When I die, can you do me a favor? Please?
Don’t use the most recent photo of me in the obituary. Please. I don’t care if this reeks of ageism, if I’m fetishizing my youth, or being pointlessly vain or whatever. Dead Me will understand. Dead Me will agree. Just find some half-decent photo of me from an era before gravity turns on me entirely. Dead Me will haunt you if you don’t. That’s a promise.
While we’re here, another favor?
Play good songs at my funeral. Songs that I loved. I’d love to be played off New Orleans-style, if anyone has the stomach to put together one last mixtape show. You can get in my Google Drive and see some old tribute show rehearsal schedule spreadsheets and even some pretty stellar singer/song matchups, if that helps. Tell some jokes. Share some stories (feel free to skip the “plywood” story)—a little sentimental, a little roast. Remind people it’s ok to take antidepressants and other mental health drugs.
Oh and also:
Eat a lomo saltado sandwich from The Red Food Truck for me. Don’t scrimp on the hot sauce. It’s not even that hot! Whatever post-mortal state I’m in, Dead Me will be salivating—whether that’s a physical or metaphysical response, it’ll happen. A perfect bite.
AND!
Tell my kids how much I love them. I tried my best to hammer them with incessant daily barrages of verbal reminders and a steady diet of proof, but maybe you can help by complementing the volume of my reminders with some additional depth. And speaking of kids, maybe vote for someone who’ll help finally enact some reasonable gun control in this country.
Oooh and if it wouldn’t be too much to ask..
Bake one more batch of my mom’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The ones with the orange rind. Crank the oven a little hotter than the recipe says, though. 385 was the last temperature I used and it worked pretty nice. For about 7-8 minutes so that they’re still looking a little undercooked when you pull them out of the oven. But Holly always promised me that, if you let them sit a bit on the hot pan out of the oven, they’ll be perfect. And Holly’s promises were never anything but true. Take one to each of my kids, even Sylvie who once upon a time swore—screamed—that they were gross. Until she ate one.
…..speaking of Holly…
Make sure—after however prolonged period of intense romantic mourning to the sounds of Lana Del Rey she needs—she remarries and, this time, gets the guy who can fix crap and build things and do….projects. And maybe someone who wakes up excited for the day (makes jazz hands). But make sure, too, he’s not quite as great as me. By degrees.
That should be it. Except…
Proofread the obituary. Twice. You know me and grammar/spelling. It would be pretty embarrassing to have “greatest lover and friend and songwriter and regular writer ever” misspelled.
That’s probably enough favors for one day.
This really inspired me…to get a lomo saltado sandwich from the Red Food Truck. And brother, it was👌. Sorry, I couldn’t wait until you were dead.