For When I Die

Just a post where I'll plan my own inevitable death and funeral.

Autopsy relief

I was kinda glad when they found cocaine in Whitney Houston's system. It makes me feel slightly better when I wash my Xanax down with liquor.

A long time from now, when I die....

Someday when I die, somebody will have to print up one of those little programs for my funeral. But I am not religious, and it is customary to put a religious verse in the program.  So, in case they read my blog before sending the order out to the printers, this is what I would ideally like my funeral brochure to read:

Words are flowing out like
Endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe.
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me.
 Images of broken light, which
Dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe.
Thoughts meander like a
Restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.
 Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me.
Limitless undying love, which
Shines around me like a million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe.

more on the afterlife. (a small concession to the religious)

Humans create electric current.  It is a scientific and medical fact. And when we die, that current does away.  It is also a scientific fact that energy cannot simply disappear. Nothing can disappear. When you burn things you get soot and smoke; when you vaporize things you get vapor, etc etc etc.  So when we die, some bit of electricity is released.  I don't know where it goes.  Maybe it sticks around as static and zaps people who walk on shag carpet in their socks. ("Grandma, are you fucking with my hair again?")  Maybe we kill off millions of human souls every time we put a Bounce sheet in the dryer.  Maybe the strongest tool at the Ghostbusters' disposal was a can of Static Guard.  Or maybe we just hang around forever, occasionally having big old soul orgies and zapping lightning rods.  Either way, something goes on after we die.  I want to clarify that I do believe that.  I just don't think it has a face and consciousness.

The religious folks might not like this one

It'd be so nice to believe in an afterlife. To believe that I will see my mother some day even if/after this cancer kills her, that I will see my dad someday at all.  But I don't.  I don't believe that there's a Heaven, or a Hell, or anything like that. I think that when an animal dies, any animal be it insect or human, it's just out like a burnt out light bulb.  I have family who walk around funerals saying annoying things like "I'm going to miss him from now until I see him again in the Kingdom" and "it's not goodbye, it's just 'See you later'".  I'm sorry, but we are no more complex or miraculous than any other species. We are, as a species, relatively weak and vulnerable. Our mastery of tools is really the only thing we have that they don't, and until you can give IQ tests to fish there's no way to know we're all that much smarter than animals either.  SO the idea that a God made us, and gave us souls, and that those souls are so super-special that they can never die, is just arrogance. If biology is enough to explain cockroaches, it's enough to explain us.  We're organic life-forms capable of dying, not never-ending invisible spirits who will live on forever with our friends and family depending arbitrarily on our behavior for a mere 80 or so years in the beginning. 
I will miss my mother when she dies.  I miss my dad now. And when I die, my kids will miss me. But it's not "See you later".  It's "goodbye".  And even though I truly believe that, I hope I'm wrong.  I also hope wishing on shooting stars will work, too. But I don't think either of those are likely or all that plausible.  But it would be really nice if they were.

well, crap

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/small-cell-lung/healthprofessional/page1

mom

My grandmother lived into her 80s. She'd been "praying for Jesus to take" her since her mid 70s. She was a hateful old woman who insulted her grand children and sat in judgment of everyone.

My mother is a good woman. She is 63. Today they found a tumor the size of an egg in her head. Hateful woman- 80s. Good woman- early 60s?  This is how I know there is no god.  Well, that and logic.  And cramps.

I wonder

I have a deeply philosophical question. I plan not to debate any of this at all, because it has just occurred to me and I'm just interested in hearing other viewpoints and options.  Here it is:
If it turns out that there is no afterlife, that at the moment of death everything just goes dark and shuts off, which is the worse consequence?  Is it, A) that we will never again see loved ones?  Or is it, B) that there is no universal justice and that horrible crimes committed in life and never caught will just never be caught, such as a serial killer getting away with it?
Discuss.

Scars

I don't usually do this, but I'm doing it here. Dawn, close this window. Read this post in a year or two, but not today. I need to write it and post it for other people dealing with other things, but you do not need to see this. It's not bad or insulting, just in really bad taste to put this up here right now and not warn you away from it. I'm talking out my ass in a voice you own, and I don't want to make you sad with a cancer post.

A rebuck gwoge

Tommy presses something small and brown into my hand. Maybe a piece of dead leaf or wet construction paper. 
"Mommy, a rebuck gwoge."
"A what what?"
"A rebuck!"
"What's a rebuck?"
buzzing sounds
"A bug?"
"A rebug"
"A real bug?" (he has toy bugs)
nods "Yes. A rebug gwoge."
"A real bug broke? How?"
holds up one finger "I poke a rebug."
Not construction paper. A smooshed bug. Ick.