Once Upon Another Time And The Colours Of Mourning

At my funeral I want the song Once upon a time by Sara Bareilles to be played. Aside from the flow of the song which conveys some sense of melancholy and wistfulness they words are really what gets to you. The song has such a beautiful meaning that needs to be shared.

I started thinking about death and living today. Our dear friends who I have known all my life gave us a call today. The mom of the family has been battling cancer for the past four to five years. She was in remission for a while then the cancer came back. These people are just about the friendliest family I have had the pleasure of knowing for all of my eighteen years and how their lives have changed over the past half a decade is quite astonishing. Anyways back to the phonecall, we were informed that it doesn’t look as if she will make it past the weekend. Now, my mother has retired downstairs for an evening of silence and my dad… well nothings changed really. He’s still making inappropriate jokes about death and funerals … perhaps that’s why my mother went to be alone. That’s just the way he is though. Me, well I have taken to play my funeral song on repeat while I try to wrap my head around this news. I’m Really gonna miss her, her odd, extreme health recipes and her gifts which tried to encourage hobbies like sugar crafting and origami (sadly books I have not read yet.. Shame on me !) . The only thing left to say is I wish she had more time.
It’s never and easy thing to accept death, or the eventuality of it. It takes a lot of time. I can’t imagine waiting for death, being aware of how little time I have left before my spirit leaves my body . I don’t want to imagine it. It’s quite hard to watch a family member slowly succumb to such a painful disease.It’s heartbreaking, when you truly love someone it can break you.

There are several types of people when it comes to dealing with grief:

• The Negative Nelly
• The Weeping Willow
• The Wisecracker everybody wants to punch
• The Introverted statue
• The Narcissist (self-explanatory)
• The Storyteller

There are probably are a lot more but those are the only ones that come to mind right now. My dad obviously is the wisecracker in the family. As am I with a mix of narcissism quite a bit of weeping and cursing God … and so on and so forth. My mother on the other hand is full on introverted weeping willow. We explain death to ourselves in the simplest way. Gods got other plans for you. We aren’t religious in this family but we are spiritual. When you’ve reached your time on this earth God will call your spirit back. Though we believe attachment to materialistic thing including the bodies of our spirits it still hurts like hell when another person leaves us.
In the Indian culture we wear white to funerals, in the western culture they wear black, in Egypt the colour yellow is associated with mourning and in Thailand widows are required to wear purple when morning the death of their spouse. Different cultures different traditions.
In the indian culture we wear while to symbolise purity, unity and clarity. In india widows are required to wear only white after their husband dies. White is also a colour of mourning in Ethiopia .
In the Western culture the tradition of wearing black for funerals comes from the roman empire times when the romans would wear dark coloured togas as a symbol of mourning.
In Egypt the colour yellow(or gold) is associated with the sun and being imperishable and eternal. That’s why the Sarcophagus of the kings were coated in gold .
Very interesting to research the culture all over the word when it comes to death. All of them pay respects to the dead though, some celebrate, some mourn, it’s up to the individual really.

To live life to the fullest should be our goal in this world . You have enough money? Travel the world . You haven’t gone home kicked of your shoes and did absolutely nothing for an afternoon ? Why the hell not ? Go do it. The aim of life isn’t to squander your energy into work and pretending to be friends with people you hate or buying the latest car . The aim of life is to enjoy it and help give back to earth and others. If you have too much of something learn to share. Don’t take things or people for granted. Whether it be your health, your ability to read or walk or even a fully stocked pantry. Appreciate it all. Life very short, and it doesn’t come with a timer , you never know when your time will be up. Better make it a good journey. Something for people to remember forever. When you’re gone, people will miss you and the kind things you did. You don’t want them to talk about how much money you made, or what the latest phone you bought was, Please, give them unique memories. Make your soul irreplaceable . Because you are. Every single person out there. You know you’ve lived a good life by how much you’ve impacted others lives. In the best way possible. Remember to be missed.

There are so many things left unsaid on this topic but I’ll leave that for another week.
Enjoy your week ahead everyone. Go cross at least one thing off your bucket list this week.
Quote for the week““Mom, why do the best people die?” “When you’re in a garden, which flowers do you pick?” “The most beautiful ones.” ~UNKNOWN
Song of the week : Revolution By The Scores. Seriously check these guys out. To be honest I enjoy every song they have released. Do yourself a favour and listen to their music.
Movie of the week : I Don’t have wi-fi sorry… haha next week I’ll recommend two movies. Promise.
Actually ….go watch the movie Three Idiots. It’s an indian movie(there are subtitles don’t worry), theres also a spanish remake of it .But it’s a really funny touching story. You will enjoy it, guaranteed.

Signing off
(A Very Wi-fi Deprived Soul)
(With Social Issues)