Why do we close the door after the horse has bolted. In the last 24 hours the internet has been flooded with tributes, we do it everytime some one prominent dies and yet until this end of life event while the person is struggling in their final days when death is imminent and yet hasn’t quite arrived when feeling the out pouring of love would be so powerful, we don’t do it. The truth, we are not even thinking about that person. We hear those words “so en so has died” and all of a sudden we are devastated??

We don’t talk about the people who’s lives we share through their creativity, their achievements, their inspiration until they die and then we immediately get on social media and say how much we loved them, how their work, changed our lives. How impacted we are by their passing. It’s like a game of pass it on no one plays until it’s too late.

It drives me mad.

Whenever I hear a song I love, regard a painting, hear or read a poem that touches me or triggers a memory, I try to feel gratitude, for the wisdom, joy, laughter conjured from the work. In the moment not after the fact. After the fact makes you feel sad, in the moment is where the genius of the connection lies, when the work touches the human spirit and unites us.

Everyone dies, we know it’s coming to us all and yet we insist on jumping on a bandwagon after the fact to say all the things if we felt them and they were true we should have said before and not afterwards.

For me funerals are the most crazy of all the things we plan and attend. I am not having one. Sure my friends and family can throw a party in my honour if they want to, although I’d prefer to have that big celebration of my life before I die so I can be there.

I like the idea of no funeral, I am thrifty and don’t like to waste money on things I don’t need. I’ve learned a cadaver is a pretty valuable commodity which can be donated for free to universities across the UK for medical science. I quite like the idea of being useful after I die instead of it costing a packet to get rid of me safely and within the law. Sure I understand dead bodies have to be dealt with sensibly but for me this seems like the perfect solution and with no body no funeral necessary.

I absolutely love this poem by Juan Oliveraz. I heard it as a child repeated to me by someone I cared about but wasn’t always nice to. A reminder and wisdom imparted and instilled to be nice to people whilst they are alive.

My final resting place, I’ll be lying on a university slab I hope being useful. And if anyone’s got anything nice to say let me know before that happens. I think if we think about it, we’d all like to hear the adoration before it’s too late.