‘Speak of me as you have always done. Remember the good times, laughter, and fun. Share the happy memories we’ve made. Do not let them wither or fade. I’ll be with you in the summer’s sun And when the winter’s chill has come. I’ll be the voice that whispers in the breeze. I’m peaceful now, put your mind at ease. I’ve rested my eyes and gone to sleep, But memories we’ve shared are yours to keep. Sometimes our final days may be a test, But remember me when I was at my best. Although things may not be the same, Don’t be afraid to use my name. Let your sorrow last for just a while. Comfort each other and try to smile. I’ve lived a life filled with joy and fun. Live on now, make me proud of what you’ll become.‘
That’s a poem called Remember Me by Anthony Dowson which I found in ‘The Little Book of Humanist Funerals’ by Andrew Copson and Alice Roberts (yes, THE Alice Roberts) that I am reading as I plan for my own funeral. I am hoping that said funeral is not imminent, although frankly, who really knows, but it’s best to prepared, right?
If I did not make some kind of plan, how would I know for sure that my family wouldn’t play a ghastly song by some wretched group like Muse or, worse still, Queen? Imagine the small audience pissing themselves laughing as my coffin slipped down to the oven, accompanied by Bohemian Rhapsody? I’d be too dead to do anything about it, but have some respect, eh?
I have been to more funerals than I’d care to think about, including both paternal grandparents, my mum, my dad and my stepdad and the only one I’ve been able to remember as he was, and not what he became, was my dad and that was because I was in England and he was in Canada in the period after he acquired the illness that eventually killed him. Granted that funerals are not exactly joyous occasions, despite our best efforts to refer to them as ‘celebrations’, it’s the sadness I sometimes remember, unless passing has been a deliverance, a blessing; relief from, say, a horrible condition that rendered life unbearable.
I have heard Dowson’s words during at least one funeral, although I struggle to remember which one, and I know that it made me cry. That’s because it resonated with my own experience of life and death. Having lost relatives and friends to ghastly conditions that led to all kinds of decline, both mental and physical, they went to the grave, or wherever it is they ended, not in a state I’d wish to remember them. I’d want to remember them looking healthier, happier and, in some cases, younger. It is true that time loves a hero and many things always seem better when looking back, but somehow after some deaths – my mother’s springs to mind – all I could think about was the agonising pain she had been in for well over a decade. I have no hesitation in saying that her death was a deliverance and a blessing. Yes, I am saying that about my own mother, because it’s true. When I look back, those final years hang over my memory, like a black cloud. There was no joy, nothing to celebrate, apart from death itself. And yet, Dowson is actually right.
When he says, “I’m peaceful now, put your mind at ease. I’ve rested my eyes and gone to sleep” that should apply to everyone I have lost. The pain and discomfort someone was in is no more. Despite the fact that I am coming to the 25th anniversary of my mum’s death – and don’t worry: I don’t spend every waking hour thinking about or missing her, because that’s not what happens – I am going to read this poem a few more times.
Remember Me could just be the greatest thing I’ve ever read and heard. It’s so simple, which is why it works so well. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be there at my funeral. Maybe I should record myself reading it today so that I can scare the shit out of you as I emerge from the PA system of the crematorium and I can have the last laugh?
Or maybe, when I become world king, I’ll make its reading compulsory at all funerals because, I think anyway, there’s something for everyone in those words. And anyway, those attending will be so sick of my music selections, they’ll want something to distract them before I go back to where I was before I was born, which is nowhere.
