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Funeral Planning With My Family
We’re sometimes indelicate, but we’ve never shied away from the truths about life or death
We are a family who loves to talk about death. Mostly our own. We call this “being open.” We also talk about sex of many varieties — “nooners,” oral sex, and old people sex. Family dinners, reunions, and weddings are not excluded.
Where are the limits? Where are the boundaries?
It’s a subtle language that our family intrinsically knows. Grandparents, aunts, and even children. There is a point of going too far, but it’s something you just have to get a feel for. Most people who marry in do not enjoy it.
In talking about our own deaths, we mostly relish planning our own funerals. Second to that is making our wishes known in the event of a medical catastrophe. I was just visiting my sister in New Jersey, for example, and on the way to the airport, the song “Spirit In The Sky” came on the radio. “I want that played at my funeral,” she said. “Even though it talks about Jesus.” (She’s Jewish.) My son piped up from the middle row of the minivan, “The writer was Jewish, though.” We all felt better then.
She wouldn’t tolerate anyone using the Lord’s name in vain, but she would take me, as a…
