Hard to say goodbye

The start of this year has been memorable for all the wrong reasons. Unless you have been back packing in the amazon or similar,  you will be aware of all the celebrity deaths,, most of which were unexpected to the masses. Unfortunately in our house we are also dealing with the death of someone more close to home, but as it turns out even more private.


Now this may sound very morose and dark but after the last few weeks I have been through trying to pre empt problems and mediate opinions,  if there is one thing I implore you to do, and that is write a plan of what you would prefer once you have left this mortal plane. Then give a copy to your next of kin or better still to a couple of people. It has been a nightmare trying to sort out not just the logistics of death but the planning of a service. Now I may be a little gothic in my belief that a funeral need to have some structure and dignity,  but when you haven't got all the facts to plan a service, where else do you start.

I am not saying that you have to write out your entire service, but ideas for hymns readings even dress would be nice. To be truthful the only people who have benefited from the head in the sand attitude I am dealing with are nescafe and Benson and hedges. Grief, even more so over the festive season is painful enough, but added stress like this is even worse. Not because I want a grand affair, but because I am now suffering insomnia for fear of letting the person down. I have no bench mark or guidelines in which to plan. This already has caused disagreements within the planning party as to what is acceptable.

I would love to say this is a one off but 16 years ago I was in exactly the same position,  to the point that our family split in half over opinions and only now have started to to talk to each other. Yet nothing seems to have been learnt from that experience. So come Friday, I am bracing myself for a repeat performance, wrecked with guilt, sorrow and now fear. But I know exactly what I am doing this week. Macabre as it may sound I am putting pen to paper and writing my requests down for others. So that no one else is left in the situation I am in again.

We have already lost too many people this year, and hopefully everyone can honour the losses in their own way, we don't ever expect or want to accept our time is limited. But me 2016 the year you at least accept that it helps the people left behind if you put it on paper what you want.