I haven't given much thought to death since I was 25 and flying head-first through the front window of the car I was in.
We had swerved to avoid another car driving towards us on the wrong side of the road and crashed into a cement fence post bordering a field. I still remember thinking, as my head smashed the window, "S**t! Is this it. Is this how it ends?" I had the sense to realise, having landed in the field, that I shouldn't move. I heard my friend, the driver, shouting my name and responding with a muffled yell. Police and ambulance arrived and the verdict of the doctor who examined me in hospital was wonderful: "A 1001 things could have gone wrong and left you crippled or killed. Not one thing (other than the crash) went wrong. You can go home in the morning."
But, like many of us I suppose, I have been thinking about death recently. I've reached that age which health experts describe as 'vulnerable'; meaning that if I come into contact with Covid-19 my chances of survival can't be taken for granted. Worse, I've now discovered that Bono has written a bloody song about the virus, so I now face the double jeopardy of coughing my way into the arms of the Grim Reaper while listening to Bono on continuous loop in the background. I bet you even Dante couldn't come up with a new circle of hell to compete with that level of terror. Mind you, the Eurovision Song Contest has been cancelled, so at least there is a silver lining to this particular cloud.
As it happens, I've never been afraid of death. Even crashing though the car window didn't feel like a terrifying thing. My life didn't flash before my eyes: although when I went back to the field afterwards, which was filled by a herd of cattle, I'm pretty sure that a lot of pats of manure must have flashed before me. I didn't feel like something awful was happening to me. I had no sense at all of dread. And no sense of being about to meet my maker (who, even then, and if he existed, was probably wondering if there was a way of preventing Bono from writing a Coronabono ditty 40 years later). Surprisingly, perhaps, I don't even remember thinking of any friends or family as I flew across the manure - none of which was my own, thank goodness.
Back then, of course, I didn't have Kerri and the children. I've written before about being an older Dad - I've a 10-year-old and a 2-and-a-half-year-old (along with a 21-year-old) - and I'd love to see them grow up. Lilah, the 10-year-old is blissfully bonkers, with a lethal combination of my humour and cynicism and her Mum's capacity for compassion and kindness. I really want to see what she can do with it. Indy is also bonkers and just beginning to chat and laugh at the weirdest things. I want to walk him to school and pick him up, just as I did with Megan and still do with Lilah. I want to see Megan graduate from university in two years and be with her when she buys her first house and settles into her first job.
I also want to finish one of the three books I've started and abandoned over the last decade or so. Strangely - and this may surprise some of you - I actually hate the whole process of writing. Once I know exactly what I'm writing it feels like a chore: or 'like a dog returning to its vomit' as Enoch Powell memorably described it. Most important of all I want to spend more time with Kerri. She has been the making of me, enabling me to overcome a crippling shyness and not be so scared of the outside world. Her love is unconditional and she always has my back, no matter how absurd, clumsy and impractical I am. I have wonderful qualities: being easy to live with isn't one of them.
So, I'm determined to face down Covid-19. There's going to be no stiff-upper-lip and gung-ho recklessness over the next few months. I'm keeping my head down (most of what I do is done from home, anyway), planning to emerge unscathed and with the cleanest house and tidiest garden imaginable. And maybe even a book finished.
Keep safe and well everyone.
