My Dying Wish

"He would make a lovely corpse." -Charles Dickens

Till death do us part. It's in the vows, yo. The only thing that will separate me from My Director is a dirt nap. Marriage. When you think about the whole thing, committing yourself entirely to one person for the rest of your life, it's pretty freakin' deep. I love it. Until you're six feet under. And that's pretty freakin' shallow. I don't love that.

This photo is just dripping with irony, is it not?

So shallow, in fact, that it creeps me out. Since I first experienced death with my Grandpa Sal when I was 11 years old, the thought of being buried totally gave me the heebie jeebies. The thought of dirt and bugs and just laying there rotting...gross. I can't handle it. Just mentioning it makes me nauseous. I decided at a pretty young age that I wanted to be cremated. I didn't really think about it until decades later when my dad died, and was cremated. "Oh yeah," I thought. "That reminds me. Sign me up for one of those too please."

Over My Director's dead body. Whenever the subject of our final resting place comes up, she puts me in my place.

"You're not getting cremated," she insists. "I want to be buried and I want you next to me. So you're getting buried." 

"Not if I go first," I counter. 

"You wouldn't," she shrugs. 

"No. I would respect your wishes because I love you," I admit.

Yet, she would not do the same. The sad and frustrating part of this whole morbid mess is that it's inevitable that I will die first. The man almost always does. You know why? Because we're tired and eventually we just want quiet. Some uninterrupted sleep.

"I can't believe you would do that to me. Deliberately go against my wishes," I protest. Meekly. 

"What do you care?" She says. "You'll be dead." She's cruel is what she is. 

"If you go first," she reasons, "I want a place to go and visit you. With a headstone and a bench. Maybe under a tree somewhere. So I can talk to you and tell you about my day."

It's a little worrisome that she's planned my death in pretty vivid detail, don't you think? I'm rethinking my recent purchase of an axe for chopping firewood. While that sucker might come in handy during the zombie apocalypse, maybe My Director has other plans for it first.

"If I'm in an urn, you can take me with you. Wherever you go," I tell her. "I'm so portable." 

"No." 

"We can BOTH be cremated and Peanut can spread our ashes somewhere special. Somewhere we love. Like the beach at LBI. Or Venice. Or at Syracuse." 

"It's too cold at Syracuse. I don't want to be there for eternity." 

"But it's where we met." 

(Shakes her head and wrinkles her nose in disgust.)

Now she's just being unreasonable. So I give in, with a quid pro quo.

"Fine. Bury me," I say. "But no open casket. I don't want to be preserved or put in a box. If you're going to bury me, just dig a hole and dump me in. No chemicals. That way I become one with the earth. You know, the circle of life."

"No. That's gross." 

"Right. Which is why I want to be cremated in the first place." 

"I'm putting you in a coffin." 

"Please don't. I'm claustrophobic. And it's such a waste of money. You're gonna need that money." 

"You're insured."

WTF?!

When I do die, she will have final say. She will make the decision and I will be powerless to stop her. She handles our finances. She plans our social calendar.  She even gets to control the television most of time. Now she's got her sights set on my afterlife.