I’m contemplative these days. The death of someone you know can cause a reflection on many things. For me, I know I want to make it clear and public how I want my post-mortem activities to be.
#1. No church service. It would be hypocritical. I have beliefs, hardly agnostic, but I’m not officially a member of the Bahai faith, so even then, I doubt it would be 100% appropriate. If, god forbid, my family has a say – let them know it’s WRONG. It’s not in any way what I wish for. A funeral service for me should be at a movie theatre, not a church. I worked at a movie theatre when I was 16 and I was a manager until I was 22. In the past few years, my relationship with movie theatres is either as a patron or filmmaker, and surprisingly more and more often exhibiting something I made.
#2. No tears or sadness. My funeral should be a good time. I’d want people to talk and drink and have a great time. Meet new people; hang out for hours just talking and telling stories. That’s what I would want for the people that know me to do. There's time enough for tears.
#3. Telling stories about me is essential. I would want everyone to get up; even the shy people and I’d want them to tell one good story and one bad story about me. I’d want to be remembered as I really am – flawed. I don’t want to be idealized as a saint or good person. Like every human being, I’m not perfect and I’d rather be thought of as I really am (or was if I am dead at that point).
#4. I’d want my body cremated. No need to have expensive caskets or some plot in the ground.
#5. My earthly possessions should be dispersed at the funeral as a Yankee Swap kind of giveaway or possibly via a movie trivia game show type scenario where people win my DVD’s if they answer the Star Wars trivia correctly, and the grand prize being the rights to my screenplays as yet unproduced or my pillow. I don’t know which one I value more at this point.
Death does not have to be morbid and for me, I’d much rather make my funeral a fun event in which many people walk away with cool prizes and a smile on their face. I don't mean to be calloused, but I think that the death would be sad enough without memorializing mine with a depressing and sad service even though I'd still be the center of the show. When I take the center stage, it's more my style to try to have a good time. Why should my funeral be any different?
