Kiri

Kiri was a good friend, who died recently.

My wife and I traveled to towns near Pittsburgh, to attend his Celebration of Life, put together by his family.  He left behind three devastated immediate family: two children, a son and a daughter; and an ex-wife.  Some of the circumstances of the breakup of the family--not to mention other complications---made the celebration arrangements particularly difficult, but the resulting event was really dignified, and warm, and I was happy to be there.  It impressed me so much, that I plan to use it as a model for when I do hand in my chips, and there will be an event---I don't want to call it a celebration, exactly; it's more likely to be a sigh of relief---and I don't want to make any of the surviving family have to use up any tiny bit of cash I might have left them for the purpose, especially if predatory lawyers have carved out large chunks of my estate under the guise of apportioning it fairly, or appropriately.  (Having a really good will is a good way to prevent a lot of the estate being squandered by legal expenses.)

My family and my friends are foodies; this means that a good feast will not go amiss.  Compared with the volume of food I would put away in my prime, what I can consume now is a mere nothing; so I would plan for something modest, but I'd bear in mind that the younger attendees---even those who never knew me personally---might have better appetites than the older ones.  A good variety of menu items is always a good thing; the criteria running through the heads of people could vary widely (Where can one get dinner in this area?  Will I---or the kids---mess up their clothes?  Will I look too ethnic, eating this stuff?  Will my breath smell of garlic?  Does this stuff give me gas?) and providing a variety is a good idea.

Nobody can be completely selfless; we all have times at which we want to take care of ourselves first.  But then our thoughts go to the spouse, the kids, the wider family that might rely on us during uncertain times.  (Don't forget that the Uncertain Times are caused by various unscrupulous parties looking out for themselves, whereas we expect them to have wider concerns: the legislatures, the businesses, the law, the lawyers.)  Some of us will take stronger steps to take care of these people than others of us; it's impossible to lay out what is proper.  In Kiri's case, I would think that he did better than the average guy.  In any case, it's impossible to have a complete idea of what was going through the mind of someone, who is now dead.

Our feelings about the deceased are strongest, and in some ways, most distorted, right after they die.  So it makes a lot of sense to delay a celebration for at least six months, as they did in Kiri's case.  The arrangements were announced in a graded way: first the date, then the rough location, then the details of the event.  The loved ones were polled for Kiri's favorite songs; photographs were collected; thoughts about Kiri were invited.

Bear in mind that the deceased takes on the nature of the elephant being described by the several blind men: he or she often ends up being an almost completely different person to each of his friends.  I often thought of Kiri as being tactful and polite, almost to a fault.  But it is entirely possible that he was an authoritarian to his family; we'd never know.  Kiri was a fun-loving guy; almost in an outsized way.  He'd look for experiences of the most outrageous kind, so I'd expect that he took his family through some of the most wild trips that were available to them!  (I, myself, was more modest in the choice of experiences.  But my only child---I hope she never reads this---has the genius of making the most mundane experience into something really huge, but she also has a poor memory, so that she has probably forgotten most of the fun things that we did.)

Let me close with an urgent plea to anyone who has elevated blood pressure: the consequences are impossible to know, and none of them are good.  Treatment is usually easy and inexpensive, so commit to preventive treatment when you can.

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