Obituary

Haleigh J (Paul) O'Brien 88, went home to be with the Lord on Saturday April 23rd, She was the daughter of the late Jo-Ann and Leo Paul. She is the wife of Nathaniel James O'Brien and mother to Lydia of California, San Diego and Liam O'Brien of Seekonk, Massacheusettes. she was a fun, loving an dvivacious grandmother to her four grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. haleigh reesided in Seekonk where she was born, raised, and  educated. She attended Rhode Island College where she graduated with a degree in social work.
Haleigh had many intrests in her lifetime. One was traveling around the world to third world coutries where she was able to spred the word of Jesus Christ. Haleigh was very involved in her church where she frequently brought together those who woul travel around the world with her in order to help those who had much less.
Calling hours are respectfully omitted as is donations to the Homes of Hope in Texas and Second Assembly of God in the Dominican Republic, doncations would be greatly appreciated. Burial will be private at the families request.

Haleigh's Party

Funeral Plan
Someday the time will come when my friends and family will have to say goodbye to my body. When this does happen, I want my loved ones to know what I wish to happen to my body, organs, and how and where I want my services to take place. First of all, I do not want my funeral to be a sad place. Of course people will be crying I’m sure, however, I want my life to be remembered in a happy way. Because of this, I do not want a typical funeral service. Instead, I want a party, something that I myself would want to attend. I want my exit of the world something to remember.
At this party, there will be all of my closest friends and family. There will be fun hip music that everyone can dance to, and I will expect people to dance for the memory of my life considering I have been a dancer, and always will at heart, since I was four. At this “service” I want everyone to either wear blue or pink. This way the crowd will be in cotton candy colors. And considering everyone will look like cotton candy, it is only right to serve cotton candy to everyone. If people wish of course they can say nice things about me, but nothing too sad because I want that day to be fun for everyone. There should be a sign posted somewhere that says “No crying allowed, all violators will be kicked out!”. I also want memories written on poster boards for others to read and pictures posted up. There should also be picture slideshows shown and videos of me in the Dominican Republic on my missions trips. Considering missions is a big love in my life and very important to me, instead of flowers, I want my loved ones to set up a donation for the Second Assembly of God in the Dominican Republic, and also the Homes of Hope for trafficked children in Texas.
This memorial service will be taken place at either the beach, Slater Park, or inside a hall, depending on the weather of course and where I end up living in my later years. If it is nice out I would prefer it to be at the beach so everyone can have a barbeque and smore’s later on in the night. I want my favorite foods to be served, fruit salad, steak, mashed potatoes, and whatever anyone else wants to bring. After everyone eats around sunset, I want there to be a balloon for every year I have lived. If I am 88 years old, I want eighty eight baby blue and light pink balloons let go to the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole. There will be no certain time for everyone to leave, just whenever they please and feel they have partied enough for me.

Ooooo oooooo ohoohohoo
Ooooo ohooohoo oooohoo
Ooooo ohoohooo oohoooo
Oohooo oohoooho ooooho
Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Once in a lullaby ii ii iii
Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Dreams really do come true ooh ooooh
Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me ee ee eeh
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney tops thats where you'll find me oh
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,why, oh why can't I? i iiii

Well I see trees of green and
Red roses too,
I'll watch them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Well I see skies of blue and I see clouds of white
And the brightness of day
I like the dark and I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people passing by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying, I...I love you
I hear babies cry and I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more
Than we'll know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world (w)oohoorld

Someday I'll wish upon a star,
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top that's where you'll find me
Oh, Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
And the dream that you dare to, why, oh why can't I? I hiii ?

Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo
Ooooo oooooo oooooo


Warm summer sun shine kindly here: Warm summer wind blow softly here: Green sod above lie light, lie light: Good-night, Dear Heart: good-night, good-heart. Memorial to Clorinda Haywood.I want people to remember my life in a happy way. I don’t want anyone to be sad when I die because it will just be my time to go. Theirs will be someday too. People need to have fun at my life party and celebrate my life, not mourn for it. After my party I want some friends and family to bury my body at Swan Point Cemetary if I still choose to be buried at that point, I may want to be creamated and set free at my party. If I do choose to be creamated I want  necklaces, rings or braclettes made for  my children, and husband with my remains inside.

45 Fun Things to Do at a Funeral Jason Roth

1. Ask whose funeral it is.
2. Look at your watch a lot.
3. Videotape the burial.
4. Wear something pink.
5. Offer tissues to mourners, for a reasonable price.
6. Gasp and say you think you left your oven on.
7. Honk your horn during the funeral procession.
8. Set off your car alarm during the funeral procession.
9. Try to get people lost during the funeral procession.
10. Shout "Bullshit!" during the eulogy.
11. Take bets on the next person to go.
12. Tell embarrassing stories about the deceased.
13. Tie a fishing line to a five dollar bill and see who's really mourning and who just wants to be five bucks richer.
14. Pretend to issue a subpoena to the spouse of the deceased. Laugh and say you always wanted to do that.
15. Try to convince someone who's weeping to go out with you.
16. Whistle a happy tune.
17. Eat popcorn.
18. Applaud after the burial.
19. From behind a tree at the cemetery, yell something Godly into a megaphone.
20. Hum "Taps" into a kazoo.
21. Smile and say, "This reminds me of the time he pretended he was dead. What a joker."
22. See how much Easy Cheese graffiti you can spray onto the coffin before somebody postpones the funeral for a wipe-down. Offer to supply the Windex.
23. Ask if anyone has seen the old "saw the casket in half" trick.
24. Carve your initials into the casket.
25. Put on a hand buzzer and slap one of the pallbearers on the ass.
26. Tug on the coffin while the pallbearers are carrying it. Try to hang from it.
27. Use a lot of inappropriate idioms. (E.g., "Man, am I dead tired. All that drinking last night really killed me. That tequila was deadly. Getting up this early for a funeral is murder. Hey, isn't that guy a dead ringer for Joe Pesci?")
28. Ask if anyone knows a five-letter word for "decomposition".
29. Tell somebody your iguana died. See if you get any sympathy.
30. Put on a stethoscope, place the chest piece on the casket, shake your head and say, "I'm sorry, he didn't make it."
31. Flip open the casket and run.
32. Straddle the casket and wave a cowboy hat. Pretend you're Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove.
33. Sneak up to the podium and give a eulogy. If you can't think of anything creative, just refer to the deceased with the wrong name.
34. Make phone calls.
35. Receive phone calls.
36. Check e-mail.
37. Hold a protest near the grave site. Claim that the cemetery uses non-union gravediggers, or yell something about sacred Indian burial ground or groundhogs being threatened with extinction.
38. Hand out flyers during the burial promoting an after-party or special prices on dry cleaning. Even better, two-for-one tombstones for one week only.
39. Start a sing-along.
40. Fake a heart attack.
41. Before the body is lowered, announce that the guy in the back told you he wanted to say something.
42. Ask everyone to join you in prayer. Say something profane in Latin. See if anyone notices.
43. Spit on the grave.
44. Tell the deceased's mother that you're bored.
45. And finally…… Introduce yourself as "the guy who killed him".
　
　

Swan Point Cemetery

                                       

My first impression of the Swan Point Cemetery was great. The lawn was well kept up as was most of the tombstones. There were many trees and flowers growing creating a beautiful scenery. As I walked around, I noticed how many people were around. Some people were visiting loved ones and others were just riding a bike or taking a walk.

It is a very peaceful place to go to. I personally have someone dear to me who is buried there and was very pleased to see how beautiful it really was. My cousin Tammy Freeman, who died when I was two from cancer, is buried there. She left behind a son who was also two at the time of her death. Next to my cousin Tammy is my dad Leo Paul. He passed away three years ago from what we think was some kind of heart failure. Ever since his funeral I have only visited him once earlier this year alone. At the time I was only paying attention to his grave instead of all the beauty around me. Not only am I very happy with where my dad is buried, but I myself would like to be buried there because of how beautiful and well kept it is.

As I walked passed my dad’s grave and farther into the cemetery, I found a wonderful view of a lake. With 200 acres behind it, I never thought twice to walk around the cemetery. Not only did I find a lake, but I found a set of staircases leading up to a gazebo. It was amazing because as I stood on the top of the gazebo, I could see many graves that overlooked the water. However, the graves around the water were very old. Most of them dating back to the 18 and 1900’s. Because they were so old, they were not as well kept by loved ones probably because most of them had passed as well and were forgotten. Near the water, I found many tombs with multiple family members inside.

I also found many family lots which had big statues naming all of the members of the family that had passed with smaller stones surrounding stating either their first name only or “mother” and “father”.

These next pictures show the inside and the outside of a family tomb. On the inside of this  tomb there was four family members all of which are inside of the tomb wall.

The funerals held at Swan Point Cemetery are always held with a tent over the hole where the coffin will go. At my dad's funeral, this same thing was there. If you look closer underneath the tent, you can see the hole all ready for the person to be burried. This  is what all funerals in Swan Point Cemetery look like before the person arrives.

This gazebo was absolutly beautiful. It overlooked graves and the gorgeous view of the water. After climbing the stairs, of course, there were more and more graves which was were I found the Paul family's grave stones. This was interesting to me because my last name is also Paul

I found this stone interesting because of the design in the stone and I also noticed the rocks placed on top of the grave stone which I understand to be a Jewish tradition.

My cousin Tammy's grave has a part of the stone that is meant to put fresh flowers in. It is perfect because there was already water inside from rain which will allow her flowers to stay fresh for more than just one or two days.

 These stones, as you can see, are very old and unkept by family.

Towards the water were all old tombstones. Most of the dates on all of these were form the early 1900's and the 1800's. Most of them were clearly not kept up by family members becasue they are so old.

Of course in every cemetery there will be children and babies burried there. However, although I knew this, it was still hard to see tombstones with a baby angel engraved on them and to really see the ages of these children. In the picture below, there are two children burried underneath an angel who looks as though she is crying, both of these children were under ten years old.

This tombstone was very interesting to me because of the great detail of  who this person was and what his family had accomplished. It says that the father of the man burried here came to Providence in 1648 as a Baptist Minister. This man was 64 when he died in 1854.

"Row after row with strict impunity the headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection; In the riven troughs the splayed leaves pile up, of nature  the  casual sacrament to the seasonal eternity of death; Then driven by the fierce scrutiny of heaven to their election in the vast breath, they sough the rumour of mortality..." Allen Tate

This child was also under 10 years old when she died and as you can see has many pictures engraved on her stone with a small picture of her.

This was also interesting to me  because there is no death date inscribed on the stone. It only says November 8, 1959. It also says beloved special son. This may be a baby who died during child birth or someone who decided to get a gravestone ahead of time  before they actually passed( if that is possible).

As I was walking through the cemetery, I noticed two long graves that seemed to be pretty old. Both were just babies when they died. Brother and sister, Ann Frances and Samuel died within three years of each other. Samuel was a little over a year old and died in 1836 while Ann Frances was two years old and died in 1838. This was very interesting to me because of how much heartache their family had to have gone through losing two children within such a short of time.

 

Egyptian and Mesopotamian Attitudes towards death

April 1, 2011
Within every culture, there is always something unusual to be seen by an outsider. Mesopotamian culture and Egyptian cultures are two of those cultures that it is somewhat hard for me to understand why some people not only do what they do but believe in what they believe in. To me it is a bit odd that someone believes a god of the earth can be cut up into fourteen pieces and scattered all over the world to only be put back together by a sister/ wife years after and be resurrected. Now some people think that it is ridiculous to believe that a man can just rise up from the grave three days after a violent death but of course to me it is not something that is seemed to be odd but it is my religion and my culture to believe in this just as the Egyptians believe in a man being killed twice and brought back twice from the dead.
In the Egyptian culture, it is believed that a man and a woman, husband and wife, who are also sister and brother lived together in happiness for many years. However, their brother Seth got jealous of their relationship and wanted it to end. Because of his envy, he held a banquet and told whoever could fit in a chest would win this game. No one could fit, so Osiris gave it a try. He took his crown off and fit in the closed chest. After he did so, Seth had his people nail the chest and let him die in there. After he was put out to see his sister and wife never stopped looking for him. When she finally found him washed up on shore, he was resurrected from the dead. For years they lived happily ever after together again until word got to the jealous brother Seth and he decided to kill him again. Only this time he cut his body into fourteen pieces and spread it all over the world so Isis could not put him back together. She did not give up and found him once again and for the second time he was resurrected from the dead. The Egyptian lifestyle seems to be that they never want to give up on life. No matter what, they will strive to never die. It’s almost as if they are all in denial. This story is funny to be just because I could never imagine that happening. However this is someone’s religion and they may look at my religion as funny also.
With the Mesopotamian culture, is different from the Egyptian culture as it is with all other cultures in the world. With them however, every god in their religious stories seems to be a warrior of some sort of just someone who people can rely on and look toward to save them from hurt and the inevitable death. People in all religions seem to look for someone to turn to in times of trouble and count on to help them. With their famous story, it is two brothers who at first fight with each other on who has more power and eventually they become very close until one dies and the other is left to mourn over the dead body for seven days and seven nights. He watches over the body until there are worms crawling on his dead brother. However death is once again inevitable even though many people try to avoid it. “How can I be silent how can I rest? He is dust and I too shall die and be laid in earth forever.” This is for all people everywhere. No matter what religion or beliefs, everyone dies a death.

Death?

March 25, 2011
Death is something that people may sometimes get caught up in. Whether they are thinking about it, obsessed with how they will die, and even when a loved one dies death seems to be everywhere. With certain religions, death and dying rituals may seem very odd to some people. Which certainly the Chinese attitudes towards death seem extremely odd to me. However I am also intrigued by their rituals and ways that they burry their dead and prepare for their own deaths. One thing that stuck out to me was that some Chinese individuals actually pray about their deaths. Now this in some way may seem normal in other religions such as Christians where praying for the future is not an odd thing to do such as praying for your husband or wife when you are only just a child.
In the Chinese culture, it seems weird to me certain ways they react with not only death but life in general. The ways that they view how to mourn death is not very normal to me. The way that they find appropriate manner in mourning is not crying like most cultures do, but it is a man who jumps up and down while a woman beats her chest. To me, this seems like it is celebrating their death. Maybe not celebrating a family or friends loss of the person but maybe the fact that they feel their loved one is now simply in a better place and they can move on to the next phases of life/death or also known as the never-ending cycles of transformation. This is where a persons life or spirit never actually dies, although the body dies, but the spirit lives on after it’s birth and moves on to different realms of the universe. “When Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences, he found Chuang Tzu sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. “you lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old,” said Hui Tzu. “It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing- this is going too far, isn’t it?” Chuang Tzu said, “You’re wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn’t grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there’s been another change and she’s dead. It’s just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter. “Now she’s going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don’t understand anything about fate. So I stopped.’”
Now in other cultures such as Christianity, the death of Jesus Christ is something that can both be so sad but a happy time as we celebrate Easter because although he was killed a horrible death, he rose again three days later. In some cases with no particular religion, sometimes a person who gets wrapped around in death feels that life does not have a purpose and there is no need for them to live, “Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” I like this quote because anyone who believes in anything powerful such as life, that belief will grow stronger and stronger until that small belief comes into something real.
With death also comes wonder of when a person may die. Some people take quiz’s online to see their “death date” and others pray about it and look for signs of when that might actually happen. However, I think it was spoken perfectly by Vladimir Nabokov, “What moment in the gradual decay does resurrection choose? What year? What day? Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape? Are some less lucky, or do all escape? A syllogism: other men die; but I am not another; therefore I’ll not die.”