Death

My children complain that I talk about death too much. Every now and then, having heard of another distant relative who’s passed on, I’ll go into my usual story of what I want done with my remains after my turn comes. I tell them exactly what I want done before and after, in reference or deference or commemoration of me—like I deserve any such celebrations. I have a playlist in my iTunes I’ve titled “Music For My Funeral”. I tell them they will miss me and that it’s ok; and I tell them they’ll stop missing me after a while, maybe a long while, and that that is ok, too. Too much, perhaps, but I have my reasons.

My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 76. My grandmother died of a heart attack when she was 65. My father died of a heart attack when he was 55. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 42. My brother died of a heart attack when he was 36. I have a bad heart—and have spent plenty of nights under observation at the hospital while they stabilized my erratic heartbeat—so I keep telling the family that I feel I’m living on borrowed time.

My father spent plenty of nights sitting on a chair in the dark, out in the back yard, smoking a cigar and drinking a little cognac after dinner, supposedly waiting for the Martians he saw fly their saucer over a lake when he was 26 to come rescue him from the unjust punishment living on Earth must be. Life on Earth, I gathered then, was a punishment, a harsh sentence aliens paid for some crime they committed—we are a penal colony. This meant, of course, life is nothing to be terribly clung to, and (more importantly) that death is not an end, but rather a transition, a happy one, from this punishment to the real life from which we came, a parole from this prison. And so, when we found my father’s dead body on his reclining chair in front of the television, with a smile on his face, we cried as we should cry, but I thought that smile was all the message he could give me that they had finally come for him.

One day, it will be my turn.

That is the one truth no one can hide from: death will come. I don’t know what death is, what comes after, but I do know it will come, that it will be my turn to die someday, that my children will be left with the responsibility of doing something with the decaying remnants, this thing they used to call dad and for which they will mistakenly still feel love, not realizing that I, their real dad, have exited the train and simply chosen to use a different conveyance to reach points beyond. I don’t want them to feel what we felt when my father died: that we had never talked about death and that we had no idea what he wanted done for him, with him, to him. So I’ve engineered a terribly complicated ceremony to allow my children to feel they have done as I wish. Though I may be gone to the next step of the journey, I can give them some closure.

Still, it must be done in a way that will allow them to laugh. I want there should be fun. There may be a dead guy in the room, but that dead guy will be me, so we cannot make this a somber occasion. That will simply not do.

So this is what I’ve told them: go to my computer, get the music I’ve selected for my funeral, get a gathering of friends and relatives going—they know which ones—and get them all drunk remembering the good old times we all shared. In the morning, those who feel their lives would be improved by it should pray, but not unless they would have otherwise done so had I not died: I want no hypocrites on my side. Then, when my body has been cremated, gather up the ashes and take them to the hills. Find a sunny slope and bury them there with an avocado seed, somewhere such a tree can grow. Make sure, I’ve told them, that it is at a place that’s particularly hard to reach. I don’t want them to feel guilty for not coming to visit me past the third anniversary of my death. After all, that is not me: it is just a small pile of ashes.

When and if the tree should grow, wait until it can hold a sign, and then hang one from its branches that reads “EAT ME”, and should I feel the need to visit the little pile of ashes from wherever I have gone, you can be sure I will smile. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll do that. I’d rather visit my children, and their children, just to make sure they’re ok. That would be a much better use for the nearly unlimited time I presume one must have after death.

So then, to end, just to make sure the list is not lost if this computer should die before me, here is a list as of today. These are the songs. Each has a meaning, known only to me, and hopefully the one for whom I picked it. I don’t expect anybody other than my children will care, and while I’d hope they didn’t, I’m afraid their Judeo-Christian upbringing will require some action from them, so they should do something:

1 Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
2 I’m In A Hurry (Alabama)
3 No Time To Kill (Clint Black)
4 Amarillo By Morning (George Strait)
5 Neon Moon (Brooks and Dunn)
6 Hechizo (Ana Gabriel)
7 Se Murio De Amor (Bobby Pulido)
8 Solo Los Tontos (Alacranes Musical)
9 Viviendo De Prisa (Alejandro Sanz)
10 Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas (Aleks Syntek)
11 Jamas (Camilo Sesto)
12 Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
13 Amor (Cristian Castro)
14 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
15 Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
16 Magic Dance (from labyrinth) (David Bowie)
17 Love Child (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
18 Mad World (Gary Jules)
19 La Mia Storia Tra Le Di (Gianluca Grignani)
20 Mi Historia Entre Tus Dedos (Spanish version of 19)
21 Una Magica Storia d’Amore (Gigi D’Alessio)
22 Que Alguien Me Diga (Gilberto Santa Rosa)
23 Kol Hatziporim (Harel Skaat)
24 Haruach Teshane Et Kivunah (Harel Skaat)
25 Fire And Rain (James Taylor)
26 The Origin Of Love (Hedwig and the angry inch)
27 I Should Have Been A Cowboy (Toby Keith)
28 Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
29 El Frio De Tu Adios (Olga Tañon)
30 Hasta Contar A Mil (Jotdog)
31 Burbujas De Amor (Juan Luis Guerra)
32 Dos Locos (Monchi Y Alexandra)
33 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
34 Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
35 No Me Doy Por Vencido (Luis Fonsi)
36 Yesterday (Beatles)

That should give the guests about two hours of drinking time—enough for a buzz but not enough for a DUI, I hope. Thus does it stand for the time being, but I firmly believe that in death, more than in life, everything changes…