eulogy

last week i was talking with my sister-in-law up in sandy. she was telling me about her hopes and dreams of what her children will someday become. i posed the question, imagine it's twenty or thirty years into the future. koji has died. what do you want people to be saying and thinking at his funeral? while i posed the question to her, i honestly didn't care about what she had to say. the question was suddenly my own. how would i answer this question myself. what do i want people to be saying and thinking at my funeral?

death cab for cutie has a beautiful song (styrofoam plates) that takes on the perspective of a grown child at the funeral of his dead-beat father. if the mourning remain quiet, you can deck out a lie in a suit but i won't buy it. i won't join in the procession that's speaking their peace. using five dollar words while praising his integrity. and just cause he's gone it doesn't change the fact... he was a bastard in life thus a bastard in death. funerals and death have an interesting affect on those who have passed. no matter how rotten that person may be, the living only speak words of praise. no matter how little they were known, their sudden absence invokes a reverence and kinship to those who have passed. death tends to pull out feelings people did not know they had, but at the same time buries other feelings that may have been festering inside for ages.

so i guess, maybe the best of questions isn't to ask what people would say and feel at my death, but rather what are they saying and feeling about my life? what kind of affect do i have on people. what does my life mean to others. if they imagined my funeral, what would they be thinking as they imagined passing by my cold stiff body during the public viewing. am i someone that would be missed. what do others really feel about me. do i make a difference in others' lives.

i want whatever people to say at my funeral to be just as real as what they say about me in life. this isn't about self-praise. this isn't about glory. this isn't about some legacy for my kids to carry on. this is about who i am as a person. this is about the difference i can and should make in the world. this is about the people around me. the people i love and care about.

so what do i want people to say about me at my funeral? what do i want them to say about my life?


he loved me.
i knew that no matter what he would always be there for me.
he would have given up everything for me.
i am a better person because he believed i was.
he was my friend.
he didn't judge me.
he helped me.
he was passionate.
he lived true to himself.
i loved him.