Not The End Anyway

A couple of weeks ago I played for the memorial service of someone who must have been quite a lady. I never knew her; she was the mother of a really kind woman I know from the church where Nathan used to work. This woman had asked for me to put together a string trio and had specifically requested the sprightliest selections from The Four Seasons during the prelude time. I felt a little bit uncertain about playing such cheery music for a memorial service, but when I read the following quote in the program my mind was immediately put at ease.

From a taped letter to her daughter, May 1975:

"Don't you kids ever keep me alive on treatments... or anything like that. Let me die in peace. And also, when you get around to the funeral for me, don't you dare play dreary music, and don't you dare be dreary. I want you to play Glenn Miller and do the Charleston down the aisle and play Fiddler on the Roof and Godspell and... You can cry because you're going to miss me, but for Heaven's Sake - whenever - I've had a helluva good time and that's how I'd like it ended. Be cheerful! 'Cuz I have a faith, you see, that says that's not the end anyway. So... it's the beginning of something else. Make it fun! Emphasize the fun things that have been going on around here."

She was an actress, a mother, and a grandmother who loved to sail and had, by all accounts, a very adventuresome spirit.

The beginning of something else. I like that.