"Yikes, " I thought. "Do they know something about me that I don 't know? "

Apparently not. Some small type at the end of the survey assured me it was part of "a general distribution to an entire ZIP code. " Reading between the lines, I surmised my friends at Gunderson would really like to interest me in arranging my funeral in advance so that, should I keel over, my wife Jackie could just call the hearse.

The funeral home even notes, in a logo featuring a soaring bird, that it is "A Life Celebration Center, " as opposed, apparently, to a death mourning center.

So it goes in the wondrous world of death.

Because I work as a clergyman in my spare time -- and, thus, officiate at many funerals -- I 've gotten to know the area 's funeral directors and I 've always been impressed with their professionalism and decency. I 'm sure they make mistakes. Everyone does. But in almost 40 years of dealing with funeral homes, including Gunderson, I 've never heard one complaint from the bereaved families they have served.

Nevertheless, the funeral business is a business and Gunderson is on to something when it markets the celebration of life.

An increasing number of people I 've dealt with as I plan funerals assure me they want the funeral to be a "celebration of life. " They don 't want sad music or moralistic preaching. I 'm that way myself. When I depart this veil of tears, I want Jackie to send me off to polka music, preferably recorded, since I don 't want to waste too much of her inheritance.

We can, however, go too far in celebrating "life. "

We go too far when we try to act as if nothing important happened.

Death is important. The loss we feel when a loved one dies is important. The anger we feel at being left behind to pick up the pieces is important. The relief we feel at no longer having the burden of caring for a dying parent is important.

We don 't need sad music or even religious music. We don 't need moralistic preaching. We can have a celebration of life -- but it has to be the celebration of a specific life, along with the acknowledgment that the person whose life we are "celebrating " was an important person, one whose presence will be missed and whose memory will be cherished.

It is tempting to forgo all that because really dealing with the loss of a loved one is painful beyond belief. I still mourn my friend, Susan Gordon, who died in an airplane crash in 1960.

I mourn her because her life was so important. I celebrate her memory (which includes introducing me to a 25-year cigarette-smoking habit) because she so changed my outlook on life. Time doesn 't make loss less painful; it just makes loss more tolerable. So, we celebrate life with laughter -- but also with tears.