measuring up

I was driving to work this morning, and the thought struck me again as it has occasionally in the last four months. If I should die sometime in the near future, who’s going to speak at my funeral? I spoke at Emily’s because… well, because she’s my sister. And I owed it to her. And I knew that my parents couldn’t. I actually didn’t think that I could, but the strength to make it through those awful minutes didn’t come from me anyway.
But seriously… who? It’s a depressing thought. Who knows me well enough to really talk about who I was? What kind of person I was? What made me, me? It was Emily. And she left me first.
I don’t like to think about funerals and stuff. But the sheer lack of knowing what Emily would have wanted for hers has made me think about it a lot. I love my parents, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of the decisions… I made. Not the “big” ones, like whether or not to have her buried or cremated, and where to have the service. And that’s fine, they weren’t my decisions to make. And I know that funerals are really for the living, and not the dead anyway. But oh… I don’t think Emily would have liked it. I wanted “her” at the memorial service. I wanted an urn up front, and even her picture. But when I brought it up, it bothered mom. But that service didn’t feel real, it didn’t have the closure that I needed.
I chose the picture for the memorial bulletin. They used my poem on the inside. I chose all the scripture and the hymns. I think I picked ones she would have liked. I insisted on doing the picture collage to put in the fellowship hall. Mom didn’t like it, but afterwards I think she came around and was glad I did.

But who the hell is going to do that for me? And if I leave my list of what I want and what I don’t want…. who’s going to make sure that my parents do it? Who’s going to write a stupid blog about me? Who’s going to go through my stuff and make sure my dearest friends and family get something of mine that meant something to them?

And last of all…. it’s totally weird, stupid, and selfish…. but it bothers me that there won’t be as many people at mine as there were at Emily’s.
There. I said it. It’s been bothering me for months. But I can’t help it.

She always did everything better than me. And even now that she’s gone… I still will never measure up.

I hate her. I hate myself for hating her. I hate that I can’t seem to get past this.
I hate everything.