koen's funeral email

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Thoughts concerning topic risen through 'Bound By The Beauty'
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:48:44 +0100



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Hey all,

It's (not so) strange funerals came up. Somehow it's something I've been
thinking about lately..., way too often actually.
Anyway, once there was a time when I said I wanted 'Oh My My' being played at
my funeral, just to have people being forced to listen to 20 minutes of
Siberry.
Lately I don't know...
 
Last week I went to a funeral. My boyfriend's cousin died at the age of
50. Cancer, it was all over in three months. Diagnose, treatment, operations,
death. We were all shocked by the 'sudden' death, and so we dreaded going to
the service. Mostly because we liked her a lot, she was always happy (she was
blind but never complained), she was just the most uplifting member of our
family (and this is true, nothing to do with 'nothing but good about the
dead').
She heard from the doctors nothing could be done on Monday, she died on
Friday. During those 'five' days she managed to arange
everything. Legacy, funeral, the lot. Not to mention being at ease with her
given situation.
So the funeral was her idea.
 
In comes my thinking... She (she was called Marijke, seems a bit odd to refer
to her as simply 'she'...) chose the music being played during the service. It
was Tina Turner's 'Simply The Best', it was Dire Straits's 'Sultans Of Swing',
it was Khaled's 'Aicha'... not exactly funeral material. It was odd... People
told stories about her life and encounters with her, and in between very much
uplifting music was played. We went from tear stained eyes to smiling mouths.
People looked at eachother as if we all recognized Marijke in this sequence of
things.
 
Back to 'Oh My My'... No one would recognize me in that song. Nor in a lot of
Siberry songs. Would they in 'Th Life Is The Red Wagon'? In 'The Valley'? In
'The Taxi Ride'? 'Sweet Incarnadine'? 'The Vigil'? Hell, I don't know, but I
really don't t! hink so.
As much as I want other people to hear Siberry, I don't think it would make a
mark in a funeral kind of thing. Siberry is mine, and yours, and probably
perhaps our spouses, because they realize what they are confronted with. Other
people would just hear a song, possibly a good lyric, melody, but it
would never linger on as a song they would refer to as being me. That I'm sure
of.
So what could one do? When I die, I would like to 'hear' Siberry being played
to those attending my funeral. But what song? Instead of the more obvious
choices, I think I would now go for something more joy, more happy, more
fun. 'Begat Begat' comes to mind. Just like 'Everything Reminds Me Of My Dog'.
'Hotel Room 417' must make people laugh if they have the lyrics in some
booklet or something. 'This Girl I Know' is soooo me...
 
Difficult... no?
 
Anyway, this was/is just something that way too often enters my mind. And no,
I wouldn't 'bother' them with 20 minutes of Siberry. I think I would give them
'The Kiss' maybe. Perhaps 'When I Think Of Laura Nyro'. Maybe 'Jesus Christ
The Apple Tree'. Most of all I would like to give them my all time Sib
favourite, but they probably wouldn't fall for it... and that I hate the
most...
 
Your sibling,
 
Koen