Call the Midlife (11 page)

What’s going on there?

Straight off the bat, we make least sense of all when it comes to our relationship with death. If we put half as much effort into understanding and embracing death as we do into trying to put it off, most of our lives would be immeasurably better.

If you want your wife or husband or lover or mum or dad or kids, nephews and nieces to start Christmas Day with a smile, there’s a good chance you will put a decent amount of thought into what to buy them as a present. If you want to host a half-decent dinner party, then you’re more likely than not to put some effort into thinking about who to invite, where everyone should sit and what might be nice to eat. Similarly, if you want the holiday of a lifetime, there’s a fair chance it will turn out better if you bother to do a bit of research and planning, as opposed to leaving everything until your
first day off work and hoping to get somewhere decent sorted to go in the next few hours.

So why do the vast majority of us fail to apply such common sense and clear thinking to the most important moment in our lives, i.e. the moment our lives cease to be and we return to the non-being from whence we came?

As a family, we recently enjoyed the rollercoaster ride that was organizing my daughter Jade’s wedding. It was a hoot for the most part, but the best thing of all was the family meetings it necessitated. Over dinner, down the pub, the girls out on a weekend choosing all their outfits, the lads booking the venue, the church, the restaurants and the tents. Eventually we opted for glamping in our garden and the church over the road, as opposed to remote hotels and an endless fleet of taxis elsewhere and back.

So how come we can’t bring ourselves to engender that same
joie de vivre
when it comes to the prospect of our demise – why not approach it with a little
joie de morte
? After having thought about this chapter long and hard, that’s exactly what I have now decided to do.

It’s our last opportunity to let people know how much we loved them, what they meant to us and what we ended up believing we stood for and what life is all about.

Perhaps the main reason we have learnt so little about being human from one generation to the next is because we are so reluctant to admit and acknowledge the passing of one before another.

Sure it’s great to have a load of people stand up and declare what the deceased meant to them, but let’s face it, he or she can’t exactly hear what’s being said. Far more useful and inspiring is to allow the deceased to have their say to everyone still alive.

Our final chance to tell it like it is without fear of reprehension.

Forget making a will, our top priority should be making videos. What a business that is just waiting to happen. I went to a funeral last year where a letter from the deceased was enough to render
the congregation spellbound. Read out by his best mate, it was the bridegroom’s speech none of us ever get to make. Assured, funny, wise and, most of all, totally honest.

What a marvellous moment to relish and anticipate if letters, videos and even holograms became the norm at funerals.

Have you written your funeral speech yet?

Am I in it?

Who’s not in it?

Are there any jokes?

What are you going to wear for your death video?

Brilliant. It would be like our own personal Academy Awards speech. Who would you like to thank? Who’s worthy of a mention and who’s not?

Can you imagine the trepidation of the gathered masses, wondering who the deceased has it in for and who he/she doesn’t. I can foresee people ducking out of attending funerals just in case they are the one that ‘gets both barrels’.

‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, buckle up, here we go. I reckon Auntie Edna’s gonna get torn off a strip.’

Funerals that people can’t wait to go to, or are too scared to go to, that’s what we want. With the same sense of revelation and anticipation you get waiting to see if your lottery numbers have come up.

Of course, funerals that have been pre-planned by the deceased have been around for a while. In most cases by people who know they’re going to die and have had time to acquire the necessary wisdom, calm and frame of mind to come to terms with what’s going to happen.

‘They know they’re going to die’ – there’s a phrase that makes me chuckle the more I think about it.

I don’t mean to be insensitive, but we
all
know we’re going to die. Why are we in such massive denial about the chaos that’s bound to ensue unless we put a bit of pre-planning in place over a pie and a pint in a pub for a couple of hours?

I have been to two pre-planned funerals, both of which, I can
honestly say, were miles better than any of the loads of others I’ve attended.

Apart from the funeral that I’ve already mentioned, the one where the deceased’s best mate read out his letter, the other was that of a young girl called Debbie who had been ill most of her life with cystic fibrosis. She’d had months, if not years, to think about her funeral and had it planned down to the very last detail. As a result it was just the most perfect day. Terrifically sad, as the death of a teenager unquestionably will always be. But incredibly beautiful and inspiring at the same time.

Unlike Debbie’s funeral, most funerals are missed opportunities in my experience. Some religions are way ahead in this regard. But when it comes to the vast majority of the Western world’s non-religious individuals, we are crazy not to give it more thought.

We need to urgently adopt a policy of honesty, admission, straightforwardness and transparency through the whole process of our death and dispatch.

To thine own self be true, if not in life, at least in death. Who do you want to be there? Who do you not want to be there? Do you want a seating plan to reflect who meant what to you?

There’s a whole funeral revolution waiting to happen. Bring it on, I say.

Cue one of the most illuminating, refreshing, encouraging and engaging conversations I’ve ever had. A conversation that pretty much wrote itself into this book.

The Greatest Funeral Director Alive Today

Top Ten Certainties About Death:

David Collingwood is the operations director for Co-op Funeral Care. Dave – or the Funeral King, as he will forever be known in my mind – has been working in the funeral industry since he was ten.

‘It’s all I ever wanted to do. My dad was a doctor and his surgery was next to a funeral parlour. Like you, I always loved cars and the biggest and best ones I’d ever seen up close were the big black Daimlers of the funeral directors.

‘I was fascinated by their sheer size and majesty and was thrilled to inveigle my way into getting a Saturday job washing and polishing them. While generally hanging around I began to learn more about the bigger picture they were involved in. Gradually I became fascinated, obsessed almost, by the art of funeral directing. It was only a question of time before I moved inside, away from my valeting duties, to take up my first post in the business, accessorizing coffins. After that, I was hooked.’

I’m not sure I’ve ever come across anyone quite as passionate about what they do for a living as Dave.

His voice is a unique blend of enthusiasm, energy, warmth, gentleness and sensitivity. Like a librarian dying to tell a colleague they’ve won the lottery but not wanting to disturb anyone in the process.

‘We funeral directors are available to our customers 24/7, 365 days a year. We have to be, it’s our duty. If I get a call on Christmas Day at three o’clock in the morning then either I, or one of my staff, will be there within the hour. That’s what happens when you are responsible for dealing with approximately a hundred thousand funerals a year, as my team and I are now. That’s roughly a fifth of all deaths annually in Britain.’

A figure I later discovered is down on recent years, as we are beginning to die later and later. This means funerals are currently experiencing a lag until we catch up with ourselves, circa 2018.

‘I say to all my team, being a funeral director is a privileged and highly regarded position. Whether you’re suited and booted and ready for someone’s final send-off, or you’re in jeans and a T-shirt down the pub, you are always representing what we do.

‘And I have to say – to a man and to a woman, they all totally get it. We funeral directors are a breed unto ourselves; it is a vocation and a calling much more than it will ever be an occupation. We are born to serve and wouldn’t want it any other way.’

There is no doubt in my mind. Dave’s the perfect person to be our nation’s go-to funeral man.

But he’s so obviously sincere and genuine that suddenly I feel I don’t want to unleash my disapproval and frustration at the general wincing and cowering mindset we have surrounding dying and funerals in the UK. It’s not Dave’s fault. Though I need not worry: Dave’s thought about little else all his life.

‘Make no mistake, funeral directors are on hand to help people organize an event that nobody wants. Most people will only organize one or two funerals in their life, if that. We are constantly dealing with bereaved individuals who haven’t the faintest idea what to do. And then there are complications when natural causes may not necessarily be the cause of death and legal implications have to be taken into consideration – surrounding cases of murder, for example, or suicide and the like. Add to that the fact that our clients are not exactly in the best frame of mind to make balanced retail and consumer decisions and it’s not difficult to see the fragility of many of the situations we encounter on a daily basis.’

Of course. In many ways it’s a salesman’s dream – but not for Dave, no way.

‘It’s very important that we ask the newly bereaved what they would like, as opposed to telling them what they should have, or what will make us most money. Every initial meeting is a crash course in funeral planning. We are professionals dealing with the
rawest of amateurs in the most extreme emotional circumstances imaginable.’

This response gives me an opportunity to ease into a mildly confrontational line of questioning.

I suggest to Dave that we need to start talking about funerals pre-death. This last-minute-dot-com approach is surely no good for all parties concerned. How come it has been thus, and for far too long?

‘I couldn’t agree more. Not knowing for certain what the deceased would like presents their loved ones with the ultimate, unwelcome guessing game. It would be fabulous to have a concrete steer on their preferences while they are still here to tell us.

‘This is beginning to happen via pre-paid funerals, which are becoming more and more popular. Especially in our “either/or” category. This is where a couple will pre-pay for a single funeral and then whoever goes first is the beneficiary of that package. It can get quite competitive,’ he giggles.

Dave is simply brilliant, a living and breathing advert for why none of us should fear the inevitable. How we should all seriously think about what type of send-off we would like.

‘Whenever people talk about funerals, before any illness is around or any sad or unfortunate circumstances have evolved, it always ends up with laughter. Which is when people make the best and most positive decisions. And there is so much more funereal fun to be had nowadays.

‘For example, the choice of hearses has greatly improved since my Saturday job all those years ago cleaning the cars in Bradford Funeral Directors’ yard. There are motorbike side-car hearses, we have a Buddhist pick-up truck that is acquiring a growing reputation, and there’s even a tank hearse, if you fancy a bit of that.

‘Plus, we are trying to spread the word ourselves. We attend twelve county shows a year where our Land Rover hearse receives a lot of interest. Hugely popular with the rural and farming community. That’s the one I would want to go in.

‘There’s also all the different coffin options we offer: oak, willow,
bamboo, banana leaf, and biodegradable cardboard, which is very popular nowadays. Then there’s the more pioneering options concerning different methods of disposal.

‘In the old days, everyone was buried, and I mean everyone. But with less space increasingly becoming an issue, cremations very quickly became more popular. Once, that is, British society had overcome the taboo of burning bodies – which for decades was extremely controversial.’