Preparing for the Best Funeral of My Life

Honest reflections on my engagement season

Sometimes (okay, many times), my fingers are more honest than my tongue. 

These past months, I’ve felt like I’ve been preparing for the best funeral of my life. 

There. I said it. Even if only through my fingers and in smatterings of conversation.

Six days from today, I will get to say “I do” to the man with whom I want to spend the rest of my life. I have felt the tears pool within hidden caverns under my eyes each time I truly pause to consider this. There’s the joy of companionship. The delight of entrusting myself to another human being. The wondrous responsibility of being trusted with him in his entirety. The building of a life together. The opportunity to know God and make Him known through this most intimate of all human relationships. And holy guacamole, it’s gonna be a party!

There are other reasons my tears have pooled.

For all the hype about engagement and the glitzy whirlwind of wedding culture, no one told me how keen the blade of grief would be. 

A few months ago, I cornered my younger (now not-so-little) brother, tilting my head back to look him in the eye and hash out expectations for hanging out. My cover story: I’d felt neglected in comparison to the time he spent with his friends. The reality: I was awakening to the painful dual realizations that my time as a single person is running out, and that I’d failed to invest in certain relationships—my brother being one of them. Pain has pricked my heart nearly every time I’ve stepped onto my back patio. “Garden City,” as my housemates and I have lovingly dubbed the house, has been my home for the past four years. The growth I’ve experienced in this place rivals the maturation of my college years. As sunshine soaks into my skin or a breeze ripples across my shoulders, it invariably launches me onto an internal see-saw. One end of my soul rises, buoyant from retinas absorbing the enticing tomato beds and expansive blue sky. The other end sinks under the weight of knowing my days here are numbered. 

The End of Life As I Know It

Though no stranger to the concept of dying to self in marriage, I was dreadfully unprepared for the reality that marriage itself is a type of death commemorated with a wedding. 

For those who may be unfamiliar, “dying to self” means releasing unmet desires—and even, sometimes, needs—for the benefit of the other. Yes, desires and needs matter. But they’re not ultimate. In marriage, my partner and I are saying “yes” to loving our spouse in all seasons, in very practical terms. Which might look like letting him choose the movie for date night. Or him navigating my sleep habits that differ from his. Or, hypothetically speaking, uprooting our life and moving across the country for one of our careers.

With each passing day, I’m drawing closer to the end of life as it’s been since I was born. I will be a Hasegawa no more. My money will belong only to me no longer. And the ability to make decisions based on my schedule alone will be a luxury of the past. 

If we think about it, this process—the ending of self to form something new—is kinda how the universe is ordered. Even something as simple as water can be formed only when energy splits the bonds that keep hydrogen and oxygen molecules as they are. The difference between those molecules and me is that they’re not mourning the loss of their independence as H2 and O2. Nor are they joyfully anticipating what life will look like for them as an H2O molecule.

Living Now

As I write, the practical demands of life are whirring faster than ever before. There are last-minute wedding details to solidify. I’ve been living in the purge-pack-unpack cycle that characterizes a gradual move. And there’s a career transition underfoot. At the eye of this hurricane sits a question that I’ve been pondering for months: How do I live in light of this death, as well as the life after? Maybe a question we should all be asking ourselves. 

As my energy and attention have gotten sucked towards the high speed winds, I’ve become aware of two paradoxical truths. First, my head is headed towards the future. Sentimental mementos and articles of clothing don’t have the same hold on me; I can clearly envision the space I’ll be sharing with my man and have entered purge mode accordingly. Second, for the past few months, my heart has been grasping at the straws of the now. It feels like there’s this increasingly shrinking window of time to convey to my loved ones just how much I appreciate them. There are aging relatives and family friends who’ve watched me grow up. Friends from high school and college who’ve walked with me through metamorphosis into adulthood. And housemates who’ve been there for me during this tumultuous season of engagement. Everyone is cheering me on as I catapult into the next season. I fear I’ll get so caught up in the flurry of married life, I’ll neglect to let them know just what they’ve meant to me. Yet, at the thought of creating tangible expressions of my affection, the tear brigade starts mustering the troops behind my eyelids. So my wood burning kit remains in its case, my special stationery sits quietly on the shelf, and the gifts and cards I could be making stay in the recesses of my mind.

I think I need to take the words of Ann Voskamp to heart. There’s a reason she’s a New York Times bestselling author. “Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living.”

I’m done numbing myself to really living. 

Full Steam Ahead

It’s costly to open my heart to both the joy of this really good season of singleness and the pain of this season ending. But it’s more costly to live in denial of the ending. It’s coming, whether I’m ready or not. 

During my last year of college, some friends and I took a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. We sizzled in the sun, laughing and chattering as we hit a dusty trail. We probably only made it a mile at most; the rock formations dotting the trail captured our attention. I loved the challenge of shifting my center of gravity and searching for handholds to support my scrabble up the natural playgrounds. One particular formation proved unforgettable. The very top of the formation consisted of rock separate from the one my friends and I had initially climbed. To reach it, we would need to jump across a rift to the slightly taller rock. While my friends made the leap one by one, I teetered at the edge, trying to muster the willpower to join them. But the breath caught in my throat at the prospect of failing to jump far enough and falling, quite literally, through the crack. I knew I would need to give myself some momentum if I was going to make it. I drew a sharp breath, took a slight crouch, and sprang into action. Two bounding steps and I launched myself into the air. A split second before my rear leg left the ground, I hesitated. It cost me. The momentum I had gathered faded while I was in mid-air. My right foot landed on the other side of the formation and friends’ ready hands grabbed mine. But my left knee smashed against the unforgiving rock face, leaving gashes oozing crimson.

The scar that has since formed serves as a tangible reminder: If I hold back, I may not make it. The only way to live is to launch into what lies ahead. 

The death of my singleness marks the formation of something new: something so sacred it’s sealed with a covenant. And because I believe God’s hand is in this impending marriage, I suspect that my impact in this world will be multiplied in marriage beyond what I could give as a single person. 

I’ve drawn a sharp breath or two at the pain of saying goodbye to this season. I’ve taken a slight crouch and given thanks for those who’ve been so good to me in my singleness. I’m bounding towards the edge of the precipice and taking care of necessities. With some of the biggest pieces in my life still unsettled, it feels like I’m already in mid-air. If I am to keep momentum and make it to the other side, I must fix my gaze forward. I must remember that life continues after the death of my singleness.

That prospect is exciting to consider.

After I’m married, I can still honor the people I cherish. All the homemade gifts, extravagant thank-you notes, and quality time I wish I could shower on everyone who’s touched my life: they don’t all have to happen now, less than a week out from my wedding. Sure, I may no longer be called “Amanda Hasegawa.” But I’ll still be here. I can still burn letters into a wooden sign for a friend. I can still create cards. I can still hang out with my brother. I can still visit the Garden City garden. I get all these opportunities I had as a single person, plus more. My future husband and I will get to hang artwork in our new place. We will get to mirror Christ’s love as we make up after an argument, make pizza together, and make love. And we will get to strategize together on ways to give our community tastes of God’s goodness, truth, and beauty. 

So go on, my soul. Embrace the grief that comes with the end of this season. But don’t pine over what must change at the expense of the joys that lie ahead.

We’re All Preparing for Our Funerals

C.S. Lewis has this well-known line: “There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” 

A fitting line, indeed. 

Except that Lewis wasn’t writing this as a general piece of optimism. On the contrary, this line sits in a letter to American poet Mary Willis Shelburne. At the time, Shelburne was in the hospital and thought she was on the brink of death. Ironically, she lived 12 years more and Lewis died 5 months later. 

Why the morbid twist, Amanda? I thought we were talking about a wedding.

Because what I’ve been pondering this engagement season might just extend to life itself. 

Sure, not all of life is a hurricane of logistical details, career pivots, moving, and uber-intense emotions (thank God!). But as a whole, life is a transition period. What we believe about eternity and the afterlife sets the trajectory for how we live our “today.” 

I didn’t believe it when people told me I’d blink and this engagement season would be over. But I blinked. And eight months later, it’s nearly over. From my vantage point, eighty feels far away. But God forbid I blink and find myself at the brink of the life to come, wishing I’d lived better and loved more. 

We were made to live fully. To know and be known by our Creator, just as a woman knows and is known by her husband. That’s mind blowing. It is from this relationship that all others flow: relationships with self, others, and our environment. It is possible to miss out on all of this. It is possible to pursue things that ultimately don’t matter and to live apart from the Source of life and love Himself, both now and ever after. That’s terrifying. 

A prayer has sprung from these ponderings, and I want to share it with you. It is a prayer for all of us.

God, save us from missing You. Give us clearer vision for the day we stand before You, that we may have a sharper and richer focus in our here and now. Show us what needs to be done and what can be left undone. Teach us to love as You love. Help us live well in light of death, as well as the life after. Amen.

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Many thanks to

Maymie Chan

,

Melissa Menke

, and Kip Henderson. Your valuable insights helped shape this piece into what it is today. Kip, the death of my singleness has nothing on the life we will share together. Soli Deo gloria.

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