Sorry to touch on a sensitive subject, but my friend Margaret has already written hers and even has her tombstone in place. I think it’s about time I did the same thing. Now that we’ve updated our wills and agreed on where we want our ashes interred, I suppose we should tie up the final loose ends. What kind of funeral or celebration of life do we want? What music do we want to be played? Church, funeral home, or graveside service only? Or, perhaps no service at all. So many decisions are still to be made.

We’ve been to so many funerals lately and we can no longer deny the inevitable is on the horizon. Our contemporaries are departing and we need to get our ducks in a row or we have no right to complain from heaven when we’re not sent off the way we would have chosen.

Do you read the obituaries in the newspaper on the weekend? I do and I regularly come across names from my past that had completely slipped from memory until I saw their picture and obit in the paper. Just this weekend I came across the name of a former boyfriend of an old roommate of mine from the sixties. I have seen obits for coworkers and acquaintances from my days at Bell Telephone in the sixties and my decades with EllisDon. I now follow my hometown’s funeral home on social media so I can keep up to date.

I am not particularly sentimental about what happens with my own remains but I realize funerals and celebrations of life are for those loved ones left behind. We need a sendoff, closure, and acceptance that when one life ends, life for our loved ones continues. It’s been that way since the beginning of time.

While we no longer deem it necessary to take all our worldly possessions—pets, jewelry, food, and spouses—with us to the afterlife like the ancient Egyptians, we do need to properly assign our belongings to those we leave behind. Our legal wills help with some of that. As someone who never had children of my own, I am the curator, choreographer, and editor-in-chief of my own demise. No one knows me better or is in a better position to summarize my life than me.

While I have not yet written my obituary, I think I already have the picture in mind that will be used in the announcement. I specifically do not want it to include the words “the love of her life“. Call him my honey, my husband, my gardener, my car-gasser-upper, anything but love of my life. Every time I read those chronically overused and clichéd words in someone else’s obit I do a major eye roll.

I have recently decided that some nice Elvis music would be appropriate as I’m laid to rest. Elvis and I have had a long, intense, and one-sided romantic history together. I would like my ashes interred along with those of my husband and assorted dogs we’ve had the joy of sharing our lives with over the years. Would we all fit in the Louis Vuitton purse EllisDon gave me as a retirement gift? That would be nice. My friend Terry suggested the headstone inscription, “She finally quit complaining about her hair” and I like that too. I also want my plot to have WiFi so I can still download library books in the afterlife.

With those items of business settled, I suppose I should start thinking about the wording of my obituary. Hopefully, I still have quite a bit of time left to compose a fitting masterpiece but who knows? Do you have any special requests or food preferences I should be aware of for the celebration afterward? For those with allergies, sorry, there will be nuts in the ice cream! I really do want you to enjoy my send-off. Although, hopefully, not for a while yet.

Final thought: Imagine giving a friend your cell phone with the following email to be sent out a few days after your demise: Hello? It’s awfully cramped and dark in here. And the WiFi doesn’t work. Could someone please check on me?