I want as little fuss as possible. I have been a back-room boy all my life, shunning the limelight, so I wouldn't want to be the centre of attention after my death.
I will be cremated privately, which will be arranged by the undertakers, with no-one present and no ceremony. I would hate to put my loved ones through the terrible ordeal of sitting in a cremation chapel and watching my coffin slide towards the flames. Too distressing for them.
I have nominated my executor to scatter my ashes onto the waters of the Pacific Ocean at Long Reef on Sydney's Northern Beaches, close to where I grew-up and where I lived as a young man with my dearest George.
Long Reef I would like this to happen at dusk on a full moon night, just as the moon is emerging from the ocean.
As my ashes are being scattered onto the waters, to be taken out to sea by the outgoing tide, I would like someone to read aloud these beautiful words by Kahlil Gibran:
Then Almitra spoke, saying,
We would ask now of Death.
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it
Unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day
Cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the mystery of death,
Open your eyes wide unto the body of life.
In the depth of your hopes and desires
Lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow
Your heart dreams of spring.
Trust your dreams,
For in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd
When he stands before the king
Whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling,
That he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die
But to stand naked in the wind
And to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing,
But to free the breath from its restless tides,
That it may rise and expand
And seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the rivre of silence
Shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,
Then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
Then shall you truly dance.
And then I'd like everyone to cast a flower onto the waters, to accompany me on my journey. After that, it would be nice for a bottle of wine to be opened.
I personally see death as a beginning, not an end. Or more correctly, it is a transition. Just as birth is a transition, so too is death.
"After your death, you become what you were, before you were born."
