My funeral

Before “dust come to dust” i.e. my cremation, I just want you all to sit down and enjoy the show. A multi-media, multi-lingual slide show, interjected with live comments from friends who pass the mike around if they feel like saying something (stirring and settling ). No need to pay for the podium.

We can also have intermission, so people can go pee and check their phones.

Who says at my funeral, I have to follow your rules, written and unwritten.

We pre-paid the funeral home, so the place is ours to do whatever we want.

I want to die free, if haven’t in life.

I would not invite any religious representatives to my celebration of life (enough sermonizing that lasts for a life-time while state of the world is getting worse).

A life lived like a pinball, bouncing but rigged from the start by the tilted machine. It made a lot of noise ( The Who, pinball machine) while balls trying to defy gravity.

I remember pulling out whatever I had in cash to give to a shirtless 7-year-old stuttering kid from Cho Lon. He had arrived at Jubilee refugee camp with just a pair of shorts, tattered and un-washed after floating on a straw boat, the kind I later cruised past en route to Ha-long Bay.

The camp guards (more used to prisoners like in Green Mile, the movie) stopped him and confiscated his cash in his possession. Oh well, since it’s small and confined a place, I soon heard about it. Long story short, I ended bailing him out before sending him on his way to England (say “Hi” to the Queen). This must be subliminal but years later, I visited England and wandered around London’s Chinatown.

Back to my funeral. I would power-project an image of me, a little boy, shirt on, but not too different from said Jubilee boy.

Then the D.J. would play “the Whiter Shade of Pale” whose lyrics to this day, escaped me.

Oh, talking about music and lyrics. Let’s not forget to play McLean ‘s “American Pie”. I heard it over the ceiling speakers at Rex cinema, during inter-mission when a vendor lady in black solicit for our business (Chiclets or chocolates…).

When friends and families. having over the initial shock of attending a “weird” funeral, I would switch and surprise them with Vietnamese songs, from Ben Cau Bien Gioi to Toi Di Giua Hoang Hon.

Toward the end of this music/memorial program, it would be Reflections of my life (the prelude to ceremony/concert would be Catavina – theme from the Deer Hunter).

This Saturday, I will be attending a classmate’s funeral. My “Big Chill”. It would involve monk chanting, people weeping (me too).

But for now, to distract myself and delay grief, I want to play with my imagination: my parting event would be event-fun and free admission.

A life lived unlike any other (as should be): lonely early life and eventful closure, surrounded by “audience” who might or might not appreciate my style and selection – nowhere near being in flame like the burning monk I saw when a kid.

At least I am neither a burden nor a blessing, not to the eco-system which sustained me (past tense). I will miss validation from valued friends and families, the kindness of strangers and the kindness I extended to strangers, like the kid in Jubilee camp, who I had just remembered all of a sudden.

Life , once well-lived, is good. I had one regret: I did not love myself enough, times when I did not pay full attention to my kids or live up to my full potential.

Dust come to dust. Sweet home Alabama, Alamo, Alaska….all the way to Z, Tu Zu? To live and die and come in full circle to the intersection of Hong Thap Tu and Cao Thang Street. To forever be that child, wide-eyed, always curious and taking it all in: nature and human nature, how people can change in a flash, from loving each other, to hurting each other. From Ecole L’Aurore(sunrise) to walking the eternal sunset.

Then my eyes will glance at the fragmented mirror, see my fragmented self, kick myself for not having exhausted and exploited all variables and options. Races run, passion spent. May you all forgive me just as I forgive myself.

After my funeral, please put on a smile… please. Say “cheezzzzzzzze”. That’s my last gift to you: endorphin. But you gotta help me out (already dead). Of course, Reflections of My Life, by then, faded out. Unplugged. Ended as scheduled. (the A/V guy was pre-paid, but might accept tips).