If Found, Return To Sender

When I die, I would like to be placed in a patch of earth covered with tulips, where my loved ones that survive me can walk through and feel no sadness. Tulips are one of my favourite flowers. I love the different shades of pinks and whites swirling around together in the breeze. They are the botanical embodiment of delight in my eyes. I don't mind being put in the ground; I wouldn't want any part of me blowing around in the wind, disappearing into nothing and eventually forgotten. I want my body to be in a place that my loved ones can visit in happiness, and where maybe one day a stranger can find my grave and ask questions about me. I would like my resting place to be marked with a small figure of a house cat, resting in the sun and wearing a sweater, and at the base of this figure I would like the words "Amina Chergui: Buried Alive" to be engraved in the stone. Even if my loved ones feel sadness at my passing, I would still like them to smile even for a second when they see my grave. I wouldn't mind being excavated and put on display; in fact, I think I'd rather enjoy it. I would love to know the different theories that people would create about who I was and what my life was like, and how they would interpret my gravestone. I would have myself buried with things like animal bones, silver and yarns, thinks that I think make up part of my identity, but I would also throw in some arrow heads, alcohol bottles and figurines of various religious figures, just to perplex anyone studying my grave, maybe even have a brick jammed in my mouth. 

Growing up, my father was Muslim and my mother was Christian. Neither faith ever stuck with me, and I see pros and cons with both, but I could never rid myself of spirituality, and the importance of thinking about the meaning of things. I don't believe there is a patriarchal god or a cloudy heaven after death, but I believe that there is something more that I don't know and can't really understand. I believe life was made for living, not worrying about death. But when one does die, I do believe that a certain amount of respect for their remains is necessary, and that they should be treated in death the way they were in life. I like to think that humor is a dominant motivator in the way I interact with people, as is respect and the search for peace. So I would like my burial to incorporate these factors; I don't want a funeral where everyone is sad, but rather a gathering where everyone is happy, celebrating what I have accomplished and the relationships I have formed. Some people organize celebrations of their lives while they are still living, so that they can enjoy the memories that they have created with people and see the impact that they have made. I might do something like that when I'm older, if my loved ones are willing. I also believe that funerals and burial is in a lot of ways primarily for the living. I have an idea about what I would want, but ultimately I would just want those who survived me to grieve as painlessly as possible. As long as my loved ones are taken care of emotionally, in reality what becomes of my remains is not important to me.

Unless those boat-burning funerals become legal. That would be sweet.