Nicola Graydon Harris, co-author of The Ancestral Continuum, argues that we should revise how we think of death for the sake of our loved ones who have gone before us and who come after us.

How would we live if we knew for certain that our consciousness continued to exist after our hearts stopped beating?

Would we pay more attention to our death if we had proof that our souls survived the cessation of brain activity? What kind of funeral would we plan for ourselves if we might actually be in attendance? We would probably live our lives very differently, prepare for our death a little bit more and, at the very least, organize a playlist for our funeral…and for this and other advice on making our funerals more fitting to our lives we have My Last Song to thank.

A new book which I co-authored, The Ancestral Continuum, urges us to consider – in ways outside usual religious dogma – life after death with enough real stories and anecdotes to open the mind to the possibility.

Kathy Eldon, for example, recalls visiting a medium under a false name after her photojournalist son was killed in Somalia at just 22. She was sceptical until the medium told her that a vibrant, young spirit kept banging on about some young female who appeared to be trapped in a darkened room under heavy material. Kathy was bemused until the medium said that the woman’s name was Desiree. ‘That was the name he gave to his beloved Land Rover,’ Kathy recalled how she laughed and cried at the same time, ‘and she was under canvas in the garage.’

There is a more ethereal testimony from Aggie, an NHS nurse who recalls seeing the spirits of the dead floating above the living at burial ceremonies. ‘They look like shimmering figures,’ she says, ‘and remain attached to each other by cords of light until the cords are cut at the end of the ceremony.’

But mostly there are numerable stories from perfectly normal people about potent dreams and strange synchronicities that seem to come directly from deceased loved ones.  Of course, none of us can know what happens when we die until we’ve actually been there but, to paraphrase Carl Jung, better to go towards our death believing in something other than the black void of oblivion. And then, maybe, we will plan for the inevitable so it’s the ending we want…planning our exit strategy as my friends at My Last Song call their mission.

At the heart of The Ancestral Continuum lies a call to reconnect with our ancestral heritage. Whether that is an emotional or spiritual connection, there are immense riches to be found in understanding those who have lived and died before us. It places us within the context of a complex narrative that speaks to us of who we are and gives us clues to where we might be going.

Most cultures around the world maintain a faithful relationship with their ancestors: from altars in Vietnamese restaurants to graveside picnics in Mexico during the Day of the Dead; the honouring of ancestors before each American Indian ceremony, to ancestral reverence in Zulu, Shona, Xhosa traditions in Southern Africa, as well as similar respect to their forefathers in most of that ancient, mysterious continent. It appears that our ancestors have been uniquely discarded by Western culture.

Is that because of our fear of death, despite its inevitability? From the moment that we are born we move inexorably towards our death and yet most of the Western world behave as though it doesn’t exist. Most of us will die in hospital surrounded by tubes and machines yet it wasn’t so long ago that, living in multi-generational households, children would experience the death of a grandparent in the family home. Have we lost the sacredness of this profound moment as we desperately cling to life?

Today, while 70 per cent of people say that they would rather die at home surrounded by friends and family, only 18 per cent actually do. Dying at home requires preparation and forward planning. It commits us to make a choice and be sure that our loved ones know that is what we want, and for younger loved ones to know how their ailing relatives want to die, and not ignore the fact that they surely will.

A ‘good’ death, says the book, makes a happy ancestor and it also makes for a profoundly moving collective experience for family and friends. This can be immensely healing for the dying and the living. And death itself becomes less frightening; more teacher than enemy; more journey than destination. In our dying we can teach others how to live as though our very next breath might be our last.

There was a lot of good sense talked during yesterday’s Westminster Hall end of life care debate, on which the government is consulting at the moment, and in particular when discussing the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).

The LCP is designed to manage the withdrawal of unnecessary treatment given to dying patients to relieve suffering, and has been inaccurately reported in the Daily Mail (which seems to enjoy making it readers as anxious as possible) as a state sponsored way of killing the old.

Glyn Davies MP, who sponsored the debate, criticised such poorly informed criticism, without naming the Daily Mail, as shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre, and said that to abandon the LCP was like “tearing up the Highway Code because there were some bad drivers.”

Sir Tony Baldry MP also spoke sensibly when he said that the NHS wasn’t failing because people died, but failed when they didn’t die well. He stressed the need for improvements in the way medical professionals communicated with dying patients and their families.

Credit must also go to the Shadow Health Secretary Liz Kendall who didn’t oppose this welcome development to the management of end of life but pointed out the LCP was only as good as the teams that used it.

The debate ended with the Health Minister Norman Lamb stating the government’s aim to make all patients’ end of life care as pain free and dignified as possible, and that it was totally unacceptable that patients were put on the Pathway without any notification of the patient’s family.

A vital and as yet overlooked concomitant to the Liverpool Care Pathway is the benefits of the terminally ill and ailing elderly having their own personal death plan, rather as mum’s-to-be have birth plans. Death, after all, is as inevitable as birth.

Filling in a death plan means that the end of life has to be discussed, rather than ignored because it’s awkward, upsetting or embarrassing. And the discussion will inevitably include loved ones, medical professionals and, if appropriate, ministers of religion.

Most importantly, an individual’s death plan will be a properly communicated record which doctors and others involved will, if appropriate, follow so that the patient’s death is as comfortable and comforting as possible. Even if some of the end of life wishes expressed in the death plan are unrealistic, at least the creation of the plan facilitates discussion between the patient, the patient’s family and the those providing the end of life medical care.

My Last Song has created a holistic death plan template which not only addresses medical issues but also other aspects which affect the quality of the end of life experience, such as who the patient wishes to be present, where they want to die, the music they want to hear, the aromas they want to smell, pictures they want to see and also practical matters so they don’t worry about, as an example, who will look after their pets.

We hope the government will suggest the adoption of personal end of life death plans and acknowledges that a good death is more than just good medical care.

Sir Ian Botham was understandably emotional on Gary Richardson’s Sportsweek on BBC Radio 5, recalling the deaths of Tony Greig and Christopher Martin-Jenkins in the space of a few days.

Both will be terribly missed for similar reasons: their passionate love of cricket, their ability as commentators, their instantly recognisable voices, traditional values, senses of humour, strong personalities and personal and professional achievements.

There’s no need to go into details of their lives here, for there have been excellent obituaries. CMJ, or the Major as his colleagues called him, was chief cricket correspondent for the Telegraph and its obituary is a model. The Guardian’s obituary of Tony Greig is also excellent.

Both died from complications caused by cancer, both at tragically early ages,  Greig at 66, CMJ at 67. Despite the advances in medical research and healthier lifestyles – Tony Greig and CMJ exercised, played golf and probably ate well – cancer is still an effective killer.  So too are other illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and the increasingly common dementia in its various forms.

And then there are the random acts of stupidity, violence, nature and accident that take lives too early and with such shocking and devastating effect.

Yet so many people seem to deny that death will one day or another come to them… ‘who wants to think about their death?’ is still a common response when My Last Song is talked about.

Continue with this view if you want your final event to be dreary, unmemorable, distressing for your loved ones and inappropriate to your life and beliefs.

If on the other hand, you want to take responsibility for how you leave this world, to be remembered the way you want to be remembered, to have your life celebrated, to reduce the grief and anxiety felt by your friends and family then visit My Last Song to help plan your funeral and store your memories in your Lifebox so that future generations will know the real you. For all we leave when we go are our memories.

Sun Life Direct are to be congratulated on their annual Cost of Dying Report. It’s a comprehensive and helpful piece of research.
They have just published the ninth which shows that the basic cost of a funeral has risen by 6.2 per cent from £3091 in 2011 to £3284 in 2012; a 71 per cent increase since 2004.
Burial costs represent the largest increase (9.6 per cent) while cremation costs (6.6 per cent) and funeral directors’ costs (5.3 per cent) also rose significantly.
Eddie Harris, jazz sax player, wrote a song entitled I Need Some Money in which he said: ‘With the cost of living today, you can’t afford to die.’ The report bares this out: 17 per cent struggled with funeral costs and had to resort to serious measures to meet the shortfall with 20 per cent paying by credit card, 10 per cent borrowing the money, and nine per cent selling belongings.
Despite this, people are spending seven per cent more on memorials, flowers, and limousines.
The financial problems caused by the rising costs and growing inability to pay means the government’s Social Fund Funeral Payment Scheme, designed to contribute to the cost of funerals for the most vulnerable in society, is struggling to meet demand.
And yet, according to the report, 27 per cent have not thought about how they will pay for their funeral.
Little wonder then that Simon Cox of Sun Life Direct commented, “We must encourage people to look ahead and start planning in advance. There are suitable options for people to take financial responsibility for their own funerals.”
Those options, not surprisingly, are Sun Life financial products, and why not as Sun Life is a reputable company with a good reputation for services such as pre-paid funeral plans.  Cox’s foreword to the report should be read carefully as it is a most considered and well argued piece.
My Last Song has run a survey over the past few months asking visitors if they would consider planning their own funeral or leave it to loved ones. Out of the 500 or so who have replied, 84 per cent said they would consider it, not surprising as they were visitors to a site that encourages and assists them to plan their or their loved ones’ funerals.
If they looked at some of the advice we give, they could find significant ways of reducing the funeral costs.
These include buying the coffin direct from the manufacturer; reducing the amount of service and time provided by the funeral director; cutting back on flowers; refusing to be embalmed and planning more diligently things like transport and the catering at the gathering.
To help people be better informed and therefore more likely to save money, and indeed get a better funeral, we have provided a funeral planning checklist of decisions that need to be taken (or not) with the funeral director.
Costs will only come down if a radical new approach to funerals is adopted, starting with addressing one’s mortality and ending with a detailed plan for the send off that gives the best value for money and the best farewell ceremony.
There are signs that things are changing…the recent Joy Of Death weekend was well attended; the BBC2 programme Dead Good Job features the funeral industry and the Dying Matters coalition continues to grow and give excellent advice.
However, we are unlikely to see major changes for some time yet…a funeral is still a panic purchase for most people, and too many funeral directors know that such customers are unlikely to say no to the expensive options put before them.
There are honourable exceptions, those driven more by principle and tradition than bottom line targets. My Last Song would like to hear from them so we can bring them to the attention of our visitors.

Long live the resistance! Today three more of the so-called Islamist Force to Protect Britain are no more.

It was the now usual pattern. At one of the bases where the Islamists are training those of our young men disloyal enough to take their place when they return to the Middle East next year, one of our resistance fighters enrolled only to take the first opportunity to slay the occupiers.

In fact, the ‘loyalty’ of most of these trainees is questionable…many either belong to the British Intrepid Terrorists (BRITS) resistance movement or are sympathetic to us.

While we BRITS are still divided between Catholics and Protestants, fundamentalists and atheists, moderates and extremists, England versus the other nations, we’re united by our belief that we should run Britain the way it has been run for centuries and our hatred of an army that has slaughtered so many innocent British people.

We didn’t invite the Islamists here to shore up the corrupt Blair regime, but they invaded nevertheless, telling us and the world it was for our own good because Blair was ‘moderate’ whereas we BRITS and our supporters – most of the population – wanted free elections, a free press, an independent judiciary, equality between men and women, decent education for girls, tolerance for people of all backgrounds and religions… and to drink alcohol as we have done for centuries.

Yes, some of our beers ended up on the streets of the Middle East but that is hardly an excuse for an army of muslim zealots to tear up our barley and destroy our breweries.  How would they like it if we sent our troops to ruin their poppy crop?

Faced with such occupiers, hostile to and ignorant of our traditions and values, the British people (apart from those who gain from assisting the Islamists and the Blairite administration it’s shoring up) have made their lives hell.

The Islamists policy was to defeat the BRITS (believing we were an unpopular group of extremists) and then convert the rest of the British people to be ‘moderates’, to support Blair and his cronies, to keep our boys and girls apart as they grow up, to persecute gays and minorities, to abstain from alcohol and give groups of local elders powers to decide civil disputes. They should have known the British would never be told how to live by people who have no idea of our history and values.

And despite their use of the most advanced weapons and the terrible toll of lives of our freedom fighters, our bravery and determination to remain British has given us victory.

The Islamist Force to Protect Britain were doomed from the start, and our resistance has forced them to announce they are going back to their countries – Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and those other feeble states who have sent their young men on such a thankless task.

Their politicians’ face saving tactic in the months before they go is to train some of our people to be police or security officers to enforce Blair’s corrupt laws after they pull out.

Their stupidity knows no bounds…this training gives our brave resistance fighters the weapons with which to kill their trainers, and the easiest of opportunities to do so. No wonder the people of these Islamist countries want their young men to leave as soon as possible.

The BRITS have won! We fought them in the back streets of London, the Yorkshire moors, the Scottish Highlands, the valleys of South Wales. Now they are holed up in their compounds, going on meaningless patrols of moribund villages, and even here we BRITS kill or maim them.

Long live the free people of Britain! And if those Islamists have any sense, they won’t interfere again in countries they know little about and have little interest in.

I was saddened to read in today’s Metro the story of the Liverpool family who had the PC stolen on which mementoes and memories of their recently departed mother had been stored.

As a Merseyside police officer said: ‘The images on the computers cannot be replaced. This burglary has devastated the family.’

This was the last thing this poor family deserved, because the mother, Laura, was only 29 when diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which took her life six weeks later. In those six weeks, she had recorded herself singing and other messages as well as photos for the family, and in particular her young son Elliot.

It is a real life example of the benefits of the My Last Song Lifebox. This is a secure online storage area which can only be created by the owner, and only accessed by the people to whom he or she gives an access key that will open the Lifebox on your PC or other device.

Within the Lifebox are sections to make it simple to store information. These include photos, music, scrapbooks, lifestory, friends, family, funeral wishes, favourite things…there’s even a section for your secrets.

It can also store a copy of your will, advance decision (aka living will) and death plan.

There’s a free period for people to try the Lifebox.  The more who store their precious memories in the Lifebox, the less chance of the terribly sad loss suffered by Laura’s family.

We held the memorial party for Bernard yesterday. He was born, bred and lived most of his life in ‘Sarf Landon’ (trans: south London), so it was fitting that the gathering was at a dear friend’s Crystal Palace town house. Our thanks for her generosity and hospitality.

Due to an unavoidable family commitment, I was a late comer, joining those of his friends who had stayed to spread his ashes as our final farewell to our dear departed, troubled and unforgettable Bernard Shaw.

I had missed a good party attended by many old and newer of his diverse friends and close and, it seemed, somewhat bemused family.

Thankfully the essentials were still in place – good friends, Bern’s favourite music reminding us of the soundtrack to his life, lovely food, copious drink, shared memories and a surreal, part comic part tragic atmosphere.

And in the middle of the garden table around which we were enjoying the last of the food and wine was the urn containing Bern’s ashes.  As he had been so many times in the past years, Bern was, if not the life and soul of the party, the central attraction.

My arrival sparked the discussion about the final farewell, the spreading of his ashes.

Bern’s cremains, cremulated appropriately into a fine powder, were going into the Thames, over the side of Lambeth Bridge. So Bern was carefully poured into several sandwich bags which, along with two bottles of champagne and colourful disposable cups, joined the convoy that parked close to the bridge a few minutes before Big Ben struck 11.

It was a lovely balmy evening with wonderful views of the Palace of Westminster and the central London skyline as we chose the place on the virtually deserted bridge over which Bern was about to be poured.

The champagne bottle popped as Big Ben chimed. We toasted Bern, and then we each walked to our own little space, emptied our bags over the side of the bridge and said our silent: ‘goodbye old mate.’

My thanks to Gail Rubin, author of The Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning For Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, and the Family Plot blog for bringing to my attention Before Their Time, an inspirational organisation in the USA.

Before Their Time is a musical resource, a series of CDs, dedicated to the memory of people who died young to help loved ones recover from the emotional trauma and extended grief that follows a premature death.

The variety of music included in Before Their Time appeals to a broad audience, and although people will be familiar with some of the songs and performers, many will be new to most listeners. Executive Producer Michael Whitman hopes that listeners will discover a universality in the songs’ messages, and that these memorial songs, about the spirit of life as well as the poignancy of loss, will be remembered for their beauty even more than for the grief they express.

Besides offering musical comfort, this project raises money and visibility for organisations helping individuals and families going through end-of-life experiences with revenue from sales going to hospice and suicide prevention programmes in the US.

We wish it well, and hope that visitors to My Last Song and readers of this blog purchase some or all of these powerful, moving and beautiful pieces of music.

A touching and important blog deserves close reading, though have a tissue near by.

It’s from Dr Kimberly Manning, who works at Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta Georgia. In it she describes how and why the decision was made not to prolong unnecessarily the life of one Mrs Cafferty and how it was accepted by her family, there at the hospital by the side of the dying woman.

When challenged by a colleague why the medical team shouldn’t do all they could to keep this patient alive, Dr Manning replied: “Mrs Cafferty is dying.”

The blog continues: “I stated the facts and left it at that. In silence, it set in. I could see their wheels turning. Imagining those same things that I was thinking like, Why are we sticking her with needles and pricking her fingers for blood sugars when those things hurt? Why are we not focusing on keeping her as comfortable as possible?

“We entered her room that morning and…discussed these things with the family. By this point, Mrs Cafferty was lapsing in and out of consciousness, so this conversation took place with her children. And no, this was not the first time that the subject of end-of-life care had been brought up with them, but it was the first time they were ready to accept what was happening.

“ “Let her go in peace,” the eldest daughter finally said. “This is our decision. Mama would not want us to keep her alive this way. Please just keep her comfortable.” The rest of the family nodded in sombre agreement.”

Why this is important is that it describes a changing of a mindset that assumes the medical profession should do all it can to keep someone alive regardless of the diminution of quality of that life, to one where the futility of such intervention leads to its withdrawal. And so, with the informed consent of the family, medical treatment is ended so that death can come naturally, with no more tubes, chemicals, machines or doctors’ valuable time used to delay the inevitable.

In short, society and the medical profession are beginning to believe that while the prolonging of life is accepted as a medical absolute, to prolong death is a futile, cruel and costly perversion.

To make this changing view of medical practice more acceptable, it’s essential that people have their individual death plans, filled in following discussion by the ailing patient, their close family, their medical professionals and if appropriate a minister of religion.

My Last Song has created a holistic death plan that covers the medical, physical, emotional, spiritual and practical issues, even down to who looks after the pets. It includes considerations such as the aromas the patient wants to smell, music to hear, people to be present, where the patient wants to end their life and, of course, the level of medical intervention.

Its aim is to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

The easy to complete template can be found in the Lifebox section of My Last Song. Once filled in, it can be securely stored, updated and accessed by selected loved ones so the end of life experienced by the dying will be one supported by those like Dr Manning who have the quality of their patients’ lives foremost in their minds.

There’s probably no harder conversation to have with anyone than to tell them they are dying, or that they should consider their death. Indeed so difficult do many people find it that it’s never broached. The reluctance is understandable, discussing a person’s death is likely to cause upset or raise suspicions.

So we take the easy way out, and the end of life decisions are then made for the dying patient rather than by the dying person. Hence the medical professionals will assume that the family expect medical intervention.

Family members too will take decisions, usually confirming the doctor’s view that they want prolonged medical intervention so their loved one lives longer.  Some will decide they haven’t the ability, facilities or inclination to care for a dying loved one and so the person whose life has run its course is left to suffer unnecessarily prolonged intervention in a frightening and often lonely hospital.

Very few medical professionals or close loved ones will think about the sensory elements of the dying person’s end of life experience. Where do they want to die? Who do they wish to be present, or not present? What do they want to see – photos of loved ones, lovely views?  What smells would they like to experience as their life ends? Do they want their hands held, to be caressed, to be massaged?

They will, of course, want to be rid of concerns, so issues such as their funeral wishes, their probate, and the care of their property and pets, should be dealt with in advance so they can ‘die in peace’.

The Royal College of Physicians’ report that recommends that doctors are regularly trained on communicating end of life treatment with their patients is clearly limited to their role in providing suitable end of life treatment. Quite rightly, they see the need for planning for the death well in advance in the hope that patient and doctor have a meaningful discussion. The palliative care, which should extend to the spiritual and physical, will be limited to the medical.

My Last Song believes that by having a personalised death plan, the medical decisions and the existential decisions can be discussed and agreed at the same time, with the involvement of the patient, the medical professionals, loved ones and if appropriate ministers of religion.  We’ve created a death plan template to make it as easy as possible to fill in, edit and save.

The result should be a more comfortable and comforting end of life experience, and if this is the likely outcome, then the discussion is less difficult to initiate, less likely to be misconstrued.