https://webnuggetz.com/why-i-believe-in-funeral-or-memorial-services/
...and I didn't want to put my quibbles into a comment on her memories, so I'm putting them here, for The Nephews.
I don't like the kind of funerals that have grown into a tradition in our part of the world.
I agree that the gathering of the bereaved can be an important part of their grieving process, but I detest the waste of money on the funeral industry. I've heard more than enough of the "And for the quartet..."--"QuarTET? My __'s dead and I should pay a @#$% band--?!?!" routine.
My father didn't want a funeral. My natural sister gave him one anyway. Neither my mother nor I went to it.
Mother has since told me that sister talked her around into consenting to a modest funeral, for the sake of the living.
For myself, I have no objection to any private memorial service the living may want to conduct, as long as nobody wastes any money on The American Way of Death.
For myself, the main priority is that money living people may need should not be wasted on my bones. Give'm to medical science. I won't need them where I'm going.
If people want to gather and reminisce, let them do that. If they're relatives of mine, and they gather, it would be most unnatural if potluck dinner, gospel music, and Christian "testimonies" did not happen. Let those things happen with my blessing.
Older people who don't get out much, and don't enjoy commercial entertainment, may look forward to such things as the only social stimulation (and perhaps the best meals) some of them get. Let them be fed and entertained, by all means. For more than fifty years we've always poor-mouthed about that aspect of any family gathering, and always managed to have plenty to spare for those who really are poor, in money or in social life.
But the way I'd prefer to be remembered is the way I remember the people I miss: by carrying on, in whatever way I can, something they did while living.
For those who've wondered how it's possible for a blogger who was a 4F to be interested in veterans' issues, or a blogger with no children to be interested in school choice, or a blogger who's not Black to be interested in Black History...that's how. In real life there are other things I support, when and as I can, in memory of other departed friends, in addition to those.
So here is an official short list of ways I'd like to be remembered, instead of being buried in a fancy coffin (in a part of the world where no part of a coffin and few traces of a skeleton last even twenty years):
1. Oppose censorship. Write books other people are afraid to write, or buy them when other people do.
2. Support writers and writing, especially of real books. Buy books. Teach children to read. Teach foreign students English. Coach G.E.D. students.
3. Commit always to live with at least two cats and as many other animals as possible.
4. If unable to adopt a child, at least foster one, or more--the older, and the more siblings you can keep together, the better. Bonus points if they're multiracial in a slightly different way than you are.
5. I started to type, "Be a whole-Bible Christian." No. If you were brought up a Jew or a Muslim, even if you believe Jesus is your spiritual Messiah too, you're still a (Messianic) Jew or a (Sufi) Muslim. So be what you are. Be a real, radical one, waging intense peace with the other kinds of spiritual people in this world.
6. Cultivate topophilia for your own part of the world. Get to know your local wildlife and weather. Practice stewardship of land--which, for one thing, means no poisoning, ever; if things like mosquitoes must be killed, kill them by ones. Spend time outdoors. Practice living outdoors. Unplug yourself from all the mod. con., electric as well as electronic, from time to time.
7. Practice thinking in introverts' terms. Show good will by showing respect, not that horrible false imitation of chumminess that actually sets strangers' teeth on edge.
8. Support people's right to do anything that doesn't directly harm other people--but not so much the trendy pressure groups of rich and/or heavily funded people who whine about things that hurt their little feelings. I was and still am "pro-gay" in the sense that I've never thought anyone had any business telling other people what to do in their own bedrooms, but that battle's been won already and the continuing clamor is distracting attention from the present issues that really are as serious as "gay" people's right not to be locked up. Focus on people's right to earn their livings and bring up their children as they see fit.
9. Don't hate or fear the cities, even the inner cities; good people are there too. Especially avoid the mental trap of thinking of "Washington" as merely the bureaucrats and lobbyists who work there, and failing, when you are in Washington, to notice any of the teachers and storekeepers and bus drivers and religious people and artists and snack vendors who live there too. Do lead as rural a life as possible, especially if you have children, and support other people's right to one, especially if they are old.
10. Be independent of other people. Love people-in-general in the way you love trees. Love your close friends and relatives in the way you love your pets. Be generous and affectionate and empathetic whenever you can, all the more because you are prepared to live a long time after the people you have loved most...because you just might have to.
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