Not Your Average Funeral Music

Like a lot of people who have been told they are dying of a rare form of cancer, my Mike had a great sense of humor about the whole thing. Yes, it was horrible, and no, we did not take it lightly...but Mike refused to become depressed or let it 'win'. He fought a heroic battle for 3.5 years, and only once did he ever tell me how terrified he was. Instead, he made jokes about being bald, or used the line 'I'm dying!' to get out of washing his dirty dishes or doing his own laundry. A common conversation throughout these years was what songs would be going on 'The CD'...the music he wanted played at his wake and funeral. I went along with these jokes, because sometimes they were funny (I can't help it...2 of his smartassed choices were 'Man in a Box' and 'Down in a Hole'...wrong but they made me giggle) and because under the morbid humor there was some truth. I know he didn't want a traditional funeral with organ music and everyone sitting around and staring at him and sobbing. He couldn't do anything about the sobbing, but the music he could control. And so, I spent 3.5 years listening to him point out songs on the radio that should go on 'The CD' (as it was dubbed), and promises that he would just make it himself, and hide it somewhere so I could just hand it to the funeral home when the time came.

Sadly, he did not make 'The CD' himself. A few days before he died, when things looked very bad, I tried as tactfully as I could to bring up the subject of music. We were already discussing his funeral and so it was as normal a transition as possible. When it came down to it, he said, he really only cared about the Johnny Cash song "And not that damn thing they play at every damn funeral, you know which one I mean". Indeed I did, but all of that talk about the non-funeral music was going out the window now? I couldn't believe it, I was dumbfounded. After he was gone, I mentioned this to several family members on both sides to get their opinion, and they all said the same thing as me 'Absolutely not. Give him the music he always wanted.' And so I did. I searched through every song in our library, I downloaded ones that reminded me of him, I listened to the lyrics of hundreds of songs, or looked them up online, with tears in my eyes to make sure they would be OK. I remember sitting in my computer room, completely stressed about whether or not he would like them. His Aunt was sitting next to me, trying to make the video of all the photos, my mom and sister calling me from the next room to hem the pants of my new designer black suit, and just when I thought I was going to lose it, his Aunt calmed me down. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of Mike appreciating the effort I was making, and not to worry if I didn't get it *exactly* perfect.

In the end, there were a total of 3 CD's, filled with music that made no sense to some people. Some were upbeat and silly, some were sad and slow, some were serious, but each and every one has a special story behind it. I think he would have enjoyed them, or at the very least gotten a laugh out of me trying to figure it out all out, after he promised me I wouldn't have to. To this day I can't listen to most of them, and have deleted them forever from my iPod and change the station quite hastily if one pops on, I sacrificed more than I thought when I lost him.