On Feeling One's Own Mortality

I attended the funeral of a very fine man he other week. He had died far too young, and the non-religious service was heaving with friends and former colleagues celebrating his life.

So full, in fact, that I was forced to park in Reading Crematorium's overflow facility, a hefty walk from the main building. Now, this may seem a trivial problem to you in the face of other people who were having a far worse day than I, but bear with me*.

It being my 47th birthday, the event made me ponder my own mortality and my own inevitable encounter with Death's icy grip.

This pondering was not helped by the shortcut I took from chapel to car park across the not-so-tenderly mown lawns of the graveyard, where tombstones told me the aged of the deceased.

Aged 47... Aged 48... Aged 39... Aged 51... Aged 47... Oh God - Does nobody in this town grow old? It was only as I staggered through a flock of 80-somethings that I began to feel better.

Then, I saw these words - actually carved on an actual gravestone as an actual epitaph to an actual adult, the sum total of one man's life in five actual words and three kisses - that I felt Death's icy grip etc etc etc:

"Night night mate, see ya xxx"

In the somewhat paraphrased words of Mr Neil Gaiman: Death - It's the high cost of living.

And, as usual, it takes a funeral to remind you how alive you are.

* No, really, there's a bear and it's hungry and send help for the love of God aaaaaaaaaaargh