The Many Languages of Kacco

We all die.

But how many of us have ever seriously considered our passing? And how many of us have discussed (or tried to discuss) it with our friends and family?

Quand on considère notre propre dèces, il y a une multitude de questions qui nous assaillent. Et je ne parle même pas de ce qui advient de nous une fois qu’on a quitté la vie telle qu’on la connaît. Le terme Dernières volontés, ça vous dit quelque chose? On parle souvent de l’importance de respecter les dernières volontés… Et puis, tout bonnement, un matin, lors de mon rituel caféïné… un ami m’a saisi avec sa perspective sur la chose. Il m’a dit que de toute façon, nos funérailles étaient pour les vivants, pas pour nous… uniquement pour ceux qu’on laisse derrière. Nous, en théorie, on devrait n’en avoir rien à foutre puisqu’on y assistera pas.

Ça alors…

Mais pourquoi alors est-ce que tout le monde met tant d’emphase sur ces incontournables dernières volontés??? Est-ce que c’est notre façon de dissocier ce que la personne était de ce dont nous avons besoin pour faire notre deuil? Et puis si la personne décédée a précisé ne vouloir aucunes funérailles… Est-ce qu’on ne se sent pas un peu abandonné par l’absence de droit à la transition?

So it got me thinking. If I say I want to be incinerated and that I’d like a specific person to keep the urn…. What kind of burden do I really inflict out of some sort of wish to be remembered? Shouldn’t that be person be allowed to move on without a constant reminder? (I’m simply going on a hypothesis here… that’s not really my last wish!)

One thing I know for certain is that it make absolutely no sense to me to have any kind of religious ceremony when I leave this life. And then I start to wonder. My family is not really religious either, but marriages happen in church, funerals happen in church. It’s more of a tradition than an actual belief. What if they needed that part of the process to get together and officialise my departure? What if for some irrational reason, the mystical part about death simply had to go through that route for them to make some sense of it?

But… wouldn’t I leave this world a hypocrit for exiting by a door that I have renounced and denounced?

Maybe I am not a giving person. Maybe I am so focussed on myself that I do not realise how much my death needs to be dealt with in the manner that the living need it to happen.

Can I trust that they would understand my decision and respect it as being a last statement about who I was? Can I speak to them one last time by letting them find out how I want things to be done? Can my funerals reflect who I was, for the last time I will get to show it? Isn’t that more of a goodbye than something so impersonal it does not even contain an ounce of the person you are saying goodbye to?

Ok, ok… maybe I will stick to my plans not to have a religious funeral… but I’ll definitly keep the triangle sandwiches.

Longue vie à tous