What Will They Say At Your Funeral?

 I have some bad news. I am dying. It may be morbid, but I am sitting here envisioning my funeral; who will be there an who will not.  I have the vision of my body in a pine box being lowered into a 6 foot grave. and the dirt being thrown on top of my coffin where it will remain forever. I have the vision of my family saying the Kaddish-the Jewish prayer for the dead as they lower my body into the ground. I have the vision of the 7 day mourning period known as Shiva beginning immediately thereafter. I have the vison of meeting God, assuming He or She exists,  and pleading my case for salvation as the heavenly prosecutors detail every bad deed I had transgressed. And finally I envision my existence fading from the memories of my friends and family as they resume their lives in my absence. The thought is sobering. 

When I say I am dying, I do not say it in the sense that I am terminally ill or that my dead is imminent-at least I hope not! There are those who obviously beg to differ. I say it in the sense that we are all dying. With every day, we are one step further from our birth and one step closer to our expiration date. There is no escaping the sad fact that the only thing that is certain in life is that at some point it ends. We all just hope that we make the best of the time we have. In other words, live every day like it's your last because it just might be. Perhaps this is coming to mind as I live less than a mile from the building that collapsed in Surfside where nearly 100 people were killed in one of the greatest tragedies in I have ever witnessed. None of those people went to bed that night thinking they would never see the light of day again. But then again no one ever does. To face our own mortality runs counter to the super ego embedded in the psyche of most living beings. To dwell on it makes it impossible to live. However, to keep it in mind allows us to live life to its fullest and cherish all of the good in our lives. 

It is worth noting that I left out part of  my funeral. I left out the eulogies. There is a Kabbalistic teaching that a person does attend his own funeral and sees the people that attend and hears the words of praise, or lack thereof that are uttered while his body lies in state. As a former felon this is extraordinarily sobering. For me as well as for many who found themselves in prison the last thing we want is to be remembered for the fact that we went to prison. It is hard enough that we have lost months or years of the relatively short amount of time we have  in this world. That however pales in comparison to the thought that the time in prison could be our everlasting legacies. If we committed crimes is that how we would want to be remembered? For those of us who wish to live the answer is no. For those of us who do not wish to live, well you can read this from three years ago http://www.whitecollarguru.com/2018/06/suicide.html

The advantage of having spent time in prison is that when we get out we value the simple things in life. We realize that every day is precious and time is not to be wasted. We realize that we must put every single day to good use and become productive members of society. We also realize that life is too short to be wasted on people who are well, just not good people. Every moment counts. We are on a constant mission to redeem ourselves so that we are not defined or remembered for our time in prison. 

So, how do we do that? Well that is a damn good question. At the end of the day there is no silver bullet to securing a good eulogy. That being said, there is something to be said from being knocked down and getting up; from losing everything and rebuilding; from facing despair and moving on. I think that is the answer. At my funeral, no one is going to speak about how much money I made or didn't make after I was released, even though starting a new career is no easy task. They are not going to care how many boards I sat on. They will certainly not speak about my adherence or lack of adherence to religious doctrine. So what will they care about? I think they will care about the fact that we as former prisoners resumed our normal lives. If we were good people and upstanding members of society after our release then they will speak about that. I'll be happy if someone would just get up and say "he was a good guy who was kind to others and lived life to its fullest". Whether actually does say that remains to be seen. So, to my fellow former inmates, What will they say at your funeral?