The funeral of someone whose life is cut short is a sobering experience, a time to take stock of what is going on.
Is it only in extremis that we value the moments in ordinary life?
Is it only when it’s almost too late that we place value upon things which otherwise slip past?
It is almost as though that even with the advancing years we assume that the supply remains unlimited – if we lived our life in days, rather than years, would it make a difference?
Philip Larkin, understood, I think:
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
Where can we live but days?
Isn’t it what the late great Kirsty McColl sang about?
Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I’m thinking of the days
I won’t forget a single day believe me
It is how Sebastian Faulks’ character Engleby copes,
Days. Days are what we live in.
Days came. Days went.
A thousand years BC the writer of Psalm 90 had come to the same conclusion,
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
It’s just that sometimes it is easy to forget such realities.