death cafe

I’ve started going to Death Café meetings recently and one of the conversations to come up was about putting things in place for your death, getting your house in order as it were. Makes it a lot easier for everyone left behind if you do and god don’t I know it. 

My dad left no instructions as to what he wanted. I mean I literally had no idea if he even wanted to be buried or cremated. And you know I’m more of the ‘get cremated’ mindset. I don’t get how huge swathes of precious land are taken up with corpses. Don’t get me wrong, I get it in terms of those left behind, having a place to go, connect with their loved ones and so on, but for me our bodies are just a vehicle to carry our spirits on this earthly plane and that once spirit has left it’s just a corpse, a carcass, that’s done it’s job (and with mega thanks and gratitude for that). Anyway, I digress, point being that my dad never told me what he would like; if he wanted a service even, what music was to be played, a hymn perhaps? (and we’re not even talking about all the bureaucratic paperwork). The closest I got to knowing what he wanted was when he posted a news clipping to me when I was living in Spain, no note, nothing (you had to be a bit of a detective with ole Jim). It was about a woman who had been buried in her back garden, oh my god I almost fell about laughing. I phoned my dad,

‘Dad, is this what you want, to be buried in your garden after you pass?’

‘Yes.’

My brain did a quick scan, assessing all of the implications; was that even lawful? Fuck, I didn’t know but it wasn’t sounding too good to me and as he was leaving me the house I really didn’t know that I could handle him being buried in the bottom of the garden, which believe, was only a few meters from the kitchen window. I told him I felt doubtful about it. He couldn’t really see what the problem was. Call me selfish but what if I wanted to sell the house one day, is that something you’d need to put on the specs haha, dead dad buried in the garden? The one thing that I did manage to ascertain, as he’d often grumble about it, was that as the whole funeral industry was one big rip off I was to just stick him in a cardboard box. Alright dad.

He passed away in January 2021, yeah, pandemic time, and just after I’d managed to get some full on Covid that totally knocked me out for three weeks, I found myself trying to plan his funeral. I was already back living with him by that time which obviously made things a lot easier but only in a logistical sense. It was a struggle, a real fucking struggle, on so many levels, so much so that afterwards I said I’d never leave anyone in that position having to sort out all my stuff, my funeral plans and god knows what else. But have I done it? Noooo, of course not, and we’re now 4 years later. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written down the odd note here and there about who I’d leave what to but no one will be able to find them. They’re not intentionally hidden, it’s just they’re in notebooks, scribbled along the way and at best they really are an unupdated scribble.

Something that came up in conversation at Death Café was about how people felt superstitious about putting pen to paper about their ‘death affairs’ and that’s why they often didn’t do it. I found myself shaking my head in acknowledgement, like we’re all going to be tempting fate. Apart from knowing I have a long life ahead of me and that I know it’s supersticious nonsense, an irrational fear (no disrespect intended) I still haven’t done it.

So trying to make an effort I decided to put together a playlist for my ‘Celebrating Lara’s Life’ party (that’s a recent addition too, thanks to my Uncle Woody who passed recently and didn’t want a service, a funeral, just a get together with family and friends to celebrate his life, I like that). And here it is, what I’ve compiled so far. It’s a start and hey, why wait till I’m not around, let’s enjoy it now, especially if you like a bit of banging old skool house: Celebrating Lara’s life