Top 25

[D_Martin van Burden]

Not to cheapen the seriousness of death, but I'm still duking it out with my graduate school and I've come across plenty of loan documentation the past few weeks. Says one of the conditions of forgiveness i.e. no longer required to make loan payments: "You die, and can provide proof of your death with certified documentation."

...good to know. I mean, I planned on leaving all my debts and discrepancies on Earth, but it would suck to have Prep knock on the Student Loan people's door and say, "Yeah, I embalmed the guy."

 

[Ralexx]

[quote author=sammygirly link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=0#17 date=08/24/03 at 07:17:10]

I do so love when your french sneaks out Raal, can just imagine that yummy accent.

~tips my hat to my dear Nony and winks~
[/quote]

I always had a guess that somehow my English is strongly Frenchefied.
To what extent, that is something I don't know. But I would be most grateful if somewould  - pleeeeeassse ! - tell me !  

 

[Ralexx]

Ah, a PS - (sighing) I don't have at all a French accent when I speak English. (Not that I would want to. Franch is Franch, English is English.) My accent is British. So British (and loving it :-*), I was often told by Londoners I speak with « the » Mayfair parlance. (In French, I speak with the Parisian accent.) Well, so be it, that's the way I was taught !

 

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prepstudinsc: [quote author=DeeBlackthorne link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#20 date=08/24/03 at 23:20:01]...good to know.  I mean, I planned on leaving all my debts and discrepancies on Earth, but it would suck to have Prep knock on the Student Loan people's door and say, "Yeah, I embalmed the guy."[/quote]

Dee-
You make it sound like I'm the grim reaper.
I'd let your family handle getting the loan people a certified death certificate--I'd just fill it out and get the copies certified at the health department, and then leave it up to a family member to do the notification.

I can do a nice Greek service for you, Trisagion and all, when you need it.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

That depends, Prep -- do you look good in flowing black robes and a scythe?

By the way, I took a look online for that [link=http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OLD/Trisagion-Service.html]Trisagion ritual[/link]. It sounds like something Mom might consider for me if I were to pass first -- doubtful. But, all that singing? Come on guys... I could handle "Let's Get It On" or some smooth jazz and some flowers. I guess I'm strange because, when I pass, I want it to be a bit more festive than veils and tears and all that. I would want my death to be a celebration of life to my loved ones; and in strange ways, I think I'll find my way back to them in their dreams.

 

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Javierdude22: [quote author=DeeBlackthorne link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#24 date=08/25/03 at 10:35:01]I would want my death to be a celebration of life to my loved ones; and in strange ways, I think I'll find my way back to them in their dreams.[/quote]

To stay on this sidetrack (funny how threads evolve eh?).

                Taking the other perspective

Dee, i can see your point in you rather having a celebration of life than the mourning of death. Maybe i am mistaken, but i think the general feeling behind that is that we, as social and caring human beings, would rather not have our loved ones in pain and grief. And neither would I.

On the other hand, although the idea behind a more positive funeral is admirable, some, and depending on the situation, many people, might say: This is nót a happy moment, let me be with my grief.

Hm....i guess it all depends on the situation. I could hardly expect my friends and especially my mom or other relatives to be happy about my death, if it were to be anytime soon. I've seen it a few times, people trying to keep themselves together when all they really want to is fall apart...for just a while. Death is random, and unfair, and that exactly is the bitch about it.

                  Bring in the Prozac  :-/  

But, yeah, maybe somewhere around that often dreaded 'mdilife' , i'd hope people could have a smile or two as well, when they think back of past times.

I like these discussions people..

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So yeah geez, wow, and all that stuff, we have a top 25? Had no clue...

 

[13788]

7x6andchg: I'd like a jazz funeral.

That reminds me of a funny story...

Before my Mom died last October, she had told my Dad that she had taken the time to write out instructions re: her funeral service. She had told him where they would be, and so on.

As you might imagine...when the time came...not remembering...we TORE the place APART looking for it. Finally, next to her CURLERS, we found an envelope.

Now in it was a prayer (which I am going to put in this post merely because I think it's beautiful, not to push my religion on anyone) and these three songs she wanted played:

Amazing Grace (my father and mother walked down the aisle to this one)
I am the Resurrection and The Light (Easter song)
and
Joy To the World

Now - whilst planning the funeral mass, we brought this to the priest, and my father quips: "I presume she meant the Christmas Carol and not 'Jeremiah was a Bullfrog'"

For my funeral, I want the Three Dog Night version. Full brass band, please. Thank you. ;D
____

Anyway, for those who might want to read it, here's the prayer/poem:

"Make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, union.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Anyway...I think it's pretty. And I have, as I've told him before, the utmost respect for someone in Prepstud's position.

Paul
7x6&C

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

[quote author=Javierdude23 link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#25 date=08/25/03 at 13:02:08]On the other hand, although the idea behind a more positive funeral is admirable, some, and depending on the situation, many people, might say: This is not a happy moment, let me be with my grief.[/quote]

Of course, Javy. I think it would be almost inhumane to deny someone the personal right to grieve, and I would expect moments of pain and agony -- the "What could I have done?", the "Why did he have to go so quickly?" etc. If anything, I felt that shock when I went to campus today to discover that, tragically, the athletics director died Saturday night of a sudden heart attack. The missus went up to bed and found him dead in the chair first thing that morning.

Can you imagine being that woman and having to look in that room only to see that frightening corpse?

[quote author=Javierdude23 link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#25 date=08/25/03 at 13:02:08]I've seen it a few times, people trying to keep themselves together when all they really want to is fall apart...for just a while. Death is random, and unfair, and that exactly is the bitch about it.[/quote]

Good... your insight, I mean.

Deconstruction and breakdown are inevitable parts of the grieving process. I had to say some words on the behalf of a beloved family friend a few years ago, and it was hard for me. I was stunned by his death and the man was a saint who did so much for his school kids. I didn't want to break down in front of people, and found that the only way I could've made it through that elegy was to remind everyone to think of the good things when tragedy strikes. I told stories about meeting him for the first time, for helping him with his computer when it broke down -- always smiling, supportive, telling me to be something big someday.

That was when people stopped breaking down and started talking and smiling, and I know I needed that too. I know I'm understating it, but death is a profound emotional experience that breaks people down but I think it affords the perfect opportunity to get people together and to share in joys and to depend on friends and loved ones for strength.

 

[13788]

7x6andchg: Funerals, I firmly believe, are a celebration of life...

That said, my mother's wake was so loud with laughter and remembrances that if she hadn't been dead, she certainly WOULD have woken up, as wakes were designed to do, just in case....

To me that's the way it should be. Death is such a funny thing - we are all heading straight for it, and yet so few of us are ready for it when it happens...either to us, or other people. No reason to mourn for the person who is dead, IMHO, they're better off...it's LIFE that's the hard part. One mourns for one's own loss.

Y'only go around once.

 

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prepstudinsc: [quote author=7by6etC link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#26 date=08/25/03 at 15:43:22]

Anyway, for those who might want to read it, here's the prayer/poem:

"Make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, union.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive.  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.  It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Anyway...I think it's pretty.  And I have, as I've told him before, the utmost respect for someone in Prepstud's position.

Paul
7x6&C[/quote]

Paul-
That is the Prayer of St. Francis. (attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, also known as the Peace Prayer of St. Francis) It is a wonderful prayer full of comfort. I actually just faxed another funeral home this text today to put in some memorial folders since they didn't have a copy of it.

 

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prepstudinsc: [quote author=DeeBlackthorne link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#24 date=08/25/03 at 10:35:01]That depends, Prep -- do you look good in flowing black robes and a scythe?

By the way, I took a look online for that [link=http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OLD/Trisagion-Service.html]Trisagion ritual[/link].  It sounds like something Mom might consider for me if I were to pass first -- doubtful.  But, all that singing?  Come on guys... I could handle "Let's Get It On" or some smooth jazz and some flowers.  I guess I'm strange because, when I pass, I want it to be a bit more festive than veils and tears and all that.  I would want my death to be a celebration of life to my loved ones; and in strange ways, I think I'll find my way back to them in their dreams.[/quote]

Dee-
Well I do look good in black, but I don't happen to have a scythe around here, I guess I could make a quick trip to the hardware store and pick one up.

I agre with you on how you want your funeral to be. A funeral should be a celebration of life. I hard a minister once say that a funeral sermon is preached long before a person dies--it is preached each and every day by that person in the way he lives his/her life and how he treats others. Being a Christian who believes in heaven and hell, I know that no amount of preaching and carrying on is going to get me to my final destination.
I want people to remember me for the things I have done. I have my whole service planned out already--there is to be a lot of music, and very little talking. I want a few prayers, a few Scriptures read, and the rest of the time I want singing--congregation, choir, soloists, etc. Sure, when we lose someone here on earth, it is sad, but how can we be sad over the fact that someone we cared about is in Paradise? Death should be treated like a big trip--you have a going away party, but you know that you will see that person again on the other side. So we need to be sad for a little while, but rejoice because that person is much better off--no suffering, no pain, no tears, no sadness, no sickness, no poverty, no hunger. It is selfish for us to want people to come back from that. I know that when I die, there is no way I'm coming back here to the earth with all its problems....I'm going to be living it up in my mansion on the hilltop, running around the streets of gold. Ok, I know, my Pentecostal heritage is rearing its head.

 

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7x6andchg: Prepstud -

You know, I knew that on some level - I don't think it was in Mom's explanatory instructions...maybe the priest said it while we were there.

Paul

 

[13788]

throb919: Nony--you want the funeral scene from "Imitation of Life"! Rent it, show your family. It's everything you described and more. (Well--it does have dignified elements--white horses, marching bands, Mahalia Jackson--but there's also throwing-oneself-on-the-casket, wailing, and grabbing at flowers. There are 2 versions: a 1930s b&w film with Claudette Colbert and the 1950s version with Lana Turner. Go for the '50s version.)

 

[13788]

Javierdude22: Nony/Prep, i think your quite right. Youd probably be in a better place after that. Even though i am probably the biggest doubter in the world, and easily thrown off by any emotion, swirling my way and difficult to unravel, i hope to get there some day as well.

When i think of people passing away from time to time rather spontaneous emotions jump up all with different angles. 'Don't leave me' 'I don't want my loved ones in pain, someone might depend on me' 'How weird, the earth won't stop spinning after i'm  dead'. Maybe a bit bluntly put...but all three cross my mind when time calls for me to think about them.

It's difficult to grasp (Again im just thinking out loud here, im not on dope ) and that exactly is what ticks me off. Maybe a weird story, but i remember very well, when i was 16, i was in P.E. class when they announced that a girl from my highschool, 12 years old, had been run over by a truck on a crossover i used that same morning 5 minutes earlier. we were all shocked, but in that 'oh my, how sad' way, we were a school of 2000.

When i came home though, my mom told me it was a girl i knew from 2 streets further. I didnt talk to her ever, just always saw her running with her dog very happily. And weird enough, i broke down at that point and basically cried all  night. How could she, a 12 year old girl i saw daily, close my age, be gone. Maybe that has painted my picture on this, i don't know.

Hm, humans have a tendency to be selfish, and i think many people including myself i admit, see this in the 'i don't want you to leave me' perspective. We love our loved ones, each adds something to my life, each fullfills a need of my social side, and well...i don't wanna do without. Or i wont feel whole.

But again, i agree wholeheartedly with a positive perspective...and im planning to see it like that in the future.

 

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7x6andchg: Javierdude-

You hit the nail on the head. One of the hardest things for the survivors of any death (particularly a close one) to do is to feel whole again.

In fact, you never do feel whole as you did before - you instead redefine what is whole over time.

Like I said, and has been said before - don't mourn for the dead, mourn for your own loss, and then, we have to go on. We have little other choice.

7x6&C

 

[Ralexx]

Whadda [beep] hell... :-[ how did I end up writing "Franch" instead of "French", I don't know... why did I wrote "to size" instead of "to seize", it's something else I do not know... Damn, I'm getting older... ;D ;D

 

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Dantesco: [quote author=Raal Lexx link=board=99;num=1061605435;start=20#36 date=08/27/03 at 08:32:44]  
 :-[ how did I end up writing "Franch" instead of "French", I don't know...[/quote]

Bien, Radu ... peut être tu écris avec un accent français aussi? ;D

 

[13788]

throb919: C'est ça, Dantesco! << Franch >> pour << français >> est plus français que << French >> bien sûr!

Et Raal: Tu demandes << how did I end up writing ...? >> Combien des langues parles-tu, mec? 4? 5? 6? Guess we'll have to let one mistake in one of them slide...! (Especially given what cunning linguists most of us are--ici dans les ÉU.) Zut alors!

 

[Ralexx]

Dantesco, c'est ça ! I write English with "accent français", French accent, c'est bien la seule explication raisonable !
Ah, Monsieur Throb919, merci de votre pardon ! Une faute à la fois en une langue, ça suffit ! Mille fois zut (...%$#@$#...) !

 

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gigantikok: Damn, wish I spoke "Franch".