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Since I can't refuse to die, I simply refuse to have a funeral.

My children have had this fact drilled into their heads since they were old enough to hear about such things. "Cremate me. Do not pay a funeral director to tell you they washed me, embalmed me, encased me in a ridiculously over-priced box that could have housed a third world nation, and buried my body left to poison the soil as the formaldehyde and PCP ooze out of my corpse." The first time they heard the speech, I'm not sure if it was shock or disgust registered across their faces. But each time, the subject has presented itself since, they nod their heads, expressing their understanding of my wishes.

My mother, long since gone years ago, would turn over in her silver-colored casket with a soft pink lining and mumble something about being disappointed in my thinking of myself instead of others as I make this decision. She's the one who told me as a child, that funerals were not for the person who died, but those left behind. If they didn't have a funeral, there would be no grieving process, no time to realize the person is gone, no place for the loved ones to visit on Memorial Day, and no headstone to kick whenever the anger at their leaving prompted us to need an outlet. My mom had her beliefs in right and wrong, and I have mine.

Funerals are like Christmas. If you'll pardon the comparison I'll explain. Christmas's true meaning is held within our hearts, an invisible sense of love and compassion for our fellowman on our Savior's birthday. Today Christmas is the commercial holiday throughout which merchants look forward to to boost their annual revenues. Not for all, I realize, however for this example work with me. Funerals might have been a necessary time of grieving during the times when the bodies of the deceased were cared for at home, buried in a pine box made of wood chopped from their own land or a gunnysack that used to hold potatoes for winter storage, and left to decay and replenish the soil from whence we came. Now it's the service provided by a very commercialized industry, built upon the philosophy that the body needs to be preserved at all costs. That the deceased deserved the bigger, shinier, and pricier accessories to show how much you loved them, as you go softly into that gentle night called the poor house. I'd rather my body became worm chow as naturally as possible, but since the government has seen fit to require a cement liner to prevent seepage, I'll take the next best course. Burned as it's stated, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

My husband, children, brothers and sister, and friends will all surely find their own way of realizing I'm gone, grieve in their own way, and continue the business of life as was intended without a funeral. I'd rather they remembered me as I was, rather than the stiff corpse with perfectly coiffured hair, glued lips, and sewn eyelids, laid "to rest" in their inheritance-bought box.

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