I think I understand the open casket notion, in terms of closure, but I've never felt 'better', if you will, for having seen the body. Given my desire to be remembered (if at all) for my life, rather than my death, I would not go that way.

And the funereal industry, in general, really bothers me.

My father chose a $4000 pink casket (with roses) for my stepmother...who I'm sure never even saw a picture of it. He chose the same for himself. Did I mention the pink roses? I couldn't do it. I chose a dignified, denim number that seemed to reflect the workshirts I remember him wearing all the time. They didn't tell me how much it cost until later. $700.

My stepsister had a fit. All I could say was, ya know? If he's going to haunt anyone, it will be ME. And I can take it.

Funny how I've never heard a peep outta him.

When I think about the two of them, sealed up in a wall in some mausoleum no one will ever visit, I shake my head at the incredible waste.

I'm giving my body to science. I'll be done with it--I hope it will be of some use to others. I'd like there to be a memorial service of some kind, but nothing too schmancy.

I want a wake like Ray Cole's.(co-workers puking in the gutter optional) Nilly, Deadwood's great, but I fear you'd find it disturbing.*I* find it disturbing and I seek out disturbing things. ETA: "She was a pain in the ass like the rest of us, but damn, that bitch had her moments." Sounds like an epitaph to me.

I think with an experience like that I would be loath to keep writing about plane travel.

Word.

But, on the other hand? I had a reservation on Pan Am 103. When I got on the plane to Lockerbie to do lay counseling for the rescue workers and to finish my history with my best friend, everyone around me freaked. How could I fly?

All I could say was borrowed time, baby...the law of averages has got me covered on this one.

I'm sure it will surprise no one that I want them to harvest all donateable things they can and either burn the rest or take it down to the bones so someone can have a skeleton. Though I don't know if the titanium plates would disqualify my skeleton from being used. As far as memorials - I want a blow-out Irish wake, with drinking and singing and crying and laughing and story-telling.

Oh, erika! I'm way behind on my H:LotS watching (I love it - I just don't find the time to sit and watch anything properly), but I got my brother hooked, and he's somewhere on the 5th season or so already, and loving every minute of it.

I flew a few days after 9/11 and was surprised by all the people who said they wouldn't, because to me, it was a safer time than ever to fly, what with all the heightened attention to security.

Oh, that's just awesome, bunky. Are TastyKakes kosher? Because if they are, I hoist a virtual tastykake in honor of The Best Damn Show On Television.
"Oy, vey is mir. I'm so meshuggeneh I could plotz."

"Do it again. Do it again."

"No!"

"Please?

"No."

I think having viewings of both my grandmothers helped me truly understand that they were dead early in the grieving process. Yeah, seeing them like that broke me, but I'd rather have had it happen at the funeral than waited for weeks and then had my brain process that they're gone.

I managed to talk both my parents into family-only viewings before cremation to help everyone get closure, though they've decided against public viewings. (As for me, the mortician can prop me up in costume in front of stage backgrounds and charge admission for all I care once I'm gone.)

My experience has been everything from the open casket, public viewing to doing nothing at all. Closest thing to a ceremony was waiting on the lawn (it just felt too weird to be inside with dead grandpa) as the paramedics wheeled him out of the house. With grandma, for me, there was even less, just a phone call. My parents and my aunt and her husband went up to clear out the house about a month or two later, and did a lot of drinking and laughing while they did so, so I guess that counts as a marking of passage in a way.

All told, I'm ok with the nothing, personally. There is no logic to the way my brain does or does not accept death. I saw one minutes after she died, and I still expect to see her at odd moments. Grandpa was surely dead the moment I was told, before I saw him. Grandma was gone and I hadn't seen her in a couple years. No logic.