It Was Her Wish

"Are you kidding me, it's in the Bible......follow the dying person's last wish!"  It is not often that my husband invokes the Bible, he is an atheist after all.  But when he does, he is serious, and he is expressing the fact something is ancient.  Not just some new trendy idea -- it dates back to biblical times.

We had been discussing the fallout of my mother's memorial service. Yes, such an event can have fallout. And from my vantage point of an estate planning and probate attorney, I can tell you that it happens more often than not.  But here I was, the daughter, not the attorney, in the mini-drama surrounding her final wishes. Thankfully that legal education of mine fortified my backbone, allowing me to stand tall and carry out her wishes, despite the descent of her grieving relatives.

With no uncertain terms, she had clearly expressed her wishes to me from the passenger seat of my Honda Civic.  Sick for many years, we often found ourselves with me driving her home following a hospital discharge. Both aware that her health was declining and that we are all human. Eventually her time would come.

I broached the topic with "I know you don't want to think about these types of things, but if something should happen, would you want a service like the one we did for dad?" First came the sideways glare, and then (I can quote her here) “I don't want nothin' in the god damned church in Brooklyn. I married my first husband (my dad was her second husband) there, and that is where they buried my baby....without me being there. No! I have no happy memories of that place. Do it at the church you go with with the kids, FUS. And I hate my picture, so don't do one of those silly poster boards plastered all over the place. Hmmmh” And that was that, she looked forward and we proceeded home.

Over the years I revisited the topic, wanting to make sure I knew her wishes. And the answer was always the same. Had she been a client, I would have advised her to put her wishes in writing through Wisconsin's Authorization for Final Disposition. But she was mom, and that piece of paperwork was never completed. Her final day on earth was February 16, 2014, a Sunday. The following Monday I contacted the minister at FUS and began setting in motion her plan, her wishes.

It would be a memorial service, not a funeral. It would be held at the First Unitarian Society in Madison, not the Methodist church in Brooklyn where so many other funerals for the family had occurred. It would be several months after her death, not in a few days. It would be her wishes, not the boiler plate funeral of prior generations. We all grieve in our own ways. Communications with her relatives are strained if not severed. She was my mom, and I followed her wish. My question to you dear reader, is what is your wish and who can make sure it happens? The time will come, we just do not know when.