Oh goodie... Funerals. You probably need a warning on your site - can promote suicidal thoughts. I'm not one for the suicide o'course but really you just keep giving me opportunities to mention it. I'm mentioning it today because I reckon suicidal personalities have probably got the best idea about this one. They don't really; their depressed and pessimistic thoughts would prevent more accurate analysis. Not that anybody would be able to right the subjective account of themselves from somebody else's view objectively (I'm not even sure what that says but I thought it sounded good in my head).
Why am I saying all this? Today's plinky topic is 'A fly on the wall at your funeral. What are people saying?'. Its making some assumptions there - people have to rock up at your funeral for them to talk. Also what I think is the most important point of all this is the two sides to the coin. What the person who is writing your eulogy saying about you, and what the people sitting in the rows of the church/hall/cave (cave?) are thinking or saying between themselves.
I'm not saying they are going to be as different as the poles of a magnet (unless you are a bitchy whore who smoked, drank, trafficked, solicited and refused to come to the family christmas party) simply that they are never quite the same story.
Anyway before I get into talking about myself I am going to further explain my mention of the suicidal. This whole concept of what people are saying at my funeral... it really depends on how I died? Dying young and suddenly in a car accident will have far different discussion that death after a long illness or death from old age. Who except the suicidal (or people entertained by morbid thought) would choose to assume their death was from something other than old age.
I'm actually not going to lead into anything there. I didn't (for these purposes) die of anything interesting (or mentionable). However I also wont be dying of old age-to much change in a live from 20 to 80 to predict it. I am also going to leave out some of them more 'miss, miss, sad, sad' bits I haven't been to enough funerals to replicate them very effectively. So my actual answer to this question will be three micro-eulogies from the people closest to me with some italic bits thrown in from the unnamed back-pew bandits.
My Mother
My daughter, my only daughter. She was a hard and dedicated worker when she wanted to be spent most of her time holed up in her room - sounds about right but a hopeless procrastinator I had to remind and prod just the same. She was intelligent and academically gifted though there were times when I would have to encourage her through many of the more obvious social situations. She had social skills? She never used them.
She was as different from me as day to night. From the time she was but a baby she shied away from physical contact, whereas I would always have loved for her to give me a hug. She found it hard to express her emotions, making it all the more meaningful when she did. So that hug she gave me one time was supposed to be meaningful? Riight Though I was often the last to know, the last to get the phone call home once she had moved away, she showed me her love in her outgoing, spill all conversations and the sharing of her latest great theory to solve things. She certainly seemed to have some of the world miscellaneous theories about nothing at times
My Brother
My sister and I spent most of our childhood years with the typical love-hate relationship of siblings. I guess it would be said that it was because we loved each other that we would irritate one another simply to see the other react and it was because we knew each other so well that we could, perhaps I should say specifically that I could, push the other's buttons with an efficiency unmatched by others.
Nevertheless when I wasn't pointing the knife at her, or her at me, we were some of the best playmates. The hours we spent playing together, Nintendo then later Play Station and even from time to time some good old card games. You played games with her? No wonder you ended up with knives drawn. She never was a very good loser. We were far apart enough in age and too different in temperament to have much in common at school or in work. Still we talked from time to time about everything from the weather to our relationships. Weather yes... relationships, pretty sure she never had much luck in those
My Best Friend
She was my wingman and I was hers. Its funny when you think about it. Who would imagine a relationship as strong as ours developing over having a primary school best friend in common of all things. So this relationship... you guys were lesbians yes? I suppose there is something to be said for similarities in taste of friends. Which isn't to say we were similar in anything else.
We were as different as my red her to her brown. I was the one to say the outrageous and the extreme and she was the one with the dry humour to cut down my plots oh so that dry sarcasm was supposed to be funny? here I thought she was simply a really dull pessimist. Just the same I seemed to rub off on her. I would start an idea but so often her imagination would extend it beyond anything I could have imagined. She never was very good at sticking on topic in conversation that's for sure. We had plans for our lives like owning a hotel, or owning a hotel on the moon even right through to simply having a house together with a dog.
I am going to miss her. Our daily conversations, the way we bounced ideas off one another. I think I was one of the people who knew her best. I knew all the quirks just as she knew mine. For that I think I am one of the few people who got to see the real her well I certainly only ever saw the standoffish, insecure, wallflower of a human being. I loved her and will miss her greatly.
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