If you’re reading this, I want you to attend my funeral — whenever that tragic day occurs. Please come. I’ll pay your travel expenses. It won’t hurt my wallet. Hell, I’ll be dead.

I promise, it’ll be a fan-damn-tastic beach party. Willie Nelson will be there, since he’ll outlive us all. Oh sure, Willie charges a lot for this sort of thing, but my wife, Jamie, will work it all out.

Let’s see, what else.

Ah yes, I want you to play baseball before the sun goes down. Let Jamie play first base, Willie can be catcher. Make my mother-in-law pitcher. Don’t worry, she’ll know how. She knows everything, just ask her.

Barbecue. There will be a ton of that, with Jamie’s own sauce, which is a three-generation-old secret. I’ll miss that stuff. Eat your fill, then force yourself to eat more. That’s what I’d do.

At the proper time, I want you to lay me out on a pinelog raft, with flowers. Not fancy ones, but wildflowers from the pastures of my childhood. I’ll be wearing Daddy’s wristwatch, covered in Mother’s quilt. And I’ll have my wife’s wedding ring in my pocket; I intend on returning it when I see her again.

Then, push me into the surf and light me on fire. Willie can play “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” because as it turns out, I never did.

Afterward, resume eating and dancing like idiots. I want you to have so much damned fun you regret it come morning. Because on that day, life won’t be about me anymore. In fact, it never was. It was about friends, baseball, dogs, music, fishing, and women who loved you enough to make barbecue sauce. I was just too self-absorbed to notice that.

Bring your own bottle.

That means you, Willie.