h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Something people can dance to might be appropriate at mine.

Being buried are you?

One cannot just leave the evidence scattered across the landscape. Very untidy, ya know.

I'm leaving my body to Wall's.

There once was a man from Nantucket
With a wish-list he kept in a bucket.
Then when he died
They found nothing inside.
When he went, with him he took it.

"Unattended luggage!"



~jwf~

Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It's the one that starts -

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you,
Weep, and you weep alone
For this sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has troubles enough of its own."

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/solitude/

I'll have to think about poems, but I know I want "I hope you dance" by
Lee Ann Womack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-Z1YwaOiw

Dai says he wants Highland Cathedral to lull the mourners into a false sense of solemnity, before Disco Inferno is played while the casket goes behind the wee curtains...

I like the idea that, in the unlikely event anyone mourns my death, that one of them would be required to read to the others "The Faulty Bagnose" by John Lennon.

THE FAULTY BAGNOSE

Softly, softly, treads the Mungle
Thinner thorn behaviour street.
Whorg canteell whorth bee asbin?
Cam we so all complete,
With all our faulty bagnose?

The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy
Religeorge too thee worled.
Sam fells on the waysock-side
And somforbe on a gurled,
With all her faulty bagnose!

Our Mungle speaks tonife at eight
He tells us wop to doo
And bless us cotten sods again
Oamnipple to our jew
(With all their faulty bagnose).

Bless our gurlished wramfeed
Me cursed cafe kname
And bless thee loaf he eating
With he golden teeth aflame
Give us OUR faulty bagnose!

Good Mungle blaith our meathalls
Woof mebble morn so green the wheel
Staggaboon undie some grapeload
To get a little feel
of my own faulty bagnose.

Its not OUR faulty bagnose now
Full lust and dirty hand
Whitehall the treble Mungle speak
We might as wealth be band
Including your faulty bagnose

Give us thisbe our daily tit
Good Mungle on yer travelled
A goat of many coloureds
Wiberneth all beneath unravelled
And not so MUCH OF YER FAULTY BAGNOSE!

I once went to a funeral of somebody who had specified the music they wanted played at the funeral (My Way by Sid Vicious). I think they'd imagined a long and happy life when they said this.

They died only a couple of days later aged 30 of sudden death syndrome. The widow was almost hysterical with grief and had to be restrained from throwing herself into the grave. His two young children looked bewildered.

The music felt all wrong. I think generally funerals are for those left behind.

The poem chosen was Death is Nothing at all which felt beautiful. And is possibly what I'd choose for my funeral.

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way that you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Whyshould I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval,somewhere very near, just round the corner.

All is well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)
Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral



However I'm reading this thread with interest as I'm expecting to do a reading at someone else's funeral.

I've told my husband that if I go before him then I don't really want any religiousity at my funeral - I've resisted it at every other ceremonial occasion and would be a bit disappointed if it happened at the end. Mind you, in the end they should have what ever brings them the most comfort to say/think about/listen to. I am not going to dictate it because it is their feelings that are important rather than mine, I'm not there after all.

Having arranged my father's funeral earlier in the year, you want to do something that reflects the person and shares your feelings about them and I don't think you can specify that for yourself before you go.

Some aspects of my Dad's funeral in February were a very bad joke. The mother creature had him laid out in a plaid work-shirt, jeans, etc. His daily attire. And not only she, but also two sisters, two brothers and a brother in-law arrived wearing similar shirts.

The man had pride, ... dignity and I am sure he would have preferred a proper suit and tie for such an occasion.

It seems to me that a majority of family members wanted to remember the man himself, as he was in his day-to-day life.

A funeral, in my opinion, should be a celebration of the person's life and if that person's life had little or no place for suits why should there be any?

(I accept that there may be other factors you are not elaborating on here, just calling it as I see it)

While he was a casual man in the day-to-day, he would never attend a christening, a wedding, a school graduation, or anyone's funeral in less than a proper suit and tie. Some occasions request dignity would have been his opinion.

The whole affair was a very tasteless showcase for the mother beast and her prized child. As was much commented on, quietly.

When my mother died, someone gave my sister a card in which they'd written a line from 'The Smiths':

'There is a light and it never goes out.'

That could only have been written by somebody who completely fails to appreciate how hilarious The Smiths were. The same song contains the lines:

'And if a ten ton truck crashes into us/ To die by your side, oh the pleasure, the privilege is mine.'

Russell Brand's (rather good) interpretation is that the light that never goes out is in the bedsit of someone who...never goes:

'Take me out tonight/Take me anywhere, anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I don't care...'

Whatever...not funeral poetry.

This would be good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5fA184R6EA

Ah, okay... I think I'll refrain from further comment lest I open a family sized .

'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

(name that tune)

Anna Karenina?

That's her. Famed Russki chanteuse.

That's a good point you raise there, Storm.

What I would really like would be the Monty Python classic, with everyone whistling along. But if I get run over on my bike tomorrow, leaving a young family, I really doubt that it would be fair to all concerned to inflict that on them.

sprout

Hmm. I've known too many people who'e had 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'. It's the 'Abide With Me' de nos jours. That and the Sid Vicious rendition of 'My Way'.