When life throws you a curveball, do what Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off says – SWING.
Movies
When It Hits, Use Your Mouth
Earlier this week my youngest commented there was a funny smell coming from the basement. I thought it was just the bit of mustiness I had noticed myself, normal for at the end of winter and pre-spring cleaning time, especially without a window down there. As I approached the stairs however, I did notice the smell had changed, wasn’t ‘normal’ at all anymore. Down I went. Continue reading
It’s My Funeral So Everyone P-A-R-T-Y!
The Life Of Marianne: Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life
People get ready! We’re gonna have a party! Only God knows when it will be, where it will be, and how it will take place but my death will happen. I won’t have much control, if any, over any of those things but what I do have some control over now is planning the party that will take place after it. Yes, I said party.
I don’t want some dark and gloomy funeral where everyone is crying over the loss of me in their lives. I want better than that, more than that, especially for my own children. Yes, I know there will be tears, I know I have family and friends who will be sad at my passing. But I want the overriding theme for all to be a celebration of the wonderful, meaningful, and even corny & quirky things that made me me, and how that me meant something positive to them.
The inspiration behind this plan came from two sources. One was my mother. Long before she even became ill, she would joke about her funeral being a party and what a fun time it would be. After she got sick and as she knew her life’s end was nearing, she took the reigns and told us her wishes for her final days if they were possible. She got what she wanted. My brother, sister-in-law, and I held her hand as she took her last breath in a hospice here in Guelph where I live now and she had previously lived. And three months later, we threw her a party at the place that had been her home with her husband, my step-dad, for some years. It was a beautiful sunny May day, along the waterside, and we truly did have fun celebrating the awesomeness of my mom.
Some of my other vision for my funeral came to me while reading “Who Will Cry When You Die?”, a book by one of my favourite authors, Robin Sharma, the man behind “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”. It was then that I started to actually put my thoughts to print so should my death come unexpectedly, my family would know some of my wishes. The first thing I started to write out was a playlist of songs. Music is the soundtrack to my life, and when I’m not sure what it is I want to express to someone, I often turn to lyrics to help guide me. On that playlist are some of the songs I want dedicated to my loved ones. Others are on there because they’ve had some meaning in my own life. There are some sappy ones on it because like I’ve said before, a dose of sappy every now and then is good for the soul. But there are a lot of happy ones too. I want people to smile, sing along, and even dance. Remember, it’s a party.
This post idea came from today’s Daily Prompt: Festivus for the Rest of Us. I could write a whole other post on all of the songs on my funeral playlist, maybe I will one day. And yet another post on the rest of the details I have planned out like location and food and such. But I’ll finish up this post on a music note. I have picked one song to be the theme of my funeral. One that has some life lessons in it. A song that many will have heard and will remember seeing in the comedy movie it comes from. A song that talks about death in an honest way, but at the same time in a lighthearted manner too. A song that makes me smile every time I hear it. That song is: “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” from Monty Python’s “The Life Of Brian”. Here’s an excerpt from the lyrics I love:
“For life is quite absurd, and death’s the final word, you must always face the curtain with a bow,
Forget about your sin, give the audience a grin, enjoy it, it’s your last chance anyhow”
366 Days Of Art, Movie Quotes, and Song Lyrics
If you enjoy art and/or movie quotes and/or song lyrics, then check out a very cool story about two brothers on a mission.
Tory Burke and Ian Simmons are on a leap-year journey of creative expression derived from iconic pop culture quotes. The project started as a need for personal outlets for their art that became a collaboration of both of their works. They are about 2 months into the adventure which will go for 366 days since 2016 is a leap year.
Read this Omaha.com article for more about their project and a few gallery pics of their work. You can view more on their art on these sites as well:
Here is one of their pieces, as included in the Omaha.com article linked above:
along the side of the road 