our obsession with death and molecules

 It all goes back to Grandpa Dillon's funeral. People, don't take six-year-olds to funerals. It is terribly morbid. And don't let children lean into the casket and kiss the cold, hard cheek of a corpse. 

Our obsession with death and molecules is baffling. Why is it so hard to live in the moment? Why must we cling to these bits and atoms as if the infinite continuation of our bodies is vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly necessary? Why must we treat the corpse, the thing we have vacated and that is now in a state of rapid decay and putrification, as if it is who and what we are? 

We are not the molecules we presently occupy. Stop. Think for one second. These molecules have been someone and something else's. These molecules have been recycled a million times. 

Yesterday, I mailed a notarized form to the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles, informing their Body Donation Program that I will have none of the above. No funeral. No casket. Not even a trace of ash left for the wind to blow into the faces of people I love. The corpse I leave behind is useful for training the next generation of doctors, nurses and specialists. 

If you have ever felt deep gratitude for a specialist who saved your life or a loved one's life, donate your body to a medical school or to scientific research. 

None of us would be here today without the scientists who teach young adults, with useful corpses, about anatomy and surgical procedures, biology and the human immune system, etc. 

Most people hate going to funerals. It is a dreadful obligation issued by a dead person. You shall honor my corpse as if I am still in it! It is an archaic thing that should come to an end sooner rather than later. 

Do not force people you love to spend their hard-earned vacation time and savings on traveling for a funeral. Do not force loved ones to stand up in front of a bunch of people and say only all the nice things they can think of to say. Not a single one of us has been perfect. Every single human being has at various times, more often than anyone wants to remember, been irritating, annoying, selfish, manipulative, exhausting, infuriating, obnoxious. stinky, and disappointing. Many of us have also been sweet, kind, generous, wise, yadda yadda yadda, it's over. 

Our lives are drops of water on the river of life. Moments are all we have. Be present, celebrate, suffer, release suffering, carry on. 

As the ancient saying goes, Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

We need to get over ourselves and shed this egotistical obsession. Tell your loved ones now that you do not want a funeral, do not want to be put in a box in the ground with a stone with your name and birthday etched on it. 

Not a hundred years has passed and you can barely read my great-grandparents' grave stone. What's worse, not a single story was passed down to me about these people. Not one memory was orally shared generation to generation. I had to research it all online to learn anything about my ancestors beyond the fact that my mother was half French. 

I told my son that I am donating my body to the UCLA school of medicine and asked him to not be grossed out by the idea of what is going to happen to the corpse. I am not these molecules. I am an experience. I will be who you say I was. And if nothing is said of me in 2058, so what.