don't fuss about me when i'm dead

Two years ago, I was interviewed through email by Mr. & Ms. Magazine about my views on death and dying. The answers I wrote were published in a two-page article entitled Morbid Thoughts, or some other predictable title, in their Halloween issue. I essentially talked about how I wanted my wake to turn out. I wanted everything to be all black—black candles (no garish light bulbs please), black wooden coffin, black curtains with no frills, and black pedestal. I also wrote that I hated to have any religious iconography or symbols near my coffin. If they had to put something in the middle as decor, it should be my watercolor painting of a nude, crucified male figure with a looming hooded shadow of a demonic executioner at the back (this painting, by the way, now welcomes cobwebs and dust in a forgotten corner of an unused room in our old house). I clearly stated that it had nothing to do with religion or Christ. It was my critique on how society crucifies and humiliates people who do not conform to its shitty version of truth.

I wanted the wake’s piped-in music to be that of Secret Garden’s, the Norwegian New Age group who composed and popularized You Raise Me Up before Josh Groban mangled it. No eulogies. No sappy tributes. Anyone who would start eulogizing me should be stabbed and buried two days before my actual interment. I’d rather that they recount all my foibles, idiosyncrasies, stupidities, and silly anecdotes. I wanted laughter during my wake. Lots of it. I also wanted to lie in state without any clothes on, but thought it too gruesome because it would expose the undertakers’ stitches. But if it’s really laughter I wanted, then I guess lying there in the nude is really the way to go.

The tomb should look like a classical mausoleum complete with statues of Greek or Roman gods in wrathful or sensuous poses. I wanted my angels to be the bulols or the anitos or any of the tribal deities of the Philippines. If they couldn’t do enough research to recreate these tribal gods, I’d settle for the quirky creatures of mythology’s netherworld. I only wanted black or red marble to be used. And I wanted the masonry to look massive and intimidating.

These all seem too pretentious, pompous, and absurd now. I have already said that I want my corpse to be donated to a medical school to be put to good use. That’s better than rotting away in some dark grave, if you would ask me.

But really, I wouldn’t give a hoot about what they would do with my body after I die. As far as I’m concerned, that body, that thing that used to be me, will be nothing but parched flesh, dried up blood, and excess hair. There’s nothing to it, really. They could just wrap me up in some stinky bed sheet and throw me into the river for all I care. It doesn't make any difference, as long as the bed sheet is black, of course.