Last night I condemned someone to eating only the mediocre sandwiches at my funeral.

 

You don’t need to know the particulars of the conversation, but know that the context for such an exchange was laid by a drunk father figure, an overzealous whirl on the dancefloor and two grown men heavily skidding headfirst across loose gravel. Of course I turned an incident completely separate of me on its head to be all about me and establishing my superiority – my main objective in life – by considering how I would be affected should the chap die as a result of the incident. So, in a bid to circumvent my moral culpability, I told the young fellow, who I knew from my high school bus route, to consider seeking medical attention. My half-hearted suggestion was, in my mind, setting the pretence for my standing over his open grave with a smug look telling his cold, greying corpse “I told you so”. I would carry this all-knowing grin across the cemetery to the wake venue and help myself to the best array of the snacks knowing I did what I could and deserved that vanilla slice. Of course, this thought was communicated under the influence of three quarters of a bottle of Stone’s ginger wine, two beers, and at least four unwisely chosen whiskeys and could have gone over better. I can’t remember the phrasing, but I believe my icy retort banned the ungrateful fellow from any mildly exciting sandwich fillings on offer at my wake and, in no uncertain terms, a complete prohibition from mayonnaise of any kind.

 

This isn’t the first time I’ve started a petty hypothetical funeral war. Just before the Christmas break a co-worker and I were talking about hitting the highway home with considerable speed, when I steered the conversation from happy festive thoughts to our dramatic, fiery deaths.

Me: Wouldn’t it be great if we both crashed and died?

Less fabulous co-worker: Ummm

Me: Who do you reckon would have a bigger funeral?

*silence

Me: I’d like to think that my funeral would beat yours… People would be pretty distraught I reckon.

I then pointed out that while we were both from small towns and would expect a lot of those bastards to be upset, I had more separate pockets of friends who would be affected. Out of respect I tried to wrap up the conversation by implying that I would have only a fraction more mourners than him, but I think we both knew that if had have died on the same day, my funeral would have a longer guest list and extensive media coverage. Because when it all comes down to it, death is a competition.

 

I suppose it’s quite morbid, but it’s something to think about. It’s your last impact on the planet, so you not only don’t want to screw it up, but you want it to shit all over everybody else’s. We all have in the back of our minds the songs we want played at our funeral (The Vaccines’ Wetsuit to start off, Modest Mouse’s Float On and Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses for the montage of flattering photos and Janet Jackson’s Escapade to lighten things up as they wheel my coffin out the door) and we all aim to create a significant, solemn traffic jam as the convey of mourners make their way on the longest route possible from the chapel to the cemetery, interrupting people’s days and only making them angrier because they can’t be angry at a dead person – there’s nothing more satisfying than an enraged person having to be respectful because of enforce societal norms. We all entertain this thought every now and then because we all know that death is coming for us.

 

I remember being three or fours years old laying on my parents bed feeling like an absolute queen because I had all that cushy space and was able to enjoy my Disney read-along-tape in solitude when it struck me. My mother came in to put some laundry in the cupboard when I asked her if everybody would die. Now my mother, for all her sweetness, can be alarmingly casual in scarring my young mind – like the time she told me that I was, indeed, a bit on the fat side after a funky tartan skirt from Target didn’t fit my rotund 11-year-old body. While I can’t remember the exact wording, my mother’s psychosis-inducing response went something like: “yep, everybody will die – you’ll die, I’ll die – everyone,” she said cheerfully before wheeling her trolley of clean clothes to another room leaving me to ponder my oncoming demise and the impending end of existence. Here I was just lust learning how to form symbols into English words when I was left attempting to rationalise the cosmic truth that we are all floating on a planet of death in a see of nothingness. I remember feeling as if someone had kneed me in the stomach and not much else, as I probably silently slipped into an psychotic episode. I probably soiled myself at the very least.

 

I have to say that my ability to comprehend death hasn’t really advanced far beyond the immediate panic that washed over my as ringleted child. My guess about what’s waiting for us in the great beyond is as good as anyone’s, but to distract myself from the eternal void, I have added a healthy dose of competiveness to the equation. I want my death to blow all others out of the water. I don’t care too much to the specifics, but I want to send shockwaves thought society when I do take my last breath. Whatever actually lies in my afterlife, I certainly hope it involves some sort of surveillance system to allow me to watch people crumble in my absence.

 

I want to know who will be so sad that they vomit, who tries to swindle whom out of my earthly possessions (maybe my collection of swan ceramics will become valuable one day) and what the brave person who volunteers to dress my dead body puts me in. But mostly I’m interested in who comes along to the party. I want to know who comes from out of the woodwork to pay their final respects and watch people deliberate on whether they knew me well enough to go to my funeral. I want to hold a hot and not contest from heaven (clearly that’s where I’ll end up because my heart is so big) and judge who dressed tastefully and who was obviously going to hook up with the cavalcade of beautiful mourners I attracted to my last hurrah. I want to hear what nice things people say about my in the several eulogies I will demand in my will, and how my bad qualities will be sugarcoated with the classic “she’s dead, we can’t call her out for the spiteful arse she was anymore” filter. Will the pretty fights I picked be referred to as “a passion for colourful debate”? Will my filthy potty mouth be categorised as “zest for vibrant language”? Will my unrelenting selfishness be painted as “being deeply introspective and unflinchingly dedicated to going after her happiness”?.

 

Like many, I cling to the desperate hope of an afterlife. I don’t want to float around in a state of unknowing, I fear what will happen to my consciousness and I am terrified by the thought of a everlasting black silence. But as Leanne Rimes and many an inspirational Instagram post will tell you, life goes on. If I’m dead in the ground while other people are living, I want their thoughts to be about me. If people are able to still enjoy the land of the living while I can’t, I want them to spend the rest of their eternity knowing my grand exit from this life was better than theirs. Because if you have to die, you may as well doing so in a way that makes everyone else feel inadequate and less loved. I may be dead, but I am still dominant. Finished, but fantastic. In the ground, but infinitely better than you could ever hope to be. I want to exit not gracefully, not humbly, but with a firework explosion of glitter boldly proclaiming to the world that I may be gone, but by god am I fabulous.