35. What Kind Of Funeral Do You Want?
The Year of Paying Attention
We all feel crazy sometimes, which is different from coping (or not coping) with serious mental illness. Of late I see more mentally ill people around and about than I’m accustomed to. I don’t remember unhinged, menacing or merely crackpotty people at all in the New England town I grew up in, nor did I see much in Boston in the 70’s, or during my one year in Chicago. But in the last couple of days, there seems to be one mad character after another in my immediate proximity. One gift of attending 12-step meetings is I’m more comfortable with the mentally ill. (I am, after all, one of them.) I know they feel profoundly powerless over their deep unhappiness. I know not to get annoyed when they’re upset, or try to talk them out of their delusions.
Once, in the West 4th Street subway station, two men seemed to be talking when the bigger of them slapped the smaller across the face, the blow echoing through the station. It was shocking, frightening. The smaller guy lurched away, and I realized they were strangers to one another, and the big guy was unstable, and had become violent. I hustled over to the guy who’d been struck, and asked if he was okay. He looked dazed, ashamed, and we stood there confused and quiet for a moment, while the violent guy stood a dozen yards away, his back to us, now looking calm and normal, as if nothing had just happened. I looked around for a cop, but there wasn’t one. A train rolled into the station, and the violent guy strode into the car, the door closing behind him, taking him north, to god knows what new mayhem.
This morning, making my way to a yoga class, I jostled my way into the middle of the subway car, headphones protecting me from too much reality, listening to the routinely unsettling daily news. From outside my headphones I heard a man proclaiming from the middle of the car about some injustice he was experiencing. I decided to ignore him, then watched a woman sitting opposite me as she handed over her bag of groceries to the declaimer.
I thought, is she daft, too? Neither of them looked disturbed. He had a backpack and a good haircut, a chain probably attached to a wallet in his pocket, a sense of quiet, albeit wacko style. She looked normal, slender, wearing glasses, and my next thought was — is this being staged? Are they in cahoots? He took her bag with no expression of gratitude, and walked on and into the next car.
Not thirty seconds later, another loud guy entered the car, more strident, angrier sounding. I kept my headphones in place, but watched both the man and the other passengers. New Yorkers rely on a kind of group sense, as to whether a yelling person on the subway is dangerous or merely irritating. This one remained in the irritation zone, despite his agitation. He appeared to be preaching. At one point, he held up a plastic Tic-Tac box, to illustrate a point. I looked around, noticing other passengers looking around, taking the continuous temperature of the car — is this still safe? Will this end soon?
On my first and only visit to France, in the Paris Metro with Sarah, a man was staring daggers at me for ten minutes. I was confused, until a local later explained the guy probably just hated Americans, and wanted to make me feel uncomfortable by staring hatefully at me. That guy should visit the New York subway.
***
“What kind of funeral do you want?” Sarah asked me. I’d already done a little thinking about this, and answered, “I could care less.” “You should write it down somewhere,” she said. My father wrote and re-wrote his obituary in the last years of his life, mailing me the latest version, so I could distribute copies to The Boston Globe, the New York Times, and a couple of other Massachusetts papers. When he died there was no funeral or memorial service — the Warfield family tradition for dealing with a death in the family: it didn’t happen.
The funeral in Maine for my friend Jack was wonderful. His nephew gave a deeply personal accounting of the impression Jack left on everybody. The clergyman, Jack’s old friend, gave a touching eulogy. The service didn’t go on too long, and afterward everybody crossed the street and walked a few minutes to the handsome cliffside home of Jack’s older brother, to eat and drink and reminisce.
So what kind of a funeral do I want? I want it to be a bit of a party, with some laughs. Not too sad. My friend Tom, an ex-priest who has counseled the dying in hospitals, explained the enormous value of the open casket for survivors, who need all the help they can get in accepting the reality of a loved one’s death. I hope I look good.
If I die today, I want a funeral in the church opposite our apartment building, because convenience is important. I suppose Sarah can rustle up Koshin or Chodo, Zen priests from the Zen Center for Contemplative Care, whose marriage was recently featured in the New York Times, to officiate. They’re cool guys, and dealing with the dying is their business, so — perfect.
For music, I think my guitar teacher Andrew and my sax friend Claire from the Downbeat Critics’ Poll can assemble a combo and play a few numbers from the American Songbook — let’s say My Ship, and Beautiful Love, since that’s the tune I’m learning on the guitar. I won’t be sitting in, but let’s go with that one anyway. And Charlie Parker’s Now’s The Time, for obvious reasons.
A poignant reading or two? Peter and Sean can select something short and sweet, and Sarah, too, if she’s up to it. My younger sister will be too upset, so we’ll leave her out of it. My friend Dean is a great writer, although he’d be writing about himself, rather than me, but that’s okay. Our friend Billy should play his guitar, since he’s the guy who encouraged me to take lessons.
Everybody can come back to our apartment, just steps from the church — Tim was thoughtful right up to the end, they’ll say — and there should be healthy food for those who insist on it, and unhealthy food in my honor: fried chicken from Blue Ribbon, cookies from Levain, pizza from the Neapolitan Express pizza truck that is never there when you need it near the subway entrance on Roosevelt Island, and deli from the Second Avenue Deli, no longer on Second Avenue, still very good, and very, very bad for one’s health. Most of my friends don’t drink, but there should be booze for those who do. And good coffee. Plus good pie and ice cream. And somebody can get a carrot cake like the one I shlepped home on the subway for Sarah’s 38th birthday party a few months ago.
Let me just say, there better be scores of people showing up for this, or I’ll be pissed. I have a number of sober friends, and the people I worked closely with are obliged to make the scene, especially if you got a better raise than you deserved. My daughters should insist their friends show up, at least for the delicious, unhealthy food. And free booze. I don’t drink, but I’m dead.
You know, I’m feeling a lot better about this whole thing. Finally, after my remains are cremated, and I want all of that stuff done on the cheap, my ashes should be dumped into the East River from the little red bridge that connects Roosevelt Island to Long Island City in Queens. The East River is already pretty polluted, so what’s a little more dust to dust?
Next week: Suicide, Fast or Slow
