I'm here. If, gods forbid, I die before my children are old enough to know me as an equal, I want them to learn to see me that way when I'm gone.

I probably should call the people I'd call if I were dying, but how exactly do you express gratitude to people who may not even remember you? Anne told me that one of the people on my "In case of impending death, call" list is back in town. I want to look him up, but what would I say if I did? In my mind he's still 19 years old with long blond hair and a notebook of prophetic sayings. Would meeting him now, after life has gotten a chance to turn him jaded and cynical, ruin my nostalgia? I suppose there's a certain freedom granted to those who can make the call and explain that they're dying. Dying people have nothing to lose, and an instinctive exemption from societal rules such as "Don't call the leader of a long-dead Mountain Dew cult to say thanks for making my sophomore year fun."

But in case he ever reads this, Thank you Jeremy. No doubt you are one of the few people from my life I will remember even after the Alzheimer's sets in.