20181113.0430

Once again, funerals and memorials are happening in the wake of mass shootings in the United States, and discussion of what is to be done is ensuing again even as some claim it isn't the right time to talk about such things. And I'm not going to comment on the shootings themselves, nor yet on the funerals and memorials going on and continuing. Hearing about them on the radio, though, I am minded of what my own plans for such things have been--and how they've shifted without me thinking about them (at least consciously).
The topic of funeral arrangements has been one I've often deployed in teaching. I've been assigned public speaking classes on no few occasions, and I tend to have my students given impromptu speeches in them. A favorite prompt of mine is "You're going to die; you can't avoid it. When it comes, how do you want it to happen, and why that way?" Morbid though it is, it leads to some interesting remarks from students--after the first few, who seem always to talk about dying while asleep and at home. It also allows me a follow-up for the next class: "After you're dead, what do you want done with your body? Why that?" It elicits some laughter from students to be offered the prompt after the earlier one, and I get a few interesting answers--though most talk about not wanting people to cry.
The students have tended to ask after my own answers to the questions I put to them--which is fair. Typically, I've told them that I want to have people weeping and gnashing their teeth, tearing their hair and rending their clothes; I want people to be sad that I am gone. More seriously, I've noted that I'd like to be buried in regalia and have commentaries about my work offered by way of eulogy, perhaps to be gathered into a festschrift later on. And, if I teach such a class again, I'll likely give the answers again; they work well enough for the classroom.
But they are not the correct answers anymore--or they were not as I thought on things. In truth, I expect a few people will be greatly saddened by my passing; quite a few more will have a reaction on the order of "Damn, that sucks" before going on with their lives as if nothing has happened. Some, I am certain, will dance ugly little dances of happiness--not that taking joy in another's death makes it ugly; they just can't dance worth a damn. None of them will be particularly well served by making some production out of dealing with my remains. My family certainly won't be--either by the event itself or by the expense of having such an event. So I think it'd be best if I were quietly and simply interred--no ceremony, perhaps a simple marker for the grave, if there is one. I've no preference for where any ashes would be spread, no real attachment to any grounds to be left upon. And since I'll be dead, I doubt I'll much care--but I'd not have my family have to deal with more than they must.