Today, I turned to a coworker and asked: “Should I, or should I not, write a blog about the fact that I don’t think that too many people would go to my funeral?” She about died laughing (pun DEFINITELY intended), probably because I said it out of nowhere, but most likely because she had the same response that most people have when you talk about your own funeral. “Don’t say that! Why would you say that!” And I get it. For face value, it does sound self-deprecating at best and pity-seeking at its worst. But I feel that I’m just being practical!
Hear me out. Sometimes, there are these tragic events where someone dies before their time, and you’ll hear people say “but you should have seen the service. I mean, they couldn’t even fit in the church. They had to put tents outside. There were over 500 people there!” Those stories really show you how one person can impact so many lives. Me, though? Meh. I mean, I have INCREDIBLE friends and a great supportive family, but I am not a “strength in numbers” kind of person. Most people make the assumption that I am an extrovert but I actually recharge the most when I am alone or with a small group of friends. I have a wide reach but I keep a lot of people at arm’s length. And those types of people don’t just drop everything to come to a funeral.
Here’s how I see it. If my funeral were a Facebook invite, there would be a lot of people who respond “Maybe”. They might even leave messages on the invite saying “ooooh, I wish I could come SO BAD but I have to work 😦 Loved knowing you as a person, though!” Those would be the really well-meaning people. Others would say “Ahh, my coworkers funeral is that day. I’ll text to see if people are still hanging out for the wake!” There might be a good amount of people who see the invite and just don’t respond either way. And that’s fine! That is fine. I have done that to plenty of invites. Mind you, they weren’t to funerals, but to each their own!
The reason why I think this is because this is already what happens for normal events in my everyday life. I can’t tell you how many parties that I have hosted where people have said “oh man! Wish I could go but we have this other thing that we are also going to, even though I never make plans or commit to anything, I already committed to this other thing that now I have to go to that thing.” I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the person who shows up right as the party starts and stays for 45 minutes, then leaves because they are heading to “another party”. Please. There is no other party. NO ONE has parties. People go to bars. Not house parties. I am old and enjoy having people come to me, so I host parties, but my youthful friends would rather go to bars, and that is actually where they are going when they tell me that they are going to another party. As a result, I don’t host wide-spread parties outside of my core group of friends. I also stopped calling them parties. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything later, you can stop by. There will be food and stuff. Whatever”. This lackadaisical approach has really helped the numbers, probably because it doesn’t sound too desperate. That’s probably the approach I will take with my obituary. “If you want to pay your respects, come by around 1pm. Or don’t. No big deal”.
There is also the case of logistics. Say, and god forbid any of these things happen, but say that I die before my parents and they want to bury me in my home state of Michigan. That knocks out like 65% of the potential funeral attendees. “Oh, it’s in MICHIGAN? Ugh, yeah, there’s no way I can go up there on such short notice.” Valid. Understandable. But say that I am laid to rest in Austin. Half of my family would ask “is there going to be a memorial or something up here? I mean, it’s just so hard to travel.” Ok, ok, they might be right, depending on their age. But here is the group of people that I am really talking about: It’s the old coworkers, friends from undergrad and graduate school, ex-boyfriends and those out of touch that will be legitimately sad but come to the point of their conversation where they will ask out loud “so, are you going to the funeral?” And there will be a pause because the other person will think “well, I was going to, but if YOU’RE not going, then… I donno, would it be weird if it was just me that went?” I feel like that group of people makes up a lot of the potential attendees for my funeral. but, that’s what you get when you keep people at arms length, I guess.
Here is what I know for sure. My tier 1 friends and family are the best tier 1 friends and family in the world. They will mourn. They will rally around some cause and slap my name on it and carry my legacy like a torch and keep my name alive for as long as they live. Maybe they will get tattoos! But if I only have enough people at my funeral to count on my two hands, I would be the luckiest person in the world.
Well, maybe not THAT lucky. I mean, I will be dead and all… And at such a young age! (Hopefully not. Dear God, hopefully not)
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