If there's no beer at my funeral, I'm coming back to haunt you.

I started writing my own eulogy yesterday. Last week I attended yet another funeral where the minister didn't seem to have the slightest clue who he was celebrating. I see no point in reading an olio of unrelated scriptures, reading the mini-bio off the back of the bulletin and calling it a "good-bye".

There are too many "suppose to's" in life as it is, and there are definitely too many associated with a funeral. Has to have scripture, has to have cheesy hymns, has to be in a church or the next best thing -- a funeral home swathed in gauze orchestrated by men in dark suits. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what the celebrated person wanted. I would have preferred to bury my dad in a pair of overalls, but I know he would have been appalled. My mom has been a church-goer all her life; for her it would be odd to not hold her funeral in a church when the time arrives. But ever since graduate school, I've spent more time in delightfully sleazy little taverns than I have churches so why be a hypocrite.

I want to be celebrated outside in my flower garden. If I croak in January, you'll just have to wait. I'd rather be remembered in a place where I felt absolute joy under a vast blue sky with the birds overhead and cats underfoot.

I hope there will be music -- Dave Mathews, Bonnie Raitt, any good jazz. And if there are readings, I hope it will be passages from favorite books. If fiction must be read at my funeral, I want it to be the good stuff.

It's rather empowering to write a final message for the people you love -- the words you want to leave them with. I wrote that "I have no regrets." In real time, I have to make sure that is true at the end. So that forces me to look at my bullshit for what it is and get past it. It doesn't matter that my mother never encouraged me or made me feel so ashamed of myself that I've struggled for years to feel worthy of breathing. I can give meaning to myself. And I'll have to if that "no regrets" thing is going to be true. Besides, haven't I really known all along that she was wrong? That all the people who made me feel small -- idiotic eighth-grade boys, a morose ex-husband -- were all wrong about me?

Absolutely.

So that's the message I'll want to leave people with -- believe in yourself; listen to your own truth. Do nothing you're "supposed to" just for the sake of social convention or someone else's convenience.

And eat lots of ice cream!