A GRIM REMINDER

Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair


A GRIM REMINDER



Like many of my readers, I am enjoying the summer.

One of the traditions I have established over the years is the daily reading of morning newspapers. Since I am out of the country, that often takes on new meaning as I search papers for news related to my interests in the United States.

Yesterday as I sipped my morning coffee I found an insert in a Canadian paper. The insert was titled Senior Citizens.

On the cover of the insert was a picture of a handsome elderly couple standing on a beach with a beautiful blue water view behind them. The section looked like it would be interesting.

As I enjoyed my eggs and toast I began to browse the insert. Of course, there were many articles written by senior citizens about their activities and their interests. My decision to read the insert began to look like a good one.

As I paged through, however, instead of focusing on the interesting articles, taking in the suggestions of experienced “Q-tips” like myself, or soaking in the beautiful pictures, I was astonished at how many advertisements there were for funeral homes. I focused on this and realized that there was an “ad” on almost every page.

Hmmm.

These “ads” did not appear in other sections of the paper. This was target advertising. Some focus group, or just a profit-oriented undertaker, deemed this insert was the place to spend the advertising dollars for this year.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to quickly realize you are in the “target audience” if you are reading this insert. I always tease my wife that we are now in the “zone.” This angers her but she more often than not accepts that we have reached the place in life where our friends, people in our generation, people our age are dying.

Friends, this is not happy reading while on summer holiday. Heck, it wouldn’t be happy reading anytime.

The “ads” remind me that I should focus on relieving my heirs of any costs associated with my death.

I am not buying that.

I have been laying out cash for my kids for decades, so they can just pony up whatever it takes to send me happily (?) to my “eternal rest.”

I am told that I should organize my affairs, get together a list of where everything might be located, and take the fun out of the scavenger hunt that usually accompanies a timely, or untimely, death.

No way.

I have spent my life organizing things. Once I am dead, cold, and gone, I suspect I won’t give a “hoo-haw” about whether things are organized.

You are probably thinking that I am selfish or insensitive while I just see it as straight out, unmitigated “revenge”, “karma”, “what goes around comes around” kind of thinking!

Then the funeral directors, undertakers, macabre proponents, remind me that I should plan my memorial service.

Now why would I want to do that?

The memorial service won’t be for me, it will be for whichever small group of people comes together for the free meal. I won’t be eating the food, listening to the speeches, or enjoying the music. So it seems to me that the folks who will be there, my family, ought to select what they would like to eat and listen to. Now this decision on my part means that there may well be music played that I would never have listened to during my life. The kids like all that stuff. But as a family we tend to like the same foods so friends will be on pretty safe ground there.

Enough of this morbid stuff.

I threw the insert into a waste basket and went back to the comics page and read about the U.S. Government while finishing my breakfast.