Now, With Death Considered, We Vigorously Get On With Life

We feel fine.  Really.  We are healthier than we have ever been, deliriously happy and looking forward to much, much more of the same.  And no, we aren't feeling particularly apocalyptic.  I'm not burdened with any heavy sense that these are "the end times." And it has nothing to do with the fact of my 61st birthday barreling down on me like one of the several hurricanes sweeping its terrible eye into the Gulf.   It's just that I am happy that it's done.  Finally.

Throughout my ministry I have encouraged people to consider their final arrangements.  By that I mean funeral plans.  What I have tried to communicate is that any number of people care about you, but no one wants to make your funeral plans.

On a few days notice.  In the midst of tears.

"Making your own arrangements, before they are needed, is the caring thing to do..."

...I have said to others -- for years -- but not myself.

Until, that is, a few months ago.  As Memorial Day approached, we began to consider our own memorials.  We talked about how we wish to end up.  We talked about where we wish to end up.  We talked about what kind of service in our memory we would prefer, what we would like included -- and excluded.  And after making all manner of decisions we sat down with a funeral director and put it all on record.  We purchased a cemetery plot (one, since our cremains will be buried together); we picked out a monument and how it should be inscribed.  And we wrote numerous checks to underwrite it all.  And we wrote drafts of our obituaries.  It's amazing how exemplary our lives have been when we get to be the ones describing them.   OK, that's a joke.  More truthfully, it's amazing how simple, straight-forward and succinct our lives are when we commit the salient details to print -- what we have valued; what in it all we disregard.  We could say more, of course; going on and on about this or that.  But eventually a kind of silliness ensues in the self-congratulation that we simply wouldn't condone.

And so there it is.  All of it finally done.  The ideas are formed, the plans are made, the Wills are updated, the necessaries are purchased and the stone is even solidly in place, awaiting the final chronological inscripted details.

I'll acknowledge that these are not comfortable conversations.  We haven't particularly enjoyed all this talk about our demise.  But we haven't thought of it as morbid.  We have thought of it as a gift -- to each other, to my kids, or to whomever else is left to sweep our proverbial floor.  Our preferences our clear, with enough leeway built in to overrule them as desired.  The tangible choices are made, the financial burdens are lifted.  All our surviving loved ones need do is grieve.  And that, of course, is up to them.

For our part, with these ending questions answered and their practical implications arranged, we can get on with living.

Fully.

Happily.

And hopefully for a long time to come.

After all, there is hanging fruit to harvest, new seeds to plant, fresh grains to thresh, and more eggs to gather.