March 26/11

:O

I know! It's been 10 days!

I'm sorry. With things, I've been busy. Between school--finals?!?--and deciding on doing summer school this year as well as continuing to work as many hours as physically possible at work, plus with the wedding I'm in coming up rather quickly, I've been super busy.

Plus, my great aunt died. Poor lady, she was a wonderful woman. If heaven exists, and any of my family was going to get in to heaven, it would be her that got in. She was a really nice person, and she always shared me half of her food, even if I didn't want it.

Seriously, though. Auntie Eleanor was one of those people who made you want to be good. I still often wish I could be as soft spoken as her; she had that quiet, wise thing down PAT. It's just not something I was ever (will ever be) good at.

Still, she was sick for a long time, and she is probably in much less discomfort now. I hope so. In heaven, as she believed. We'll miss her.

I also learned that I suck at funerals. I mean, I'm sad that she died because she was a really good person, and we need more and not less of those around especially when a lot of people love them and they all keep dying off. But I can't help but believe that funerals are silly, in that you sit there and look at the dead's body for two days. TWO DAYS. You're forcing yourself to sit through seeing the dead person's BODY--not even them.

If souls exist--keep in mind I'm agnostic (I don't necessarily believe in any current religion, but I believe that something (s) may have omnipotent powers)--If souls exist in a living person, and if that living person dies, the soul goes to another place ( I haven't understood where the body's electricity goes when one dies). If that's the case, then the body means nothing. Which is why I never understood why the Bible's God doesn't like us marking up a body with tattoos. It's just a container. It would be like painting a vase.

Anyway, the body means nothing. Then we set the body up in a coffin all bedecked with jewelry and pretty clothing and look at the body for two days.

I think I understand the whole "gathering for family's sake" and "respecting the dead" part; I spoke to a religious lady that I work with and she said it's also for closure. That's the only reason I can see for setting up the dead body: for absolute, final knowledge that Auntie Eleanor was dead. That's why, I think, some people cry only when they see the body in the casket and only again when it's buried/burned/closed and covered.

I don't think I want to have a funeral. I already decided that my whole body was being donated for spare parts for people. It's only a body; a container. I'm not Egyptian. But I don't think I'd like people to funeral around my dead self or something representative of me (Pictures, urn, soup, I don't care, no iconic or representative imagery for me).

I want them to take whatever money is left over from me and use it to throw a wicked freakin' party. With ice cream. And balloons. And a theme park. Or something equally as cool. Buy a stupid bouncy castle and jump in it for a day or so. Adults and all.

Long post; but I wanted to get that out there.

I'm a bit sad about losing Auntie Eleanor and it sort of makes me want to cry, but somewhere in my head I also think that feeling sorry that she's not alive is selfish-she was sick, for her to stay alive would have been very hard for her.

I think that's why I have a hard time understanding people at funerals.