Dear Judy,
My beautiful 37-year-old husband is dying — unstoppable colon cancer. I think maybe he has a year to live, at the outside. He knows it of course, and since he’s pretty organized and always plans ahead, he’s told me he wants a private funeral for just the close family.
But after the funeral, whenever I can manage it, he says, he wants a huge party with everyone there — at a popular club. He wants me to rent the entire place, in fact, and he even knows how much it will come to, and has set the money aside for that purpose.
He’s laid it all out. He wants ’70’s disco music, he wants the same deejay we hired 10 years ago at our wedding. He wants lots of tequila to flow (he specified the brand) and a lot of dancing, and carrying on.
Judy, I just can’t imagine hosting a party like that within a month or two after his funeral. I’ll be too upset, his parents will certainly be devastated; and his older sister, who hates me anyway for reasons no one ever quite figured out, will assume the whole thing was all my idea and spread it around. I’ve tried to explain some of this to my husband, but he is adament. No tears, he says. He wants his death to be a lot like his life: full of fun, alcohol-fueled and joyous.
Any suggestions?
Tammy in Ohio
Dear Tammy,
Well I’d say you certainly have your work cut out for you. If you can manage it, suggest to your husband that he tell his relatives (sister included) about his future disco plans. That gets you off the hook; no one can accuse you of being a callous, insensitive widow, if you’re just following orders.
As to the more important question: how you will manage the disco evening when you are still in great pain — I’d say give it a try. See if you can put off the club rental for a few months after your husband dies. Then, since the party is so very important to him (and really a touching idea), send out the invitations.
From the way you describe it, by the end of the evening everyone will be pretty trashed. That might temporarily anesthesize some of your pain.
Thank you for writing
Judy
Judy has it right. You have to respect your husband’s wish to have his life celebrated rather than mourned. But it always helps when you have the help of the man who the event is for to get things in order.
Seeing as your husband is so organised, why doesn’t he write a letter explaining what he has asked you to do. He can prepare it now — along with the mailing list of those he wishes to tell - and the two of you can decide together when to send it. Either now, in other words, when he still has a few weeks left, or after he goes. Receiving such a letter will be a lot less weird for the recipients than being told not to come to a funeral — and then getting an invite to a booze party. And at least the responsibility will be placed on him, not you.