Zinnias

Was it morbid to plan your own funeral? Considering it a task in a day planner, bit by bit, planning the procession, the arrangements? Some would say it's kind to take on the pressure and prevent worsening pain of loved ones.

But my funeral would be doomsday.

Whatever that meant, was something uncertain I had filed away for a much later time when I finally took up my mother's not-so-gentle suggestion of therapy. Because all I could speak about was death. Mortality. The many theories and lack therefore of the afterlife, ever since I was young. Perhaps its due to living next to the towns mausoleum, or one too many horror movies.

I had told my family- only 9 years old at dinner- I wanted Zinnias.

"Zinnia is the morbid cousin of the genus species, connected to negative feelings such as loneliness through its representation of sentimentality and remembering friends. It symbolizes thinking of someone and those absent."

Who could have guessed that the very things we buy, plant, and pick to bring cheerful color and hope into our lives could be bursting with such intense and negative meanings? It shows the endless symbolism of flowers and how they can not only reflect our emotions but even heighten and create them.

And, well, who didn't love being the puppeteer of ones very subconscious?

So, Zinnias. Every where you can fit them. I'd also like my casket to be as gothic as we can get it- I'm talking beautifully carved dark oak, with boning (real or metal, well... whatever you can get your sinister hands on.). I also would like my tombstone to be as foreboding as possible- dark and looming that beckons the teenagers on their adrenaline-filled sneak through the cemetery to fear my ghost will catch on their coats and follow them home. Perhaps engraved to say, "Im Watching." just to create a conspiracy. And you know those cages they used to have, either to stop grave digging or ward off someone crawling back to the earth in horror cinema, where they ring the bell? Yes. That too. Oh! While we're at it, is it too much to ask for a pressure plate you see in Spirit Halloween to play Tiny Tim?

Oh im getting ahead of myself- I apologize, as I mentioned I do quite love the whole macabre scene. For the funeral itself, let's keep it classy. You know the Helena music video by My Chemical Romance? - exactly that. Get a body double to crawl out of my open casket to freak out the people who are undoubtedly going to attend who I never liked in life, even less in death. My whole family is told to put on a performance, and dress like Tim Burton characters, and I would like the same done to me. Make me look horrifically gaunt and gothic to tie the whole ceremony into one beautifully catastrophic event.

Thank you for helping me create a funeral no one will ever forget! You can put any therapy expenses on my tab. Or, the tab of whoever is stuck with my debt.