On Life and the Undertaker's Den.

I took the plunge and paid for my funeral plan today, so now there’s a big hole in the hull of my bank account. No doubt the ship will sail on regardless to whatever its final destination is.

(Not that there’s any such thing as a bank account, of course. It’s just a theoretical concept to add credence to the illusory notion that money is real. But let’s pass on that one for now.)

What was much more interesting about my trip to the funeral parlour (I was in there for 1½ hours, would you believe – mostly going over things I already knew with a woman called Jo whose laptop was maddeningly slow. Do I feel a ditty coming on here? Having been regaled with the story of old Joe lost in the snow as a child, I come to the other end of my life and encounter young Jo whose laptop is slow. This really must be a message from the universe. Mustn’t it?) was meeting one of the undertakers.

He assured me that after I shuffle off this mortal coil I will be taken very good care off and treated with the utmost respect. He declined to accept my assertion that once I lay this body down I won’t be in it any more, so it doesn’t really matter. And when I suggested that being an undertaker seemed a somewhat strange occupation, he declined to accept that as well. He said he couldn’t think of a more satisfying way to spend his life than dealing with dead bodies and bereaved people. I supposed that he was the sort of person to place compassion above practical considerations and was happy to accept his point of view (although I did mention that I was happier taking photographs of trees.) Come to think of it, I also asked whether the notion of ‘utmost respect’ included me being bowed to because I’ve never been bowed to before. ‘Oh yes,’ I was assured. ‘We always bow to the deceased even in the case of a direct cremation.’ (That’s where you don’t waste money on a fancy funeral service where everybody dutifully sings Abide with Me while thinking of the free buffet to come.)

So that was today’s big adventure, apart from being stared at by several young women who then did a double take. I wondered whether spending 1½ hours in a funeral parlour has some deleterious effect on one’s skin tone. ‘Maybe it’s vapour from the embalming fluid,’ I thought. But probably not. And then I remembered meeting Lucy, the ex-dental nurse, shortly after my cancer operation six years ago. She promised to teach me the yoga position called the ‘corpse pose’ while I was still young enough to be able to do it. And I’ve never seen her since. Life eh? Never works out.