If I Die Young…

I’ve been hanging out with Jessica  a lot lately. We go to the same university and we live in the same dorm (she lives two floors above me), but we haven’t been hanging out too terribly often. I’m usually either in class, at work or sleeping. The past two weeks, however, we have hung out together 4 or 5 times.  Our friendship has changed a lot. Actually, I would consider “a lot an understatement.” That’s another set of info for another post though. The point to that babble was that a few nights ago we were sharing new music finds we’d discovered lately, and she put this song on.

Needless to say, I am now beyond past obsessed with this song. I listen to it on repeat until my heart can’t handle it anymore. Just listen to the words and enjoy her gorgeous voice.

After listening to this song for the first time, I got to thinking about death. Jessica’s maternal grandmother passed away recently, so this song reminded her of that. For me, it meant exactly as the lyrics set it out to be.

I thought and thought about death and came to this conclusion:

I am not afraid to die, by any means. I am ready to meet my Creator with open arms and get my wings. In fact, I can’t wait. Death doesn’t scare me one bit and I think it’s because I know there’s something more than this earth. The One who gave us breath went before us and made a place for us to live with Him forever. The only thing that makes me sad about me dying is leaving the people I love the most here on this earth, in this life. I am confident that I will see them again someday though. We’ll all walk through those gates and spend eternity together worshiping our Awesome God.

I told Jessica that and I’m pretty sure she thought I was weird. Oh well. It’s the truth and I’m not afraid to hide it.

After we got that part of the conversation out of the way, I started talking about what I would want my family to do if I really did die. I know for a fact that I don’t want a Catholic funeral/memorial service. That isn’t me. I would prefer a Christian (Non-denominational) funeral/memorial service. I want it to be happy and celebrate my life. I want people to wear bright colors and eat my favorite foods. I want lots of pictures of me with the people I love everywhere and my favorite songs played. I want my friends to talk to the congregation and sing to them. I want people to leave excited to meet their Creator, too. What I can’t decide is what I want done with my body. Part of me wants to be embalmed and put in a black casket. I think seeing a body provides closure. Another part of me doesn’t want everyone to see me dead though;I kind of want just my family and close friends to see me like that. I don’t want to be remembered in that state and in that outfit. The other part of me wants to be cremated, but let my family and close friends see my body before then. I think my mom will know what to do with my body if and when the time comes.

Note: I am in no way, shape or form suicidal. I think death is a part of life and we should all be ready and those around us should know our wishes.