Sadly it's true and not some weird parody of a film title.
By Wednesday evening the fourth funeral of recent times will be over, another soul dispatched to bang on the pearly gates and enquire about the price of admission.
At least the wedding was good!
Perhaps it's a sign of getting older ourselves that we seem to notice that the journey to the precipice is speeding up.
Our shield is gone.
The ranks of those that went before us have largely been decimated, taking with it casualties from our own peer group and also, sadly, a few from the ranks of the younger generation. But now we are next in line, grabbing like a drowning man at each new day and then relieved as it dawns, marvelling at our own temporary immortality whilst trying to push to the back of our minds the inevitability of the human condition.
It's been eighteen months since my own battle with the grim reaper. As they cracked me open like a lobster and plucked out my still beating heart to re-plumb it I swear that I heard him sharpening his scythe.
Perhaps two years before that I would have let him slice me like a lemon.
Things can sometimes get that bad.
Certainly six months before that I would have helped him to buff up his blade.
Isn't it strange how life turns around?
That moment when they thrust the bloody organ back into my chest really was a rebirth. My old life had gone, for better or worse and a different road lay ahead. Oh, I tried to rejoin the race, but I'd already been lapped and I needed a new track following my pitstop.
I think I've found it.
To be sure it's not the motorway of youth along which I careered without stopping to admire the scenery or even a cursory backward glance. Pink Floyd warned me that I'd miss the starting gun, but although I heard the words I failed to heed the message.
But then neither is this the rutted cart-way onto which I had strayed, lost and without a map to guide me. This is a path, smooth on the surface which suits the more sedate pace I now choose. It is broad, allowing those who wish to accompany me to join at their leisure, but not so wide that the shysters who would steer me wrong nor the highwaymen who would rob me can travel alongside.
Inevitably there will be obstacles, but they will not be allowed to grow into barriers.
Without doubt some of my fellow travellers will not complete the journey with me.
Certainly I will one day join them.
But it was a bloody good wedding!
By Wednesday evening the fourth funeral of recent times will be over, another soul dispatched to bang on the pearly gates and enquire about the price of admission.
At least the wedding was good!
Perhaps it's a sign of getting older ourselves that we seem to notice that the journey to the precipice is speeding up.
Our shield is gone.
The ranks of those that went before us have largely been decimated, taking with it casualties from our own peer group and also, sadly, a few from the ranks of the younger generation. But now we are next in line, grabbing like a drowning man at each new day and then relieved as it dawns, marvelling at our own temporary immortality whilst trying to push to the back of our minds the inevitability of the human condition.
It's been eighteen months since my own battle with the grim reaper. As they cracked me open like a lobster and plucked out my still beating heart to re-plumb it I swear that I heard him sharpening his scythe.
Perhaps two years before that I would have let him slice me like a lemon.
Things can sometimes get that bad.
Certainly six months before that I would have helped him to buff up his blade.
Isn't it strange how life turns around?
That moment when they thrust the bloody organ back into my chest really was a rebirth. My old life had gone, for better or worse and a different road lay ahead. Oh, I tried to rejoin the race, but I'd already been lapped and I needed a new track following my pitstop.
I think I've found it.
To be sure it's not the motorway of youth along which I careered without stopping to admire the scenery or even a cursory backward glance. Pink Floyd warned me that I'd miss the starting gun, but although I heard the words I failed to heed the message.
But then neither is this the rutted cart-way onto which I had strayed, lost and without a map to guide me. This is a path, smooth on the surface which suits the more sedate pace I now choose. It is broad, allowing those who wish to accompany me to join at their leisure, but not so wide that the shysters who would steer me wrong nor the highwaymen who would rob me can travel alongside.
Inevitably there will be obstacles, but they will not be allowed to grow into barriers.
Without doubt some of my fellow travellers will not complete the journey with me.
Certainly I will one day join them.
But it was a bloody good wedding!
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