Thoughts on "Living Funeral"

While thinking about the living funeral and the list of the people I would invite, it immediately drags me to think about all the memories I had in my life time and the people I met. Since I am proposing a "living" funeral, that means I am still alive. I would never know when is my last breath and it is impossible for me to bring all the things with me. In one way, inviting the people I love and coming to my living funeral with sorrow is a bit pointless because my death leads people to be unhappy. Indeed, the moment when I closed my eyes, these things will be forgotten. I would have no feeling, no memory, dead. In the other hand, having the ritual of holding up a living funeral, I would be able to listen to a lot of the last words from people before I die though is not going to be with me. The moment should be touching and people with tears. But after all, the people who is still living, their life still go on. Then what is the point of a living funeral and put the others in the spot of sorriness? Is it like a birthday party, that living and dying should be celebrated in some way?

I think a living funeral is a bit weird, because I am not dead yet. If I choose to sit around with bunch of people and talk about my feelings at that moment, I strongly felt this decision is pointless. Since I am going to die, I do not see the point of leaving my last words to the people who is living. I do not expect to see the people I love to feel bad and cry or to remember I am not here anymore. Also, how long will these words last in people's mind? If for me, I would like to make my living funeral an actual, "real" funeral. I would ask my closest friend to host my living funeral as I am actually dead and hiding in the back listening to how they felt about me. Since these people are the ones who mostly affected my life, there is a possibility of seeing myself in their words for the last time. By doing this, I would be able to know who am I to the others and how much I actually matter to others' life. Also, my friend would be reading my last words to the people who attend to this living funeral,too. Although it does not seem like a living funeral to the others, but to me, it is. These words from the others supposed to be something that I will never be able to hear because by that time I am lying in the coffin, dead. But planning a living funeral as I am pretending I am dead, is a great "period" as finishing up the last sentence of my life. I got to listen to something that I would never be able to listen and the sadness of my death should not last too long to the others. It might perhaps seem as the most and last selfish thing I ever done in my life.

Going back to thinking about the list of people, it feels like I am on a time machine traveling to all my memories. Actually reading all the pages of my life time. At the same time, it is quite difficult to put myself at a spot thinking and imagining about death, because it is something that you cannot try or experienced. It is something unknown and something that you will never know until it comes. Thus, coming up with the list is not that easy.

Other Thoughts:

It also reminds me of a movie that I watched called "Happy Funeral"- bunch of youngster treating funeral as a party with death day cake, death day card, and believe that a funeral with all living people attending should exclude the sadness and include the happiest moment of the person who died. Perhaps funeral should have the mood of sadness, but a funeral without all the traditions and rituals, it might be possible to make it happened. Or maybe a funeral should benefits the people who is living and not the person who died.

From the video of Morrie, a person who is dying and sharing his words to the others. I literally understand his words, but do not understand it as relating to my own life. It gives me a feeling of unable to understand how it feels to be an old person or about to die. It could be a reason why the youngster is always separated from the old people, because they find it hard to relate to them and they never know the position that the old person is standing. I personally believes that a person should not tell the other what is right or wrong, because the others will never get it and it might make the problem even worst. But actually experienced the mistakes will help more, because the person know how it feels. This caused me to wonder what motivates Morrie to shared his wisdom and lessons about life although I believe this will come back at some point in my life.