Steve Harvey tells a story where he goes with a friend to visit his friend’s dying grandmother. He says the grandmother tells her grandson that she isn’t going to make it through this illness and is passing away but that she called him there to ask him a question. The question she asks him is does he know the name of his great-grandfather? The friend answers his grandmother, “No, Madea I don’t know his name.” His grandmother answers, “That’s because he didn’t leave you anything.”
My husband says he prefers to officiate good funerals. Let me explain. The good funerals are the ones where people line up to testify to the mark someone made in their life. In other words, we could stay all day hearing story after story of what an impact someone made in their life and we all leave deeply saddened to have lost a loved one but deeply satisfied that they lived a good life that touched many people for good. Then there are those funerals where the family would like their family member to buried decently. The pastor reads the basic funeral service. End of story.
The question today is what do you want people to thank you for at your funeral? Is this a morbid thought? Well maybe, however if our mark is to be left for good we have to begin with the end in mind. So at the end of your days on earth, what do you want to be thanked for and how is that playing out today?
Pastor Susan 
After enough of my family’s attentionfest funerals, I’ve decided that I don’t want one to be held in my name. My feelings are that of I’ve had enough of a true impact in their life, it shouldn’t need to be said and told, it should already clearly show. Words are words… Too easy to say without being real or accurate.
The only thing I want them to say is “I wish blue were around… She would…” to themselves at some random moment alone, knowing that I would have been there for whatever it was for them.
The circus monkeys hussling the grieving crowd for peanuts of pity will never truly miss my presence… In life or death… So it’s the last thing that would actually cross their mind to say without an audience.
I don’t know. I have always told my wife to through me in a box and keep my ashes if she wishes. Have a party. Celebrate my life, my family. Our time together. Say goodbye with a party. Even give the drinkers an open bar and laugh as they make fools of themselves! lol Book a good band. Don’t ten thousand dollars for a funeral.
I love this because it should be a celebration of a life well lived! Thanks for reading!