Thy Will Be Done

"You JOKERS are all out of the will!"  I’ve always wanted to say that the way they do in the movies and I'll say it to you guys since I finally have one. A Will that is, to replace that Junior Will we made ages ago with its fearful provisions for looking after people still too little to dress themselves.This one feels a lot grander somehow, maybe because the old boathouse is no longer so far downstream.It comes with ancillary documents, natch - a warm letter to the now-grown children, a 'living will' to protects us from too many rib-breakingly 'heroic' measures, and, most entertainingly, a document stating our wishes for funeral arrangements. Here’s how the conversation went as we hashed that one over in the lawyer's office yesterday:Says my mate David, “Let them take any body parts they want, then cremate me.”“Whoa, not me!" say I. "I want to leave with everything I arrived with. For me a cardboard box and a plain green burial.”“I thought you wanted a wake," says Dave. "You can’t have a wake if you do that.”“Sure you can! They pack you in ice and hide the ice with that same ruffly velvet they all use. Dab a little blush on and you're good to go.”"Okaaay,” goes Dave which means he thinks that sounds gross. I can read the guy like a book.“And it's not gross to have them sew your eyes and mouth shut, and carve a big Y on your chest and drain out your blood?”“They won’t do that to ME,” he goes.“Why won’t they?”“Closed casket,” he says, smiling his best victory smile.That stopped me for just a second. Then I smiled. “What are you, some kind of Protestant?” (Catholics go for wakes more than Protestants do and we still kid each other about our respective religions of origin.)We both smiled then over this old joke between us, which goes back to when, at age 19m I brought him home to my Irish-on-all-sides family: this 21-year-old with a funny haircut who was not only a - what did they call it? - Congregationalist? - but an Italian too.We turned back to the lawyer then, both smiling big happy smiles, and signed those documents on the dotted line, babe. The good news is we’re to be put side by side in the end, my honest dust right by his grainy ashes with, we hope, plenty more laughs to be had for us then.

It Could Happen: Elder Stuns Family by Revealing He Has Left Everything to the Cats