I want to be Eaten by Worms

When I die, I want to be eaten by worms.  I don’t want to be boxed up, secluded and compartmentalized from the earth that sustained me throughout my life.  Plant what remains of me under a willow tree, put a plaque with my name on it and a scathingly brilliant quote if you want, but let me nourish something after I’ve gone.  Or, if you’d like, plant a tree that produces, like an apple tree or something.  That way, I can reach some secondary consumers as well.  There’s nothing wrong with expanding your opportunities to branch out, and greet other people.  I just don’t want to be alone; I’d rather be forgotten than alone.  Oooh, a grape vine would be great!  I could be fermented and provide merriment!  Yes, a grape vine would be wonderful.  But a tree is so much more permanent…  Let’s stick with the tree.

A tree will probably stand for longer, because people will fear violating the sacred by cutting it down.  Not that my decomposing beneath it makes the tree sacred--the tree would be sacred with or without me—but then they’ll know it.  Why doesn’t everybody do this?  I like the idea of what I leave behind being caressed and cradled by the ever-expanding roots of the tree.  When the people who loved me visit, they can touch the tree, and know they’re touching something that holds me and that I’ve helped grow.  Hopefully, if I’ve lived my life right, I will have helped them grow too.  Because that’s all we can leave behind, really.

I don’t mean to be morbid, and I certainly hope this is all a long way off, but this is what’s on my mind at the moment.  Thinking about this doesn’t make me sad, fearful, or even dark.  It just gives of sense of resolute peacefulness to me.  When my friend, Andrea (who was 39, and left behind a husband and three young children) passed away suddenly of complications from the chemotherapy treatments meant to kill the cancer in her breast—not her—I remember feeling like the only part of her that was still alive were the reverberations of the things she had said, done, made.  I thought this when I saw the bag of fresh, green peppers from her garden a couple of days after she’d gone.  I thought this when I looked at her children, living echoes of both her values and dna.  I thought this when I looked at the calendar on her refrigerator, meticulously filled out in her neat, curling hand-writing.  Each day was full of plans, activities that would go on without her.  She was so good, and so loved, and all those plans and activities she had been able to participate in touched the lives of so many other people, and nobody was worse for it.

What will I leave behind?  My words?  Where will my voice echo?  Surely it will touch the lips of my family members, but will it stretch any farther?  Will people hear my voice, or read it?  I hope they do.  I hope I nourish something after I’ve gone other than the tree, and its fruit.  I hope I nourish people’s minds and souls.  I want my words to give comfort and guidance to those that come after me, like a map… or a calendar.  Words are what I will leave behind, and I hope they are as tangled up in, and lovingly held, as my body is by the roots of my tree.  My tree, growing upward and stretching outward with every branch it builds and sustains.

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Here's what I'm reading right now, and I just had to narrate it, even though it's technically a dude's voice.  I think the feelings behind the words are universal, so I went for it.  It's about a young man scattering his mother's ashes in Lake Michigan, years after her passing.  Heads up, if you're reading, or about to read Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" the following excerpt is from the end.  I wouldn't call it a spoiler, but you might want to savor the experience or something, instead of listening to my super high-quality, recorded in a kids play-tent narration.  

Just thought I'd let you know.  Enjoy. :)