Death is my business, my bread and butter. So, you’d think, on my day off, I’d want to shut the door on it. But, I can’t help myself. I’m drawn to those newspaper articles. You know, those stories, hidden away amongst life’s trivia, about some poor soul who’s just been given the worst news imaginable; they’re dying. Devastating news for them and their loved ones but, newsworthy? Really?

As depressing as it is, a story about death and dying is compelling. I can’t stop myself. I read it. Diagnosed with some cruel illness which is slowly killing them, the person with the death sentence is quoted as saying, ‘I’m going to use the time I have left to make memories.’ They feel the urge to leave lingering proof that they were physically here.

To remind those who matter to them of halcyon times, the potpourri of memories to be passed down the generations will be stage-managed to uplift spirits and celebrate their being. They plan a cascade of events, full of busyness to distract the mind, to create reminders endowed with a super-power beyond the norm of ordinary remembering; honey-toned memories made with people they love, and who love them back. No ordinary memory will do: ‘Disney Land here we come.’

My eyes are magnetically drawn across the page. There’s a photograph of the family. They are there for all the world to see. I scan the picture, study the image. I look at the faces of these strangers with pity. I try to see beyond the forced smiles and blank eyes and wonder what is really going on in their heads.

As their light begins to dim and they slowly fade out of time, I imagine the terror, the rawness, the pain, of a parent soon to be sucked into a black-hole of oblivion. No-one else, no matter how caring, will love those children in the sanely, insane way that they do.

I try to empathise, and wonder how well the survivor will cope when everything has been made meaningless. Can dad cook do you suppose? Can he plait hair? What chance will mum have to find work to fit around a school day? Is she X-Box savvy? I wonder how long will it be before the one left behind will marry again; men seem to re-marry quicker than women.

I imagine the family eager for the paper to come out. One of them makes a special journey to the shop. Another says, “Grab some milk while you’re there.”

They drink their tea as they bunch together on the sofa, slowly turning the pages, afraid they’ll miss their article and their few minutes of fame. There it is. Carefully, they snip around their story, remembering to record the date and the name of the rag. They copy it, one for each family member and one for anyone who requests it.

Sometime in the future, perhaps years later, the scrap will come to light again when clearing a cupboard, or it will fall out of a long-ago read book where it was used to mark a page. The sight of it hurts. A gut-wrenching punch in the stomach. An adrenaline surge, as strong as a donkey’s kick, resurrects long-forgotten memories. A kaleidoscope of poignant reminders tumble about the brain like storm-ravaged autumn leaves until sorted into some vague order. Bitter-sweet, they are shared, talked-about, laughed-about.

“Look. This is your granny. She would have loved you to bits.”

They cry later, when they’re alone. After a day or two reminiscing, the clip is once again filed away for safety.

One day, the article is re-found, smoothed-out, read and passed around the next generation.

“Who are they?”

“Do you remember them?”

“No”

That’s the day the dog-eared, yellowing family dies. That’s the date that should be recorded on the grave-markers. The day and date when no-one remembered who they were and why they mattered.

What if it were me and my family? How would I feel if presented with the prognosis that my future was about to stop short; that I’m at the fag-end of life, about to write the final paragraph? How would I want to be remembered?

For me, memories, at least the best ones, are made in those unplanned, innocent moments that occur without thought, pleasant accidents. Authentic memories capture an iconic moment in a life-story that can’t and won’t ever be repeated in quite the same way. I can visit the same place, with the same people, where those memories were first formed, over and over again, and each time it will be different. Each visit busy with sense-filling moments, some as soft as a lullaby, others fizzing like free-form jazz, each visit unique.

Some memories will be lost in the blur, some will remain to be recalled at a future point in time, a story to tell the kids or to make me smile when I’m decrepit and can’t get out of my chair.

Psychologists tell us that impressions from the past can’t be relied on for accuracy. Memories can be false. Our brain, a subconscious censor, deletes or adjusts what is troubling, or inappropriate, retaining, and perhaps embellishing, what is important or of interest or made us happy.

“I remember when…”

“Do you? Do you really?”

Most people die without announcing it. I’ve buried them, the baby who perished in the womb, the woman a few days short of her hundredth birthday, the daughters, sons, fathers and mothers.

I’ve been welcomed into dozens of homes to discuss the funeral service. By the time I get there, the initial shock has waned. The family want to talk about their recently departed loved-one, they need to talk about them. Their absence fills the room.

“What shall we say? There’s so much, too much.”

Everyone has an untold story.

“No need for a potted history, unless you want to,” I say. “Pick two or three stand-out memories and we’ll go from there.”

I hear the stories, related from two, three, four perspectives, depending on who speaks. They relax. They forget I’m there. I make discreet notes while they chat amongst themselves, quietly remembering. There are brief silences, when they catch a whiff of mum’s scent, or discuss a vague memory that dad was in the army when he was younger and learned to bake bread. They taste gran’s pasties once more. They laugh as they remember her getting ‘squiffy’ as she called it, at family parties, although she always denied it. They bury their heads into the soft, warm, duvet that is the past, and weep as they grieve the lost opportunity to say important things.

I go away and précis the precious life-story into a ten-minute trailer. Ten minutes to define the coffin-cocooned corpse, to keep alive a posthumous reputation.

“Coming to a crematorium near you, a story that will make you laugh, a story that will make you cry…”

You don’t get over losing someone, you learn to live with it. As you gradually begin to get on with your life, grief fades into the background where it lurks like a melancholy imp. The emotions bubbling under the surface of ‘getting on with it’ are churning magma. You exist with the constant danger that the grief-volcano could erupt at any moment — without warning — engulfing you in red-hot lava of emotions. Like cinders, painful reminders of the times you were happy, sear your body. Stress grips your head in a vice, you feel a migraine coming on.

You try and resist the urge to dive into the under-stairs cupboard to find the biscuit tin and rifle though old photos. Looking at them is painful. Pictures flash through your brain like flickering cine-film. You are reminded of things you said, or she said, or he should have said. You weep silently, or you stride around, furious with yourself, still not wanting to believe.

“Shit, was it really thirty years ago?”

We take our tomorrows for granted.

I wrote a poem for a memorial service. I entitled it ‘The Photograph’. It made people cry. It caused one man, later that same night, to shake his partner awake with an earnest plea. “You have to marry me.”

I officiated at the wedding. The bride told me my poem had made her groom think, made him realise life was short and he needed to get on with it. I helped them to make memories, beautiful memories, to outlast the day.

– Patricia Minson