It’s My Funeral (and I’ll cry if I want to)

I was talking with a friend yesterday about the Month of the Dead (November in the Catholic church, and in astrology—the sign Scorpio), and I mentioned that I wouldn't want for myself a funeral styled as a "celebration of life", such as Jody Williams's family is calling hers.
In fact that stylization, with its emphasis on "only the happy hours", makes me not want to attend.

My fellow Americans seem to fear, even to hate sadness and to treat grief as rather unseemly, embarrassing.
The result?
Our shallow, Happy Meal culture.

(Say what you like, but no one calls Americans wise or profound.)

My friend had thought I would want a memorial celebration. Because of my cheeful nature, I suppose?
But not at all.  "I want a sob fest," I said.

Not exactly that, though. I said that, remembering when I studied to be a funeral director (for one semester), one of the teachers, a Greek Orthodox man, said that lots of people want upbeat funerals, and of course that's fine for them;
but for himself he would want people to weep "ropes of snot" over his coffin.
LOL, I always loved that.
Latin (or Greek) cultures tend to do death well.

So, yes, I definitely want a funeral with the dark, deep colors of grief.

The girlettes say they will wear black arm bands when I die. Carrying pots of incense, they will process with a black horse with black plumes down the aisle, to Mozart's Requiem.
(I'm picturing this at the Basilica, but I suspect A Certain Liturgist would not allow dolls to upstage him. He and Penny Cooper would have a clash of wills...)

However, yes, funerals can be (and hopefully mine will be) funny and loving and full of life too, of course.

And joyful! with something rousing for the recessional--
Beethoven's Ode to Joy, "Joyful, joyful, we adore thee";
or, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"--set the Welsh hymn tune Hyfrydol. I love to warble, "Changed from glory into glory!"

I'm Scorpio rising, and I like that Scorpio is the sign of death, and also of transformation and regeneration.
After the deep shadows of grief, after the long night,  "fill us with the light of day."

And life is a circus, celebrate the absurd.
My sun is in Pisces, the fish. Bring in the sardines!

ABOVE: The Funeral of the Sardine, by Francisco Goya, 1812-1819, (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, Spain), fundaciongoyaenaragon.es/eng/obra/el-entierro-de-la-sardina/467

"This painting shows a Spanish festival called the Burial of the Sardine, marking the end of Carnival on Ash Wednesday. The death of the sardine signifies the beginning of Lent--a mournful season.
The masked revelers here are dancing their way to the banks of the Manzanares, where a ceremonial sardine will be buried."