I saw the other day a memorial message: ‘Gran will look down on us from heaven’. It made me wonder in a semi whimsical way, Where is heaven?

It isn’t ‘up there’ in the sense that somewhere between the earth and space is a place where God looks down, angels flutter around and saved souls swan around feeling happy, though the more active somewhat bored…how do you do occupy yourself for ‘eternity’?

Space missions to planets and amazingly powerful telescopes haven’t come across heaven, and thanks to scientific advance we’re discovering the vast limitless expanse of space. Heaven has still to be found above us, and our spirits will have to travel very fast to reach it if it’s further than we’ve discovered so far.

I might be proved wrong and a camera on board a rocket heading for the sun might shortly send back  pictures of endless rolling hills, clear streams, clean streets, stately homes and chateaux, cake shops, choirs singing and angels plucking at harps, rows of well stocked vegetarian food stalls, sandy beaches, warm calm seas, England winning Test matches, but I doubt it.

God’s up there, Christians have been told for many hundreds of years, along with a neat hierachy of semi human helpers: cherubims, seraphims, angels and saints with special privileges such as front row seats to hear the choirs and quality time discussing serious issues with God. Jesus is up there, at His right hand, as he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.

Paintings and frescos have depicted these Elysium scenes in wonderfully realistic works of art down the centuries, their creators having no doubt that the firmament they were depicting was real, God and his crew were above us, we were being judged from on high, heaven was waiting for us if we believed, and who in those days before science provided more empirical answers, wouldn’t?

For Muslims, paradise is also tangible as a bounteous bejewelled garden where, notoriously, vast numbers of virgins wait to give solace to martyrs as they arrive.

This is now considered a mistranslation of the original ancient Arabic description, and a good thing too when you think of the moral ambiguity.  But it shows that Islam like Judaism, Christianity and most religions, has created a place with physical properties where our souls, spirits or reconstituted bodies are summoned when we die.

I try to get my head round this, but can’t. I conclude, not with any pleasure, that heaven doesn’t exist. If I accept it’s a metaphysical place, it simply confirms that this definition of heaven is a device used by religions to avoid the inconvenient truth that it’s not there.

This metaphysical destination for our souls by definition has no tangible location, no pearly gates, walls, clouds to sit on. It’s a place that religions create to reassure us that when we die there is more to follow if we are good and obey a God who has not only created where we live but where we’ll go next if we pass whatever test, given final sacraments or are part of the elect. There are all sorts of obtuse rules for our entry to paradise, not surprising really, as it adds to its mystery.

The metaphysical definition of heaven has another problem for me. If heaven isn’t a physical entity, does it have a timespan? Put another way, if heaven doesn’t exist as a place, does it exist in time? When did this metaphysical heaven start to host spirits and souls? At what stage in our evolution did man have a soul? Were we only given souls when we understood the nature of our relationship with God, or when He started his relationship with us?

I don’t believe we started from Adam and Eve, so when during our evolution were we advanced enough in God’s eyes to qualify for entry to heaven? Was heaven rather lonely for the first few thousand years, and is it not uncomfortably overcrowded now?

Silly questions I know, for if it’s a metaphysical place; it’s neither empty nor full, it’s not a real place.

The more I think about it, the less chance I have of  finding heaven.

There’s a lot happening in the normally quiet death and dying space.  Much of this activity is due to the London Southbank Centre’s courageous decision to put on a week’s events centred on death, in an attempt to reduce society’s reluctance to face mortality.

Part of this will be Sandi Toksvig’s memorial lecture, which she trails with her trademark endearing and engaging wit here.

I’m also looking forward to Paul Gambaccini’s Desert Island Death Discs event, as it will look at the top funeral songs and what they tell us us about our attitudes to departing this world. Will he, I wonder, have gone through the 130 or so lists of farewell songs sent in by visitors to My Last Song?

The Natural Burial Ground’s funeral survey results have also been released, and have some interesting if rather partial findings. The survey has clearly and unsurprisingly been answered mainly by those in or close to the funeral business. What we liked about the results was the large percentages of people who go online to get information about funerals and who have written down or told relatives of their funeral wishes.

Sadly as these wishes are often misplaced or disregarded, such admirable intentions are a waste of time. Which is why people should store their funeral wishes and the vital information required by close loved ones immediately after the death in their own Lifebox.

High on the news agenda today was the story that data from the Office for National Statistics showed that dehydration or malnutrition was linked to 25 deaths every week last year. This is the shocking and depressing counterpoint to the admirable efforts others are making, often out of benevolent self interest, to encourage a change in how the British in particular look at death.

Depressingly it is still true that the vast majority of people don’t think about death and don’t talk about death until it is literally too late. And so the chances of having a good death are still remote as we pointed out earlier, with almost 70 per cent of people dying in hospitals or hospices even though over two thirds say they want to die at home.

My Last Song has supported the case for the terminally ill and the ailing elderly to have their own personal death plans, rather as mums-to-be have birth plans. This way the issues surrounding the end of life can be addressed in as calm a way as possible, with the involvement of loved ones, medical professionals and if appropriate, ministers of religion or other comforters.

After some research we created a holistic death plan template which covers emotional, physical, medical, practical and spiritual issues to make the end of life as comfortable and comforting as possible.

Funeral wishes, death plans and the raising of the public’s consciousness about death and dying are pointing in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go.

When I started My Last Song four long years ago death, dying and bereavement were subjects rarely covered by media old or new. I had been to two funerals which were dreadfully inappropriate farewells and thought there must be a better way…from that My Last Song developed.

At one stage it had the strapline: Because a good life deserves a good ending, and that’s still our view.

Since then there has been an increasingly rapid change of attitude, highlighted by two or three events which, though small themselves, are significant because of what they signal.

But before that, mention should be made of organisations which have worked hard to change society’s view of how we end our lives. Dying Matters, set up in 2009 by the National Council for Palliative Care, works tirelessly to deliver its aim to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards death, dying and bereavement.

Dignity in Dying is hugely effective in educating the public in their rights to have a good death, including the option of an assisted death for the terminally ill.

The British Humanist Association has publicised the virtues of a humanist funeral for those who have no religious beliefs and the Institute of Civil Funerals have ensured that civil funerals, often a mix of religious and secular, are conducted to a high standard.

And no summary of changes to funerals would be complete without mentioning The Good Funeral Guide who recommends those funeral directors who are moving with the times, and whose criticisms of the Cooperative Funeralcare and Dignity chains are founded on their sometimes appalling failings in customer care standards.

What of the smaller events which confirm the trend towards taking control of the end of life is gaining momentum?

First, the blog posted by ‘grief specialist’ Kristie West entitled Can A Funeral Be Beautiful? This highlights the film, Remembering Josh Edmonds, a poignant tribute video of a 22 year-old’s life and extraordinarily personal funeral. Making this film was his family’s way of celebrating Josh’s life, something that would have been unheard of a few years ago when the only acceptable way of treating a young death would have been to emphasise the tragic grief of a life taken too early.

At the other end of life’s passage, the Chicago Tribune highlighted what they call ‘Dignity Therapy’ which takes the form of interviewing the dying patient to record their messages to their loved ones, transcribing it and then producing a leather bound ‘legacy document.’

In this country, a similar service is provided by A Giving Tribute, an excellent start up which deserves great success.

The ever growing popularity of green funerals and the ‘natural death’ movement also shows that people are discussing the end of life event they want rather than leaving it to the local funeral director.

More radical still is the Death Café, currently only in London, but planning to expand to other parts of the UK, where, in the words of their website, ‘strangers come together to discuss death and eat delicious food.’ I plan to attend the next Death Café day, and will hopefully add to the favourable reports.

Note too that the photographers specialising in funeral photography, something that would have been frowned up a few years ago.  Farewell Photos and Funeography deserve a mention.

As for My Last Song, the growing use of the Lifebox where people store their funeral wishes, life stories, details to help their loved ones cope following their deaths shows the idea is increasingly appealing as is the number of people visiting the page describing the benefits of having individual death plans to ensure, as much as possible, you can have a comfortable and comforting death.

So at last we are changing our attitude to death, dying and bereavement, influenced for too long by Queen Victoria’s lifelong despair at the death of Prince Albert, into something we should discuss and be in control of.

Our deaths should be just as important as the rest of our lives, and thought of like this, a good life will indeed have a good ending.

In recent weeks, Cameron, Hague and now Phillip Hammond, have been patting themselves on the back for the role NATO played in freeing Libya from the tyrannical Gaddafi regime, replacing it with an administration that will be democratic and progressive.
Absolutely nothing will be said about the true situation, described below, which our interference has caused according to a leaked UN report.
That Gaddafi should have been removed from his corrupt and violent leadership, and that a democratic Libyan government is in the interests of the Libyan people and the wider world isn’t open to argument.
What is worrying is the dishonest attitude of our leaders. At the beginning of our involvement, they told the public that NATO bombers would be used to protect the Libyan people from massacre.
This stance quickly became one of assisting the rebels by being their airforce, taking out Gaddafi’s tanks, radar bases, ammunition stores and communications infrastructure.
Not surprisingly, the rebels were victorious in the civil war.
Equally unsurprising are the terrible and inevitable results of this victory.
Groups, armed with looted abandoned weapons, are controlling the streets of many town, settling scores including the murder and torture of black Africans who they think might have been mercenaries hired by a desperate Gaddafi.
Women and their children are being imprisoned and tortured for alleged links to the regime, and in Libya this means being part of the wrong tribe, from the wrong district or wrong Islamic sect.
Oh, and The Report of the Secretary-General on United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) states that: “Although thousands of Manpads (ground to air missiles that can bring down commercial airliners) were destroyed during the seven-month Nato operations, there are increasing concerns over the looting and likely proliferation of these portable defence systems.”
So don’t believe the PR spin being put on our government’s decision to get involved in the Libyan civil war. For as our leaders know, war is bloody, horrible and vicious. Yet how they quickly they joined in, regardless of the human and financial cost, the funerals of innocent people, the ruined lives and the obvious risk of an unstable, divided country replacing Gaddafi’s dreadful regime.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, told the global conference on Afghanistan’s future that international support after foreign forces withdraw in 2014 is crucial if Afghanistan is to remain stable.
Many observers foolishly regard a long-term international commitment to Afghanistan as critical, as Western forces prepare to leave the country by 2014. To date, almost 400 British troops have died in Afghanistan, to add to many more from the US and other allied countries.
Karzai no doubt has his eyes on the £4.5bn a year that ‘experts’ believe is needed if the country is to stay at current levels of development. Up to now, the vast majority of aid money has ended in the bank accounts of his friends and family.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has said that the objective of the talks is “a peaceful Afghanistan that will never again become a safe haven for international terrorism.”  This goal won’t be reached as neither Pakistan nor the Taliban are taking part. 
I find it amazing that those who believe that Afghanistan can be turned into a peaceful liberal democracy are unwilling to address the following:
1. Afghanistan isn’t a conventional state, but a series of local centres of power run by warlords, Islamists, criminals, elders, many of whom are also locally elected leaders who resent the inefficiency and corruption of Karzai.
2. Afghanistan is made up of two major ethnic groups, the Pashtun and the Tajik, with several smaller groups subdivided into tribes.  Tribes often occupy specific areas such as valley passes and are suspicious and hostile towards other tribes. It is not possible to unify these groups or deal with them as if they are unified.
3. Some of these groups straddle national boundaries and have little loyalty to any nation but to their own group, its customs and beliefs. Their culture has nothing in common with Western values.
4. The Taliban are not interested in international terrorism. They are a loose alliance of Islamist gangs and individuals, many from other countries, who want to fight the occupying forces and install an extreme Islamist code of living, often supported by local tribes and villagers.
5. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan can’t be closed. It is almost 2000 miles long and much only passable by those who know the mountain passes.
6. Pakistan cannot, even if it wanted to, control the homegrown Islamist militants who want to help their co-religionist zealots in Afghanistan.
7. Afghanistan, like most muslim countries, is divided between a Sunni majority and Shai minority with mutual fear and loathing. 

All the money and armaments in the world won’t change these facts.
So the quicker the West leaves the country to find its own solutions, the better, and also the more successful the solutions will be.

It is, I think, quite a common view expressed during the funeral reception that it’s a shame the person whose life is being remembered wasn’t there to enjoy the company of the gathered friends, family, ex-colleagues, neighbours.

Many people have also told me that they imagine what their funeral will be like because of the people who will attend and hear the tributes, listen to the last songs and swap stories and reminiscences.

These are probably the reasons why living funerals are becoming more popular here and in the US.

When speaking to comedian Arthur Smith, by chance a neighbour of mine, about My Last Song, he told me that his brother Richard, a respected doctor, had written a blog supporting the advantages of living funerals, not the least of which is the advanced planning means far flung loved ones can attend whereas they are unlikely to make the funeral at shorter notice.

A living funeral is the logical destination of the wish to have a farewell ceremony that is a celebration of your life, rather than the traditional grief-fest.

And why not have a ‘party of a lifetime’ to celebrate your life with the people whose lives have touched your life. You can thank them, remind them of their importance to you, swap memories and stories, share your achievements and hopes and, not least, be the centre of attention.

As the founder of My Last Song, I would also emphasise the importance of selecting the music that you’ve most enjoyed, and which has special significance.  The same attention should be paid to the food, the drink and the other details that will make this a party that people will never forget.

You should also organise someone to make a video of the party, or at the least take still photographs.  The video and images can then be put in your Lifebox to be accessed by loved ones in future years, so that your memory, and your memorable last party, can be enjoyed many times over.

Clearly you have to take your family with you, and some of the more traditional members might disapprove.  However, the advantages over and above people’s liking of a good party, include the fact that they won’t have to pay for a reception once you’ve died and also reducing the grief they might otherwise feel when faced with your demise.

After all, how much better to look back on someone’s life and remember the warmth and enjoyment of a final celebration than wish they had been able to share this once it’s too late.

Once the grim reaper has called, the party really is over.

This is an edited contribution by Kwame Twumasi-Fofie to My Last Song which shows that not all Ghanaians are happy with the growing trend for expensive and party-style funerals in Ghana. 

Among Ghanaians in general, and the Akan people in particular, one event that brings us together more than any other is bereavement. 

In rural Ghana where even now birthday and wedding celebrations are virtually unknown, funerals have always been a significant feature of our social life. However, as funerals are all about mourning rather than partying, I believe that we in Ghana have lost its meaning, replacing it with commercialisation and exhibitionism.    

Until quite recently, one significant aspect of Akan tradition was that mourning and feasting never went together. Today, however, when you attend a funeral you may be forgiven for thinking that it’s a big party with huge amounts of food on offer.

Video coverage has also become a familiar item on a funeral budget, which given the cost in what is still a relatively poor economy, makes little sense. 

Another well documented fashionable trend is the use of expensive coffins. They are now so costly that people are now deliberately destroying them after depositing them in the grave so they won’t be stolen!  

Until very recently, bereaved family members only wore rubber sandals on their feet as it was considered inappropriate to be mourning while in expensive clothes. These days, however, ladies’ funeral clothing in particular is more suitable as party outfits. 

It is now common for bodies to be kept in the mortuary for six months or longer to enable dilapidated homes to be renovated or sometimes new ones built before the burial.  

Previously the body would be buried as soon as possible and the funeral held at a later date.  Now dead bodies stay in the mortuary for as long as it takes people to raise funds for a ‘grand funeral’.  

The high cost of funerals is mainly due to our brothers and sisters living outside the country.  Most of them are usually constrained from visiting home as regularly as they want due to their limited finances.  Yet in their attempt to impress some spend lavishly on funerals with borrowed money which on their return, they try to recoup by organising parties under the guise of funerals. 

And the irony is that we do not really care much about the final resting place of the dead.  Cemeteries in Ghana are often neglected, with weeds growing among the graves. 

It would be better if the huge sums of money spent on funerals could be used to improve the final resting place of our loved ones.  

It’s time our traditional rulers, politicians and religious leaders waged war against expensive funerals because it is destroying our society.

The Quakers have been philanthropists since the commercial success of Quaker family businesses and individuals in the 18th century.

In 1867, Quaker Social Action (now known as QSA) was set up in the East End of London as a result of the appalling poverty affecting the working class in that area.

Some 144 years later, the levels of poverty have, thank goodness, declined, but poverty still exists in the East End as it does in many parts of the country. And the recent recession, increasing unemployment and public sector cuts are making the situation worse for a lot of families.

Last year, to meet a growing concern, QSA launched Down To Earth, a project that addresses what I’ll call for shorthand, ‘funeral poverty.’ The project helps people living on low incomes to have the funeral they want at a price they can afford.

As their website explains, “when someone close to us dies, money is often the last thing on our minds.” In 2008 the average cost of a funeral was £7,000, and for families facing financial disadvantage and low income, finding that amount of money can be the first step in a downward spiral of financial difficulty and debt.

It can also cause a great deal of family strife and individual anxiety, at a time when people face extreme distress and anguish.

The Down To Earth project deserves much credit and support for addressing a very real issue that’s all too often ignored, along with everything else to do with our demise.

It may not be a particularly popular or attractive good cause, but consider its main purpose…’to help bereaved people to plan a funeral that honours and celebrates the life of the person who has died, but which will not have a negative effect on their own financial future.’

Hopefully Dying Matters will use its increasingly high profile to support Down To Earth, and also visitors to My Last Song, which has chosen QSA as its April Charity of the Month, will see the benefits of leaving a legacy so that their deaths will mean that the funerals of others need not cause distress and hardship but can be a fitting end of life event for those less fortunate.

Emotionally I’m an interventionist rather than an isolationist.

When I see innocent people suffer whether at the hands of their rulers, victims of natural disasters, or subject to discrimination and bullying I donate to emergency appeals, support societal change and confront bullies.

But I still cannot see any justification for the west’s military intervention in Libya. Indeed I find it very odd that only a few months after we’re being fed the line that President Gaddafi had reinvented himself as one of the Middle East’s good guys, we are expected to support military action clearly designed to remove him from power.

Why no negotiation with Gaddafi and his diplomats before the precipitous rush into military action? It was that notable opponent of appeasement, Winston Churchill, who said that ‘jaw, jaw is better than war, war.’ There wasn’t much talking to Gaddafi before the war planes went in.

Without little idea of the consequences the west has intervened in a civil war.

It hasn’t started too well. A US jet crash landed in the desert, some Libyan rebels went to rescue the crew and were shot at injured by another US plane.

The inability to distinguish between friend and foe dooms any military action to failure.

The rebels are currently the group on whose side we are intervening, but what happens when they take revenge on the communities and tribes that are loyal to Gaddafi?  Our forces will be in a state of confusion because the political goals of the various governments taking part in this fiasco are ill defined and incoherent.

Why also does the west seem to be so keen to kill innocent Muslims? Images of Libyans killed and maimed by western armed forces, families grief stricken at mass funerals, will without doubt radicalise Muslims in all parts of the world, and we know the terrible consequences of that.

I have a horrible feeling that the western leaders have not learnt from recent mistakes. Libya, like Afghanistan, is a cauldron of factions and tribes whose loyalty is far less to a national leader than to local or provincial government.

The lessons from our failure in Iraq have also been ignored. We have no exit strategy and no plans on how to deal with the power vacuum caused by Gaddifi’s overthrow, and these were overlooked in our haste to destroy Saddam Hussain.

Do our leaders know their history? Libya, created as a country less than 100 years ago, is really the sticking together of two different areas, one with its roots in Greek history, the other with Roman antecedents and 500 kilometres of desert in between. Our intervention might well result in two countries where there is now one, presumably not a regionally destablising outcome we favour.

Am I missing something? If so, please let me know.

I’m pleased Liz Taylor died the way she did.  Not only was it a fairly quick exit, without too much pain and the indignity of her last days covered by the media, but she also had a great funeral.

Although she wasn’t a member of My Last Song, she may as well have been. And she would have appreciated the Lifebox facility.

She had planned her funeral to the last detail. She wanted to be late for it, so this was an instruction. She wanted it to be interdenominational, so this too was an instruction.

The service included a recital of the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo and a trumpet solo of Amazing Grace, played by Taylor’s grandson Rhys.

She had the final performance she wanted, but only because she (and her family) had planned it beforehand.

Which is the reason she would have enjoyed visiting My Last Song, which helps and encourages people to plan their funerals as well as other end of life decisions.

Liz Taylor would also have taken advantage of the Lifebox and used it to store specially recorded videos – and one can imagine how good these would have been; readings – similarly dramatic; her life story; and even her secrets – and I bet there are still some she’s taken to the grave with her.

So if you know of anyone who would like to follow in her footsteps, go out in style and be remembered for years to come, you know where to point them.

And who knows, Liz Taylor might have visited My Last Song…we have been getting lots of traffic from California recently.