It's How I Want To Be Remembered...

Now, there are some people out there who seem think that a funeral needs to be this somber, crying, gothic experience where people dress in black, they come in and look at the body (usually dressed in black as well) with some really depressing organ music softly playing in the background…What kind of way to remember a life is that?

At the risk of sounding gauche, I have taken the liberty of planning my own funeral. While I wish I could take credit for this, I am actually pulling out a page from the play book written by my buddy Chris. When my buddy Chris died, he did it up right, no body (he was cremated) and no service (even though he was a Christian, he knew where he was going) and he just wanted his family and friends to get together, have a party and celebrate his life…and so we did. Being Irish, we went to a brewery in the San Diego area and did Chris up in style. We laughed, we cried, we told stupid stories about Chris and what he meant to us. In other words, we celebrated Chris’s life and didn’t morn, per se, his passing.

Now, granted, most of the people in my life would not look too kindly to going to a brewery, however, I’m sure my kids, my son’s in-law and my buddies would knock one back for me in tribute. But what I want people to remember and talk about is the times that I made them laugh. Because if there is one thing in this life that I am sure of is that I was put on this earth to make people laugh. It doesn’t matter if you were a baby or a seasoned citizen; I was here to make you laugh.

I love the saying that goes “Don’t take life too seriously, nobody gets out alive” because that is how I have proposed to live my life. For you see, when you are laying on that final bed, dressed in one of those stupid hospital gowns that only open in the back, it is the laughter that you brought to yourself and to others that really counts when you are laying on your bed hooked up to life support.

Why is that so important? Because not only is it my mission in life, but it is a way to make people forget or help them get over whatever troubles they are having in their life. Laughter is the key to getting though this existence we call life. And this is what I want people to remember me for…the laughter that I brought to their lives. That is, to me, what I call leaving a legacy.