Death

We are born, we live and we die. Death is inevitable and no one escapes it. So when I bring up the subject of my eminent death my children grown inwardly. According to Chinese custom you don't talk about death, especially your own if you are still living.

I have informed my children that when I die I don't want them to go to any great expense, they can just throw me in a cardboard box and bury me in the back yard. I mean I can't really see why it is necessary to spend so much on a funeral when I am not around to enjoy it anyway. Of course this does not go over well with my children, probably because it is against the law to bury someone in the back yard. Also with the freshly dug earth the dog may take it into her head to dig me up. But then again my husband has a double plot, my resting place is beside him. I can see him now reaching out his boney hand patting the earth right beside him as if he is inviting me to bed. My name has already been chiseled on the headstone and is painted bright red (so as not to bring bad luck reigning on my still breathing body) and will be painted in black once my weary bones have been laid to rest. There I will lay for eternity arguing with my husband. As in death as in life. Now that sounds like a plan. I could say things to him I never dared to in life. We could have some real knock down drag out fights.

Another thing I have asked my children is what kind of religious funeral are they going to give me. I mean a Christian funeral seems pretty weird when your lying in a Chinese cemetery. Not to mention that if there actually is a God I'll probably go straight to hell for being a non believer. At a funeral I attended with my kids I asked my daughter and she informed me they'll probably do the traditional Chinese funeral with all the trappings, and crying and wailing as my body lays in the cardboard box in the Malaysian heat frying. This way I'll end up in hell first and my children will have to spend the rest of their lives praying to me and sending up offerings in order to pave my way into heaven. I wouldn't have to do a thing. I should also put it in my will (LOL what will) that I want keggers at my funeral. I want everyone who attends to get falling down drunk in remembrance of me.

When I die I hope I don't die a painful death, I hate pain. When I go I want to go painlessly in my sleep where I will not know what hit me. God forbid I die of cancer, as my poor mother did. If I have cancer I have informed my kids that I want plenty of morphine and vodka so I can spend the rest of my days in oblivion. I sure hope they don't take it into their heads to bury me in traditional Chinese garb, I want to be comfortable in the after life if there is one. Better tell them to bury me in my traditional garb that I wear around the house, a man's singlet and boxer shorts.