I’ve decided to design my own funeral. Although my brother has his instructions for a major festival in honor of my demise I’m not sure he’ll be able to stand up to my parents if I die young. I know they wouldn’t believe the husband about my wishes. I’m going to have to put it in writing.

I had many christian run-ins at the funeral. The first was a discussion with the Demon Hunter. This is a woman who I went to church with when I was a kid. She’s also into horses. I went with her when she bought her first horse. She always refers to me as the person who got her into horses. I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. She also used to let us swim our horses in her pond. I’m sure that’s high on Spirit’s list of “Horrible Things I’ve Had To Endure.” But, I had fun.

She is a person who sees a demon behind every bush. In church she was ready with a demonic explanation for every thing from Halloween to the lights blinking off and on (really, I’m not making that up.) I think that the first time I ever heard that there was such a thing as real witches was during one of her rants disguised as prayer requests at church. I must remember to thank her some time.

She wanted to talk to me about adjusting one of her horses while I was home. But before she could start she was interrupted by a person handing her an article. The person said that it “explained the philosophy very well.” There was a picture of a person doing yoga. Then I saw the cover that said it was a Focus on the Family magazine. I was dying to read it. The Demon Hunter explained that they are having a “world views” class in their homeschool group. I’m guessing that they are not happy with the yogic world view. I so wanted to ask if she wanted to me come and help explain. At least let me read the article and dispute but I didn’t.

During the course of discussion we talked about adoption. She asked why India. I used the usual reasons and didn’t throw in yoga as a reason. The husband wandered up and started telling them his life story in response to questions. He talked for about 10 minutes before stopping in midsentence and saying, “I don’t know who you are.” They jokingly said that they were at his wedding. He assured them that he had blanked that whole incident from his mind.

We had mentioned that we both had Indian co-workers. She said that it was good that we had that community. I saw my move and took it. I said that there was a large Hindu temple nearby that had a lot of classes. Yep, I told the Demon Hunter that I would be sending my child into a hotbed of non-christianness. I then had to relate this to my father. He’s in a prayer group with her husband. I may very well be a prayer request next week.

Then there was the funeral itself. The pastor of my grandparents’ church has done his part over the years to shove me firmly away from christianity. The biggest push came when he did my uncle’s mother-in-law’s funeral. Everything he said struck me as totally illogical.

At the funeral this week he kept saying things about how he assumed everyone there was a christian. I wanted to stand up and say that I wasn’t. He also started in on how christians can handle grief because they know they are going to heaven. No one else can handle any type of grief because they know their loved ones are going straight to hell. I told my brother that of course it went without saying that there would be no pastors at my funeral.