"Notes For The Speech I Will Give At My Funeral"

Notes For The Speech I Will Give At My Funeral

1) Welcome, light candles
2) Introduction to me/ my dates of birth and death
3) Weather and societal conditions on the day I was born
4) Home movies: three years old in the backyard at Grandma and Grandpa’s house on North St.
5) Display baby clothes and blanket that Mom kept
6) Essay: Why And How Much I Hate Florida
7) List of minor achievements and small successes
8) Break: all go outside, shoes off and walk in grass, feel trees and sun, breathe air
9) Remarks about depression and suicide—selected poems
10) Presentation: pictures and clips from stage plays, commercials, television shows and films I have appeared in
11) Read aloud Proust’s IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, Jung’s MEMORIES, DREAMS AND REFLECTIONS and Annie Dillard’s PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK
12) Sigur Ros perform “Svefn-g-Englar,” Joni Mitchell performs “Hejira,” and Ella Fitzgerald performs “Summertime”

Dinner break—Sweet French bread, Mom’s lasagna, shrimp fried rice, Jell-O boxed cheesecake

13) Geographical map of homes and places I have lived—special section for California
14) List of regrets, major mistakes and minor embarrassments
15) Slide show: my face and hair through the years
16) Films: “Wings Of Desire,” “Baraka,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Fearless”
17) Bathroom break
18) Tribute to all my friends
19) Tribute to Mom and Dad with video and music
20) Kate performs “Moments Of Pleasure”
21) Blessings: light candles and champa, smudge with white sage
22) Show audience/tell audience about The Doorway
23) My final gift
24) Goodbye, let (them) go

©JEF 2010