Having My Funeral First

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

I sure don’t know when the Lord will call me home. It may be before I have my funeral first. But here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve been to so many funerals and visitations where someone says, “Too bad they’re gone, they would have loved to visit everyone here.”

I want to see those folks that have enriched my life, changed my life, even saved my life. I want to be in their presence, face to face.  I want to have the heart-to-heart talks we used to have before life moved most of us miles apart, even states apart. Yes, we’ve got email and Facebook and all that tech stuff. But do you know what? You can’t giggle over the airwaves or laugh until you can’t breathe. You can’t put your arm around a friend when the sadness is so deep no words will come. You can’t give a hug to a computer. I’m sorry, but “Hugs” just doesn’t cut it.

I want to sit in the backyard sharing a glass of iced tea with one of my oldest and dearest friends, while we smell the cornfield and watch the hummingbirds. I want to have lunch at Applebee’s with whoever is available and make plans for lunch there when the others are available. I want to sit on the front porch at my sister’s and watch the “dirty birds” bathe in the birdbath and sip coffee as we catch up.

Life sometimes can’t be written down or shared on the phone, the life that happens “between the lines”. I’ll visit with my niece and her two little ones and catch some of their joy. I want to fish in the lake where we operated the boat marina, where I got to fish day and night every day if I chose to. I want to visit all the family I can, and ask them to help me remember way back when before I forget. I want to TELL them all how much they mean to me and how they made my life so worth it.

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