Axar.az presents an article "Instructions For My Funeral" by John Samuel Tieman.

I'm 73 going on 74. I'm in good health. Nonetheless, it's time to make plans for my funeral.

First, remember it’s not my funeral. It’s yours. I won’t hear the music. I won’t hear the prayers. I won’t hear the cries or the laughs. I really won’t be of much use. So indulge yourself. I only have a few requests.

Do my funeral like I did my life: don’t be cheap but don’t be wasteful. A good funeral is like a good wine. The best is rarely the most expensive.

I want the wake. I want the Mass Of The Resurrection. I want the graveside service. And I want this not for me but for you. There is much wisdom in the Roman Catholic tradition, much consolation, much hope. You will need each of these. Take solace in the thought that such services have comforted folks for centuries.

Have me embalmed or have me burned. That’s up to you. I do like the new eco-friendly burials. I have nothing against becoming mulch. Whichever you choose, I won't complain.

At times like this, heed the women in my family, for they have a rich inner life. Funerals are about the inner life. The priest should craft his sermon from the words of these women. Listen to my wise wife, my fierce sister, my rock-solid nieces. They can trace the contours of the soul.

Let the men in my family be my pallbearers, for the strength of these men is in the courage they find when bearing the heaviest sorrow.

Have a Jew read the “Kaddish” in Hebrew and English. It’s short, so it will be OK. All my life I’ve lived around Jews; all my life I’ve had friends who were Jews. Like the Mass of the Resurrection, the “Kaddish” is a song of praise. Funerals need a bit of praise that isn’t forced. Likewise, all my life I've had friends who were Black; all my teaching career I've had students who were Black. As I can't imagine my life without their voice, so I can't imagine my funeral without someone Black reading a psalm.

If poets want to read verse, make it short. And good, meaning not saccharine and uplifting. For reasons that elude me, funerals seem to attract long and bad poetry.

Indulge yourself emotionally. Feel the finality. There’s not much I learned in life, but this much I know: there are no correct emotions. Sadness. Anger. Gratitude. Regret. Laughter. Melancholy. A good joke. A snicker. There’s room for all that and more at my funeral.

Go to the graveside. Look in the hole. When my body is lowered, throw a handful of dirt on the casket. This is the needful bit for the very reason that you just can’t make it easy.

Put on a good feed. People need a good meal after a good burial. If someone wants seconds or thirds, if someone drinks a bit too much, this is not the day for being judgmental.

Be kind to my memory, but don’t be false. In my youth, I drank too much, did drugs, womanized. In a war of questionable morality, I killed a boy. I traveled the world in order to run from my troubles. I spurned the love and kindness of people who truly cared for me. There is much I regretted, much I simply learned to live with. I know it, and so does anyone who knows me. But I got better with age. So say that I tried my best to love, that I taught a few kids to read and write, that I spent much of my teaching career helping the poor and the immigrant, that I was a good and faithful husband, a good friend, a good writer, that I created a few works of art. If nothing else, say I made a few people laugh. So let the truth also bear its kindness.

On the other hand, I hope someone will exaggerate at least one story about me. Something about my life lends itself to exaggeration.

So regard what I say about my funeral. Or don’t. In any case, I promise I won't complain.