Songs for Funeral and Visitation

So actually my choices suck :D Never mind this post.

These are songs I'd like to have played at the funeral itself, and as a background songtrack at the visitation. The songs are in the best order for the funeral, but for the visitation soundtrack, I'm not sure on how they ought to be arranged, I'm going more by lyrical content and not sound. If the visitation window is longer than the length of the songs, plus the four for the funeral, then that's what looping things is for. Listing each song, with a short excerpt of lyrics.

Funeral: 

These Are the Days of Our Lives, Queen

Those were the days of our lives
The bad things in life were so few
Those days are all gone now but one thing is true
When I look and I find I still love you

When the Crowds are Gone, Savatage

So I plot and I plan, Hope and I scheme
To the lure of a night, Filled with unfinished dreams
I'm holding on tight, To a world gone astray
As they charge me for years, I can no longer pay

City of Hope, Stevie Nicks

The years don't really matter. It's just a matter of time.
Ooh, it's just a quality Of a few precious hours.
And the charmed one, No matter how bad it is,
Well, I've already lost One guiding light.

High Hopes, Pink Floyd

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young,
In a world of magnets and miracles,
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary,
The ringing of the division bell had begun.

Visitation: 

Amazing Grace, The Maverick Choir (no lyrical excerpt - everyone knows this song, this particular cover, however, is upbeat and joyful.)

A Place in the Circle, Rich Follett

Oh, my friends, oh, my loved ones, I must leave you.
My time has run like water through a sieve.
Gentle souls, do not let my passing grieve you.
Better far to rejoice that I have lived.

I Will, Sowelu

If it's the overflowing tears, it's okay that they don't stop now
Light should be shining into the finale of the sadness
Time that passes by unhesitatingly and unhurriedly
I won't forget the pain that changes into kindness

Lost Heaven, L'Arc~en~Ciel

We’ll say goodbye, lost Heaven.
How we longed for Heaven.
We’re letting go of something we never had.
Time goes so fast, Heaven is lost.

I'll Meet You There, Whiteheart

Now we must say good-bye,
And find our road ahead.
Destiny leads us to a better place,
And I'll meet you there someday.

My Last Step Beyond, Edenbridge

The guardian angels they're calling my name
An astral dream in the sky?
They're dancing at the carnival of souls
They dance into the light into eternal light

Seasons of Love, RENT

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

I Grieve, Peter Gabriel

I grieve for you. You leave me.
So hard to move on, Still loving what's gone,
They say life carries on, Carries on, and on, and on.

Thanatopsis

These are the excerpts of Thanatopsis I'd like read at my funeral, someday far into the future. I've always loved this poem. I honestly prefer Emily Dickinson's views on death, but none of her poems have quite the right feel to be read. They're powerful, but a bit too raw and blunt. This has the right tone and the right level of comfort.

Thanatopsis - by William Cullen Bryant

The following are the desired excerpts. Full poem can be found at the link above.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place  
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish  
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down  
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,  
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,  
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,  
All in one mighty sepulchre.   The hills  
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales  
Stretching in pensive quietness between;  
The venerable woods—rivers that move  
In majesty, and the complaining brooks  
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,  
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—  
Are but the solemn decorations all  
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,  
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,  
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,  
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread  
The globe are but a handful to the tribes  
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings  
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,  
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods  
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,  
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:  
And millions in those solitudes, since first  
The flight of years began, have laid them down  
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.

 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

I know that funerals are for the living, not the dead. The funeral should by rights be what loved ones left behind want, not what the dead want. But damnit, it'll be my last party, and I want people to attend and see my touch, my personality, my presence in everything. I'll be there in spirit - quite literally.

In the truths that she learned

In the truths that she learned,
In times that he cried,
In the bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.*

I don't want to die. Not ever, actually. If I could be immortal, I'd do it. But that's not a possibility. I certainly have no intention of dying anytime soon. That wasn't always the case, but it is now.

When I first was diagnosed with cancer, I thought, I can beat this. Even when I was told I had stage IV mets, I believed it possible to be "cancer-free".

So much pinkwashing.

I've come to realize that this is essentially a chronic illness. There is no cure. I will have cancer for the rest of my life and while I want that rest of my life to be a long, long time, I'm aware that it might not be, despite everything I do.

That's kinda fucking terrifying to realize.

I've been adapting to this understanding in bits and pieces. I've skirted around and cast indirect glances, like watching a Medusa through the reflection of a shield, by coming up with a soundtrack for my funeral, and I've looked it straight on without really thinking about it and wrote my own obit. I had to ease into the acceptance of this possibility the way you ease into a too-cold pool, or a too-warm hot tub. Inch by cringing inch.

But like the pool or hot tub, once you're submerged, it no longer feels as bad as it did going in. Sometimes it's even a comfortable feeling. I've decided I want portions of William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis read at my funeral, such as: Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

But I still don't wanna die anytime soon. I'd get my butt rez'ed and kicked for bailing out on a lot of people. I don't want my butt kicked, kthx. I promised I'd stay here, and stay here I intend.

But I'm starting to... realize that I've started the last three paragraphs with 'but' and I really need to stop that shit.

I'm planning my funeral, I just intend for it to be horridly dated by the time comes to use it rolls around. (Although I still plan for Queen, Stevie Nicks, and Pink Floyd to play at my funeral, because man, they're classic. The classics never go outta style.)

It's scary, but it's also liberating. "I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. When it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain."**

I was suicidal for a long time. Now, I have no desire to ever die. I didn't beat back chronic depression and lock it in a little cage to let cancer kick my ass. I'm never going to stop fighting for every minute. Realizing that I could very easily, and very quickly die from this didn't sap my strength or courage or motivation. On the contrary, it fortified it. I know there's no end to this war now. All I can do is keep from being overrun. The longer I fight, the more of the enemy I'll kill, and the longer I'll be here.

"If I'm going down, then I'm going down good. I'm going down, then I'm going down clean, I'm going down, then I'm going the prettiest broken girl you've ever seen."***

Being told you're going to die takes away the desire for it. Embracing the facts of it takes away the fear of it. Taking away the fear of it means a fuller, stronger, richer life. A stronger life means a chance for five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes more, and more.


(*Seasons of Love - RENT; **Litany Against Fear - Frank Herbert's DUNE; ***Let the Record Show - Emilie Autumn)