I Didn’t Know It Was a Hymn

 I thought it was a song called On My Journey, by The Chad Mitchell Trio, on their 1960 album, Mighty Day on Campus. And, no I didn’t pull that reference off the top of my head - did some online searching for the repeating chorus that was stuck in my head:  When I’m on my journey, Don’t you greave after me, I don’t want you to greave after me. Other Internet sources, I think maybe Wikipedia, does credit the trio with the lyric, but there is more to it than that.

Apparently you can find the “don’t greave after me” phrase in Revelations 1:7, and there is a 1927 bluegrass version by Ernest Phipps as well as a number of versions between then and now. So it is a notion that seems to have a lot of sticking power. It is particularly germane to me these days as I observe the greaving instilled by the passing of my friend Smitty that I wrote about here earlier. 

Despite the fact that he was 93, it wasn’t supposed to happen. But then I suppose it rarely is. Even when “it was a blessing,” one can’t help thinking that it would have been a far greater blessing had one been able to turn the clock back to when “things were OK” and life could go on without the rude interruption of death. But we can’t.

And despite some fascinating theoretical work by brilliant minds, the arrow of time still points forward. And after death comes the sorrow of the living. Smitty was such a happy, positive guy, I cannot help but think that he would not have wanted to be the cause of the grief his passing instituted. But then I realized that, of course, like everything else it was now out of his hands. The task of dealing with death falls to the living.

So I began to think of how I might structure a plan designed to mitigate any suffering my passing would bring to those that “he is survived by.” There is an apparently controversial quote used by, and argued about by singers, poets and philosophers that goes like this: Live everyday as if it were your last one, ‘cause one day you’re gonna be right.”  

The controversy seems to center on the first phrase, with critics contending that it is just pragmatically impossible to live everyday with that kind of existential focus. To me, that begs the issue that concerns me at the moment. That issue is more “other centered.”  What, I wonder, is the impact of your passing on those around you. Something we rarely consider when we are “fine, thank you.”

Most “professional estate planners,” seem most concerned about financial issues, and that is certainly important. But for the living, equally- if not more - important is the strange collapsing of time that death creates. The future becomes today. What we planned, or anticipated for tomorrow, or next month, or next year, becomes now. And the demands of that “imperative now” drags the “survived by” into a confrontation with a “vacated present” that is the very last place they wish to consider.

So what, I ask myself, should I do to minimize the extent of the grief experienced by my “survived bys?”  A few thoughts strike me: clarify, simplify, and communicate. Clarify what I want done. Cremation - ashes to be scattered according to directions left with my significant “sbs” (those “survived by” folks.) Simplify the easiest route to the instructions clarified in “clarify” above. Think, then simplify again. Communicate via any necessary means, electric messages or documents, hard copy, psychic link, (gotta think what might be available when I check out), whatever, the content of clarify and simplify to all “sbs” and any unavoidable legal entities.

And now what is really important. The reasons why no one should “greave after me”: I am, and hope to continue for a bit yet, living a ridiculously lovely life. I have experienced wonderful places, been loved by precious people, had the freedom and opportunities to create in a variety of media, and will hopefully be “survived by” many of those who made that all possible. So once I do carry on over to my next exciting existence, should my “sbs” feel inclined to gather in my name, let them focus on celebrating and remembering that lovely life in joy and do not “greave after me.”