As you may recall from yesterday's post.
When I die there will be funeral, but you won't come. It's not that you are a bad person, but you are busy. You need to do some of those chores you've been putting off. Your nose hairs need trimmed. The lint in your navel is out of control. It's understandable.
(From Yesterday) We drive by the cemetery on our way back to the Professional Purchasing Agent’s office after I paid the bill at the restaurant for the four of us.
And I see people in a cemetery. It’s a bright sunny autumn day, but the people have their shoulders curved and they are slouching like the rain is falling on them. They are sad.
There are several people there. I don’t know that many people. Likely the sum total of all the people I’ve ever known would be less.
That is when I realize that you are not coming to my funeral. No one is coming.
Heck, I don’t want to go either and if it weren’t for the way these things work I’d skip it altogether with you.
As things are now, no one will come.
And I see flowers. The ones where the people are standing in the non-existent rain, look like real fresh flowers. The newly dead person has beautiful flowers to look at.
The flowers at the other burial sites look faded. Not wilted, faded. They are plastic flowers and they have lost their color in the harshness of the sun. The sun is shining and the old plastic flowers they don’t look sad, but they do look pitiful.
All this gets me to thinking about how things might be, instead of how things are. How could I get more people to my funeral?
Maybe live a better life. Be more giving. Try to speak nicely to everyone, even the dentist. Try to emulate the qualities I see in good people. Bath more often. Read fine literature. Eat more veggies. Go to a march for human rights, or something similar, like the Rose Parade.
So I pondered this as a way to get people to come to my funeral, but I knew that wouldn’t work for me. I’d start off strong and fizzle out trying to be nice to people, especially the dentist.
Now I’m thinking instead of hiring professional mourners. Maybe that’s a thing. Maybe all those people by that grave are not really sad, they are actors. And if they are, they are really good.
I’m not sure I can afford real actors. After I’m dead I won’t have an expense account. And if I had one there is no line on the company's expense form for funeral expenses.
Perhaps there are young actors who would like to play the part. It’s not as though they really have to be good at it. Professionals would be “over kill”. The goal is to have people on the street driving by the graveyard, or folks in the mortuary or in the church - if there is a church service - to be impressed with all the people. All the weeping. Maybe some wailing.
I would pay more for wailing.
If there is an opportunity for someone to get up to speak, then that person would get paid more to read a script about how good, honest, caring, and how generally wonderful I was / am. It might be best if that person didn’t actually know me. And maybe I should write the script now. After I'm dead it may be too late.
I read the term “weeping and gnashing, of teeth somewhere”. I think its a Biblical term. Maybe gnashing is “over the top”. I don’t think there is gnashing of teeth these days. Maybe back in the ’60’s? So I’m “up in the air” on the gnashing teeth thing. Anyone with an opinion about it is welcome to let me know what they think. Unless you are a dentist.
As for flowers… Fresh flowers would be nice, but then my grave would look all run down after a short while, so I’m going to go for really excellent quality plastic flowers. I’ll need to have some professional grievers come out once every few months and pretend to grieve.
Crying would be in order. Real tears are not necessary. Whose to know.
While they are there they can swap out the flowers.
As soon as we get back home from the client meeting, I’m going to make an appointment with the high school drama teacher to see if I can hire her students to be mourners / grievers and discuss the details of what is expected in the way of tears and weeping, and wailing and throwing one’s self on the ground, etc.
I'd pay more for someone to throw themselves onto the ground and roll around.
Then I’ll go talk to my lawyer who shares and office with a massage therapist and work out the details for my “Last Will and Testament”.
Maybe I’ll get a massage.
But the main “take away” for you is that you are “off the hook”. If you don't come to my funeral it will be okay. The pressure is off.
A high school drama student will be there in your place.
©David L Arment