So there I am preparing a (hopefully) tasty chicken/vege stir fry for our Sunday dinner and Mrs M comes back from her exercise session and tells me one of our good friends has died. He had been unwell, not expected to live much longer, but not expected to leave us so suddenly.
Such a familiar story in my life these days.
I’ve actually been keeping a count of deaths in my life since my Dad died in 2015. For a while it was every two years – my Mum in 2017, my three best mates in 2019 and 2021 and 2023. Now it’s one or two every year.
I’m 72, and in reasonable health (touching virtual wood). I did have a heart attack in 2008, which was a genetic thing – my Mum had heart issues and HER Dad died from a heart attack at the same age I had mine. With meds and what I fondly think of as a good diet/exercise regime I seem to be OK these days (he said, scoffing another glass of red).
But I do recognise that I’m into probably my last couple of decades, and there’ll be a lot more funerals coming up.
Of course this post will be irrelevant to The Afterword’s – er, younger cohort – but I think most of us here are in our senior years.
How do we all deal with this stuff?
I’m coming up to 60 early next year and would say that I’m in reasonable health – I’m fit (swim four times a week, cardio in gym maybe a couple if times) and generally feel good.
Genetically, I’m really not sure – my mum died young (59) of cancer, my dad hit almost 80, even though he had heart issues, my grandfather on my dad’s side died youngish (heart again) but my grandmothers on both sides got hit mid 80s. So depending whose genes are most prominent, who knows……
But…..
I’ve recently being having a minor existential crisis regarding aging….. my uncle (dad’s brother) died last year after having Alzheimer’s, my dad’s official cause of death was vascular dementia, my aunt (dad’s sister) had a stroke and my grandmother, even though she hit mid 80’s had dementia. So the odds are that if I have inherited the stronger genes from my dad’s side of the family….. I’m basically f**cked.
Dementia is the one thing that scares me – just the fact that I will be a burden on those looking after me and will probably be none the wiser. I don’t want to live to a ripe old age if there’s no quality of life.
I know that dementia is more and more common as we age as a population (I.e, we are living too long) and I know that they are making progress on it as a disease in terms of prevention / cure / management. But I do wonder – what’s the point of living healthily and hopefully prolonging life if I’m just going to get dementia ? May as well eat lots of steak, drink good wine and then keel over quickly with a heart attack…..
That said, I keep fit and healthy to make me feel great now, not so much about the future. So I guess we shall just see what happens (if you see me posting twice in succession on any thread, you know it’s a sign…….)
P.s. I have a nice lamb rack marinating in Dijon/rosemary/EVOO ready for Sunday dinner. And a bottle of Chateau Pichon de la Comtesse 2015 just decanted.
Dementia is now the number one cause of death in the UK. The lifestyle changes that help avoid heart attacks and strokes also reduce the incidence of dementia overall. More so for vascular and alcohol related dementias.
Statins also help:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/30/statins-reduce-dementia-alzheimers-risk-study
Problem is that my cholesterol is always well within limits on my yearly health screening and so not prospect of being prescribed statins anytime soon.
Is alcohol related dementia when you forget where you left the wine bottle ?
Risk isn’t just based on total cholesterol when it comes to prescribing statins. They do more than reduce cholesterol.
Here’s the calculator we use currently. As you can see, there are quite a number of factors:
https://www.qrisk.org/
However, the lifestyle of no smoking, regular exercise, good diet with little sugar, less red meat, moderate alcohol intake (zero is best, unfortunately), and good mental wellbeing activities helps with so many aspects of health, it’s amazing.
You really do need to enjoy life, though. 😉
I tick most of those boxes – except the no alcohol – and living on an island with predominantly Chinese cuisine, tend to eat more fish these days than red meat (the mercury poisoning will get me…).
As I said above, I do have a pretty healthy lifestyle – mainly as it makes me feel good now – and do enjoy life (someone has to listen to all that Prog rock).
I’ve had a box of statins sitting on the kitchen bench for two weeks @tiggerlion which I haven’t started taking. So many of my friends had horrible side effects I don’t fancy them though I know I should. I’m definitely starting tomorrow.*
Encouragement welcome!
*I’ve been saying this since I got them.
I was prescribed statins over a year ago to lower cholesterol. Otherwise I consider myself very fit and healthy for my age (67). Last check showed the cholesterol levels were back to normal. No side effects from the statins at all, so I’d go for it Twang, the risk of high cholesterol doing something unspeakable to your heart is surely higher. Just don’t take them all in one go!
Ta Simps. Definitely mañana!
I’ve been on a statin for some years, Twang – no side effects of which I’m aware. And, as Tiggs quoted above, some new research suggesting protection against dementia as a bonus…
Been on Statin Island for a year and no side effects here either.
Ta Moley
I’ve been on statins for about 3 months and haven’t noticed any side effects but my joints weren’t graet to start with.
Been on statins since I retired, refusing to have them until then. My issue more a low HDL than a high cholesterol. Atorva gave joint probs, so I switched to rosuva, without incident.
I was put onto statins about 10 weeks ago,
Absolutely no discernible side effects.
This is all very encouraging.
The nurse practitioner that went through my meds after the stroke said if I had problems, to tell them as they could prescribe something different. I had thought the potential side effects were common to all statins but apparently not.
Good to know thanks.
I’ve been taking them for 21 years, since I had a heart attack in 2005. No side-effects at all as far as I can tell, apart from still being alive, obviously. And my annual blood test has always given good results.
I’m sure if any of my friends had horrible side effects I’d know about it, so I think you must have unlucky friends.
I’ve been on them for a few years now for cholesterol. I haven’t noticed any side effects and the current medical thinking seems to credit them with significant benefits, so all good over here
Good to know. Took my first half this morning! So far so good.
Facebook tody has said it’s a friend’s birthday and I should send best wishes. We were at primary school together, he died last month not quite making 72. I hit 72 at the end of the year it does bring it home that there less years ahead for me than are behind me.
I recently saw a photograph from the nineties of friends in the pub, two of them are no longer with us.
My father started with prostate cancer about the age I am now so I’ve had tests for that just in case which show no grounds for concern. Alas I know nothing from my mother’s side so there may be unexpected medical concerns.
My Dad died in March at the age of 82 and since I have always eaten a very similar diet I will probably have a similarish lifespan. Since (semi) retiring I fully realise that I do need a better routine, with more exercise in it, but ongoing knee problems mean this is still to be addressed. I’ll get there though. If improved mental health and wellbeing is a factor then that will probably help me quite a lot, as I’m about the most content I’ve been in a long time. Working PT and owning a campervan help a lot on that front.
It’s something that struck me the other week when a group of us met at a friend’s house, quite a rare gathering these days. There were 10 of us, 5 married couple, most of us around 60 with an outlier about a decade younger/older at either end. As I looked fondly around the table I found myself thinking, ‘How did we get so old?*’ Of course it’s a privilege not allowed to all. Another friend was unable to join us because she is recovering from chemo, after undergoing surgery and chemo for cancer a couple of years ago. Another friend was successfully treated for cancer around the same time.
I’m not sure how to process these sorts of events and how they apply to my own undeniably limited lifespan. My parents both lived into their 80s, but I had effectively been estranged for the last 40 years before their deaths a few years ago and it didn’t cause the sort of reflection that might be more common. I’m 59 but feel much younger – no age related defects or illnesses barring a bald crown and varifocals.
We’re planning an extension to our house soon and part of it will be a room that can be a downstairs bedroom should a time come when one or other of us can’t manage the stairs. It seems a distant or even unlikely prospect, but one which Mrs Gatz (who is more Attu Ed to sudden changes in health from her work in a hospital) is wise to plan for well before it’s needed.
* A joke I saw circulating recently (I’ve copied and pasted this version from Reddit):
I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his BDS degree on the wall, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall , handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 25-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then? Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended St Mary’s high school. “Yes. yes, I did.’ he gleamed with pride. “When did you graduate?” I asked. He answered, “In 1989. Why do you ask?” “You were in my class!!!!”, I exclaimed. He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled faced, gray-haired, decrepit, son-of-a-bitch, asked, “What did you teach” ?
*attuned
Age creeps up on us quicker than you think. My Best Man moved to Oz in his mid-20s and I lost touch with his friends. When we all got together again for his 40th, I was the only one still with any hair, and the only one who wasn’t “stout” (having Crohn’s has one handy side-effect of keeping me slim). And that was 16 years ago.
Enjoy every sandwich
I’m seventy. My sawbones tells me that I’m in good health and I feel ok apart from the expected aches and pains that are only to be expected with the increasing years. I have one old friend left that I see and speak to on a regular basis and a ragtag of family who I never hear from anymore, I have always been the black sheep and our lives and values are radically different so that is what it is. I expect the next time they do contact me it will be to inform me of the death of my sister or BiL both of whom are a decade or so older than I.
I’ve steadily seen the people I’ve known throughout my life dwindle away. I lost my first friend before I was ten years old so death became a part of my life from a young age. It accelerated of course with age wiping out a lot of acquaintances from drug related issues and with the onset of old age more and more from the ravages of time. As everyone knows here, or I assume they do, my wife died at the obscenely young age of fifty one just a couple of years after my mam died who was into her nineties, my dad proceeded her by a couple of years, he was in his late eighties. I don’t dwell on my own demise too much. I don’t particularly want to live to be the age my parents reached. Who would care for me? I’m not well off so I certainly cannot pay for it but I don’t have any say in my longevity so I don’t give myself over to thinking about it in any detail. If I’m being honest it’s the possibility of all those difficult years stretching out before me that scares me far more than the inevitability of the knock on the door from the grim reaper.
I try to live as I always have for good or ill by the whims of my heart. I don’t plan much beyond the forthcoming couple of weeks. I pay my bills and spend whatever is leftover on frivolous nonsense. I’m determined to die with bugger all in the bank, I’m going to enjoy my life come what may and be as gorgeously irresponsible as I can manage for as many years as I have left. Life is for living. It can’t be stored up for future use. It can end at any given moment and none of us have any say in when that moment will arrive.
That last paragraph is wonderful!!!
I’ve just painted my toenails a luscious shade of chocolate brown so they match my Birkenstocks. God is in the details. Now I’m orf out for a stroll.
Currently in Probate Hell, drowning in my father’s paperwork. On the plus side, he had sufficient funds to pay for a year of care but he retired in his early 50s because a combination of circumstances allowed it and did very little for around 45 years so left a significant amount behind which will benefit his grandchildren but I’d rather he’d enjoyed it a bit more himself. A generational thing I think.
I have nobody to leave anything to. Both my nieces are considerably better off than I am by some distance. I see no good reason to deny myself the pleasure of spending my cash on those things I want and enjoy whilst I can still derive pleasure from them when neither of them can be bothered to even phone me occasionally. If I had children or relations that behaved differently I would of course behave differently myself but I don’t. As for my belongings they can chuck them in a skip and put a match to it for all I care. They are just things of no importance. People matter, how we treat one another and the world we share matters, everything else not so much.
Definitely a generational thing @davebigpicture
My mum and dad had plenty of money for their retirement and now dad has gone, mum has far too much . And moans about it!
Dad should have given more away sooner. The gifts he made in the last few years will complicate everything but he didn’t want to give money when he thought he might not approve of what it was spent on, which was typical of him, being both transactional and controlling. He’s still making my life difficult from beyond the grave.
That sounds familiar. My sister dealt with our parents’ estate (I was a named executor but rested my powers as it seemed easier to have one person doing it all). As it happens I received a message from her just this morning saying that she was finally confident there would be no more estate business to deal with, and she was transferring my share of the small amount she had held in reserve just in case.
Anyway, our father predeceased our mother but had taken such pains to hide his money from her that it took ages to find it all, not helped by the fact that his will was with the solicitors who had managed their house purchase in the 1980s and that business had been transferred between a couple of other firms in the meantime. They did both at least have wills, something my wife and I made sure to have as soon as we bought a house together, but finding them and tracking down the assets allotted within them was a real headache.
As my Dad used to say: “There ain’t no pockets in a shroud”.
I was very ill with Covid at the start of the first lockdown and at one point was told by a doctor that my kidneys were failing, my body was shutting down (blue lips, very low pulse) and there wasn’t much they could do but I pulled through. Three years later I was diagnosed with stage three/ locally advanced prostate cancer and they couldn’t say if the treatment had definitely worked. I get tested regularly and am currently ‘stable’.
I eat fairly healthily, get lots of exercise but probably have too much alcohol but I am happy to still be here and just get on with things without worrying about mortality.
My dad died 3 weeks ago, aged 97. He’d been deteriorating for two or three years but was in denial. The last year was spent bed bound in a care home with a hated catheter and incontinent. I don’t want to live that long. My brother and I have both had mini strokes, from which we’ve recovered, his wife had a major one which has left her with mobility issues down one side and some speech impairment. My mother died aged 52 from an embolism so at 62, I’m doing better than she did. My diet had improved over the last couple of years anyway but I am more careful now: almost no alcohol or saturated fats plus I’m careful about salt intake. With being recently pretty much retired, I’ve been able to set aside time for exercise (cross trainer, modest weights and standing up/sitting down on a stool for knees). As a result, my blood pressure is down quite a bit and I’ve lost weight, although I’ve plateaued a bit.
I’ve noticed a few people I knew through work not making retirement, often, but not always, due to lifestyle choices, inevitable I suppose but I’m hoping not to join them anytime soon. Besides, I’ve still got places to go and things to do.
I am 5 years older than my dad was when he died (59), which is something I struggle with a bit. In about the last 18 months I have lost about 5 people I knew to certain degrees, friends, work colleagues and relatives. Two were only 50 years old, it’s very difficult
I’ve lost a few close friends and have a few more with something nasty which they are dealing with. My mum died of sepsis due to diverticulitis which was entirely life style driven and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Cancer is the killer in my family on my dad’s side so that’s being monitored closely. Otherwise I don’t drink that much other than on holidays (ie the last 6 weeks), try to get a walk in most days and could lose a few pounds but not hugely over weight…
I’m going to do a spot of life style improvement in the autumn but beyond that until something nasty comes along I’m ok. But fairly resigned to the idea that come it will. Carpe Diem.
This post is making me feel bloody ancient, not helped by just having had a hearing test. Hearing all the dog whistles they aimed at me, I thought I had aced it, only to be told that aids would help my noise differentiation. So, added to the waiting for a new knee and another stretch of my gullet, it all getting a bit busy round here. And I haven’t even reached my 3 score years and 10! (March next year.)
It might explain my preference, these days, for stentorian basso profundo voices, rather than high dB screechers.
Ah
Nights in With Statins.
Bravo!
An ex-colleague from work has just been told he has stage 4 liver cancer. Several of my friends and colleagues from work days died obscenely young, one sadly by her own hand. My Dad died relatively young from cancer (73), and I lost my Mum to Alzheimer’s at 81. Since I retired 6 years ago the list of health problems I have developed has been huge, though thankfully all relatively minor. A month or two ago I found out I have fatty liver disease. It’s not uncommon apparently; of the millions living with it, many find out, like me, when they are being tested for something else. It’s been a real wake-up call. As it can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, doing nothing is not really an option. Big lifestyle change! I’ve given up all bad fatty foods, sugar and all manner of other stuff that made eating worthwhile, and am now on a strict Mediterranean diet. Lashings of olive oil, fish, beans, fruit, vegetables, nuts, no alcohol – the full Monty. The funny thing is, I’m really enjoying it, experimenting with cooking new stuff, trying to exercise more. I’ve lost nearly a stone in weight so far, and feel better for it.
I’m 65 next month, and thoughts of the grim reaper are never far from my mind. The thought of a squalid death in a hospital bed is something I try not to dwell on, but it’s becoming harder to do so. So I try to make the most of what’s left. I spend my cash on Mrs B, music, books, clothes and plants for the garden, enjoy the sunshine and the rain, and remain thankful for every day. I avoid the shitshow of looming war, fascism and climate disaster by steering clear of the news and turn the music up loud. What else can you do?
Approaching 70 in November. Lost about 2 stone since just before retiring 2 years ago. Attribute this to regular Nordic walking 4-5 times per week and pickleball once per week.
Think more about my own mortality much more frequently than I used to but more from a V planning angle ie, where shall we travel next. I have a pretty relaxed disposition which helps and am a non smoker and very moderate drinker. It does concern me that I could be running out of time but not unduly.
I never think about death, mine or anyone else’s.
I have just turned 60 and we had a lovely do at a local place over the weekend. I wrote a speech and put in a couple of lines to honour the lives of my parents and Mrs BC’s parents. Then I mentioned my brother, who died in 2022. And at that point I felt an intense emotional rush, rendering me unable to speak for a few seconds. I very much felt like bursting into tears on the spot – but I did a deep breath or two and carried on.
I will admit to have been cynical in the past when I have seen politicians pause and “gather themselves” at solemn events. However, it happened to me and it was genuine. I had written an upbeat speech to try to make the guests laugh and I had put the lines in just before the end. I did not predict the emotional sucker-punch that would happen when I actually said those words out loud.
Exactly the same for me. My sister died in 1990, 36 years ago FFS and if ever her dying so young comes up in conversation my voice falters and tears well up.
And me. My sister died suddenly last year of a brain aneurysm, completely unexpected. I still miss her terribly – our sense of humour was perfectly matched.
My oldest friend (still a couple of years younger than me though) has just been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, so the prognosis is not good. He’s having immunotherapy, so still hope – it sorted Sam Neill out, only for him to die of something else.
Actuarially I’m on borrowed time. The heart attack didn’t kill me, and neither did the prostate cancer, but I reckon the COPD will see me off before too long. I’ve already outlived life expectancy after diagnosis. The wife and I are going to England in October to put the flat on the market. This feels like the end of something – I’m giving most of my books to Oxfam, selling guitars and other bits and pieces, taking carloads to chazzas and the tip, dumping boxes of photos on the offspring…
Hey ho…
My younger sister died in July aged 70. Two years ago she started having problems swallowing and was told she had ‘pre cancerous’ growths in her oesophagus. It quickly got much more serious – frighteningly quickly – and she then went through the usual gamut of chemo and radiotherapy. Ironically they got rid of that cancer, but then found it had spread to her lymphatic system and various organs. Before Christmas she was told she had months to live. Thankfully she had moved down here in Devon from Essex so we were able to support her and try to give her the best time.
Now sorting everything out – relatively simple in that I am her only close relative and she wasn’t married or had children – but she did have a lot of stuff! Probate proved to be a breeze, but dealing with various banks etc. is terribly time consuming and repetitive. I get tired of hearing how sorry people are for my loss.
I do miss her, although she could be a complete pain at times, and our political views were diametrically opposed – she was somwhere to the right of Ghengis Khan. We did laugh an awful lot though, and all her friends said truly wonderful things about her which helped immensely.
Of course, being 76, this brings the future, or what there might be of it, into sharp focus. I was with her when she passed and I will never get over that moment. My Dad died at 80 after smoking all his life, so I am hopefull I may beat that.
I am the last one left of our little family who lived in leafy NE London suburbia all those years ago.
I don’t fear death. But I do worry about descending into total decrepitude before I kick the bucket.
Both my parents had a fairly miserable last couple of years as health issues began to dominate their existence, and their ability to do much beyond that diminished to almost nothing.
I am 60 now. If I could make a deal with God, I would have another 15 years of perfect health, able to do whatever I want, and then disappear suddenly and without warning.
That last sentence doesn’t quite scan properly if you attempt to sing it in the style of Kate Bush.
If I could pick a way of departing I’d go like my great uncle Bryn. He’d gone to the pub for his usual lunchtime pint, returned home for his midday meal then sat down in his armchair to peel an apple with his pocketknife. He died quietly halfway through peeling his apple. My great aunt found him knife in one hand, apple in the other. He was eighty two.
An Irish friend told me how his dad went. He was ill in bed with nothing very serious, and said to his wife, how about we have a shag?
She called him a silly old fool and went downstairs to make him a cup of tea. When she came back upstairs he was dead.
Both of those are lovely ways to go.
We know a family of boys who were raised by their mother. At the funeral, one of them told us all the following story.
The boys were well into adulthood and with their own lives – but they would still get together regularly for a homemade pie cooked by her.
On one occasion, they arrived at the house to find her slumped at the kitchen table, appearing to be asleep. She had gone.
Arrangements were made, people were phoned – wider family alerted. She was taken away from the house. It was very late now – and one of the brothers noticed that there was a pie in the oven. Her last act was to make the pie and put it in the oven, but she hadn’t turned the heat on.
The brothers decided, in the wee small hours, to heat it up and eat it together. “That was an emotional pie”. He said.
Great story. I’d love to see what Alan Bennett could make of that.
This reminded me of when my Italian nonna (dad’s mother) died, and her daughter found her mum’s pastry dough that she had made in advance of an upcoming family gathering – not knowing that the gathering would end up being her funeral…
So my aunt took the dough home and baked the pastries for nonna’s funeral gathering, and everyone enjoyed – for the last time – her perfect pastry dough and found it magical.
But I (who wasn’t at the funeral) when told about it had to bite my cheek so I wouldn’t burst out laughing, because it reminded me of a Swedish cartoon (by author/illustrator Albert Engström) where the widower is handing around a plate of cookies saying “Have another cookie – the corpse baked them herself”.
I think Nonna would have appreciated the joke!
The corpse!
I spoke at a close mate’s funeral. He’d died quickly in the night at 58 – a massive shock to everyone. I did all the preparation you’re supposed to do – underlined trigger words where you take a breath before hand etc, and had several successful run throughs. On the day I was fine for the first half then something hit me and I spent the second half on the brink of tears, barely able to speak. Some people just got up and did it. Don’t know how they managed it. I’m an emotional cove though.
My aunt was the pernickety sort, always criticising my poor old uncle for some minor misdemeanour or other. Breakfasts were sombre affairs, healthy muesli, freshly brewed coffee, Uncle forced to sit quietly, no radio allowed.
Aunt went off to some church affair leaving Uncle on his own. She came home a couple of hours later. There was uncle face down on the breakfast table dressed in his vest and underpants, the radio blaring, in front of a plate of eggs, bacon and toast, a mug of tea still warm. I like to think he smiled as he felt the heart attack coming on.
Sounds as though they didn’t ever have children.
Correct
That’s the way to go.
How do we deal with it all?
That is a bank holiday question, particularly the August one which seems to be definitively the end of summer, and when unless away or with friends such questions can rise to the surface. Today I went for a short run after breakfast – 3k of interval training – then after second breakfast spent an hour at the allotment weeding, digging up some spuds, and pottering about.
During the afternoon I finished working through a stack of photos on CDs from the early noughties before Googledrive and Onedrive, containing photos of the kids first four or five years. Most of them we already had in the cloud(s), but there were a few taken by other people that were new to me. At the end of a couple of hours a pile of CDs ready for the bin.
In the evening we fired up the pizza oven, possibly for the last time this year, and as both kids are home at the minute we spent an enjoyable hour and a bit rolling out, prepping and enjoying great wood-fired pizza, all presided over by Mrs M the OG Firestarter.
All these kinds of things we’re told are the kind of things we should be doing at – in my case 60 – along with the statins.
I’ll leave you with the thoughts of our pension planner. Who reminds us, ever the cautious ones, that a pension is for spending as well as saving. We’re both still at work but we can see the exit sign.
Our belatedly engaged financial advisor said the same thing: “Stop saving, start spending.”
We did something similar a couple of Christmases ago. We just handed over a pile of paperwork and set her loose on it. After six months, she came back with: “When can you afford to retire? About two years ago.” Yet, we’re both still working.
For me, it’s a process. Closing the company and selling the kit while maybe doing a small amount of light freelance work. I wouldn’t want to just stop and I think that by the projected end of the company, next August, I’ll have a better grasp of everything and whether I even want to do small amounts of work.
I’m the CEO of an arts charity, and here my main concerns are about how to extricate myself, get a successor in, and leave the place hopefully in a good position. A lot of the timings are set by external funding cycles, don’t want my successor to start and have to write the existential funding bid straight away.
I’ve three session with a coach over the autumn to work on this.
How about do a job share to start with??
That kind of thing is exactly what I’m working through with the Coach. Lots of moving parts when you factor in the board, and that if we had unlimited money things would be less of an issue, and would someone want to start a full-time job working half the time? I had a two-week handover and then was flying solo. There has to be a better way…
Parallel run then taper out.
Top tip: save on pesky funeral expenses. Dig a big deep hole in the garden, and fill it with bulk buy tinned salmon. When you pop your clogs, you can go in the hole whilst your beloved family and friends enjoy some salmon sandwiches.
Do you also write for Viz Comic?
This year, so far, more than any other has concentrated my mind on just this.
One good friend of ours died of cancer in March. He was 78. That’s not important though. He was active and lively and it felt deeply unfair. Then just weeks after, another good friend died. 55 years of age. Lean and fit. The poor man was broadsided by one massive stroke then another while on a family holiday. Completely devastating.
And then my brother succumbed to his dementia in May. He was 76. A lovely, kind and daft man hollowed out and then murdered by this foul disease.
I’m very aware that I have at most 2 decades of probable existence left. Slightly overweight on blood pressure medication I’m watching my body all the time now. I walk a lot, have never smoked and one sniff of the barmaids apron has always been enough for me drink-wise. Reasonably recent back trouble aside and two NHS all clears on prostate and bowel cancers mean I’m breathing and mobile and can expect to continue as is. But for how long? I’m lazy and I waste so much time.
I’m a reasonably healthy 73 (I think it’s 73), and actively looking forward to going to heaven after I kark it. I enjoy trying to imagine what heaven is like. First off, I’ll be met by all my old dogs bouncing towards me over the clouds or whatever elysian landscape serves as the aerodrome for incoming souls. We’ll communicate telepathically perfectly – I may even have assumed a doglike form for this hugely emotional meeting. Then we’ll scamper off and they’ll show me to my new lodgings, which will be like a Samuel Palmer painting of a cottage, glowing in the gloaming, with contentedly ruminative livestock set about the sward. Doe-eyed minx Jane Bayley – or another childhood sweetheart should she be not yet dead – will swoop down on iridescent wings, and we shall have tea in a bosky arbor while a string quartet of talented badgers plays an unknown piece by Mozart (apparently a neighbour!). From there on it gets a bit of a blur – how shall I fill my time, should time have to be filled or even exist as we understand it now? Will there be work, and purpose, or will eternal delight be enough?
Hopefully les vieux chens will be bouncing towards you on Spacehoppers.
I’m specifying a dog-centric welcoming committee because feeling at ease will be the entire point of the Heavenly Acclimatisation Process, and family will not have the same importance up there. If appropriate, I’d seek out some family members later (my mum’s dad would be first on the list). Dogs, good friends, some wise guidance from my Wise Guide, that Samuel Palmer cottage, as many birds and butterflies as the blue sky can reasonably accommodate, and preparation for the next step. Which involves completions – tying up the loose ends. This will include doing stuff you never had the chance to do – driving one of those superwide road rollers with rubber rollers over freshly-laid tarmac, f’rinstance. Neil Young inviting you up on stage for the solo of a lifetime.
The act of what we call “dying” may be painful but is just part of life and living, something to be endured for a moment and left behind. Jurgen’s grandmother was so furious when she discovered there was no heaven in the afterlife the gods created one to shut her up. We have her to thank.
Another one on Statins – 3 months and so far not noticed any side effects. Unfortunately the doctors focused on my cholestrol rather than me being pre-diabetic for 5 years… perhaps I should have started them earlier. Anyhow we are where we are.
My wife refers to us being on sniper’s alley in our 50s and 60’s. She is 22 months short of her 60th, and neither of my 2 other significant others made it to 60… hope she does (she seems fine).
i’m 64 so hoping for a bit more time. But who knows.
Mate staying with us is 62 and has COPD which is awful – his kids dont think he will make 70.
It is awful, though possibly not as awful as other people think it is. You adjust, and life is normal-ish as long as you don’t get too ambitious. Mine is officially severe, which gives average life expectancy of 2-5 years, yet here I am, still plugging away after 15 years.