CHARLES WOOLEY

On death notices, material possessions and the afterlife

My mother Ella Wooley, a formidable Scottish woman of 100 years, died two weeks ago. I will write about the old dear in a future column, but I will not be posting her demise in the death notices nor will I be romancing the notion she has joined my late father Charlie “roamin’ in the gloamin’”, hand in hand on the “bonnie banks of Clyde”. On death I prefer reality to escapist delusion, but the fact is, courtesy of my parents, death notices and I go back a long way.

My dad eagerly anticipated newspapers from Scotland when, to me as a kid, his interest in the other side of the world seemed odd. So much was happening in Launceston, the centre of my universe, why didn’t he drive me into town so I could ride the escalators in Cox Brothers’ new store? Riding the moving staircase there was even more fun than watching my toe-bones twiddle in the X-ray machine at Duncan’s shoe store. Instead of visiting those delights, the old man settled into his armchair with his paper, soon calling out to my mother: “Here Ella, do you see who’s just died?”

You can never escape your parents, no matter how hard you try. So wherever I am, I read the death notices in local newspapers. Unlike the old man, I am not interested in who has died. Instead, I’m interested in what people make of death.

“Death” is ironically a word we don’t read in the death notices. People don’t “die” anymore. It was first amended so they “passed away” but the “away” bit still had a hint of finality so now people simply “pass”. But to where have they passed? “Flying high with the angels” has featured a lot recently in the notifications I read. So how come the space probe Cassini was out there for 20 years and saw nothing?

There are only two possibilities. One is Kerry Packer’s conclusion after doctors snatched him from the jaws of death: “Mate, make the most of life. I died and I tell you there’s f---ing nothing there.” The other is that those sneaky scientists are keeping the angel sightings a secret. After all, if there are angels up there, the world is probably flat, global warming is nonsense and Charles Darwin was wrong about evolution. It would be the end of science and it would put all those boffins out of work.

“Pop will be up there of a Sunday mowing the lawn,” one notice suggested.

Another said, “Harry will be up there watching the Hawks and having a coldie”.

And, of course, “Bob will be out there on the fairway hitting holes in one”.

Pharaohs believed you could take stuff with you. Food, wine, toys, chariots and even concubines were stored in the burial chamber for future use. So maybe “Pop” should have been buried with his trusty old Victa, but don’t bury me with my fishing rod. When I pass, go, or probably just die, please don’t suggest, “Charlie will be out there on the river casting a fly over the waters of paradise”. If you do, I will come back and haunt you.

My parents were bold pioneers. In the ’50s, they lived in a wild Tasmanian mining town called Rossarden, perched in mountainous wilderness beneath Ben Lomond. They were the only people in the street who could read or write, so they did lots of paperwork for the locals. But, unfortunately, they didn’t choose a funeral notice for the husband of the widow next door. Her husband “Plugger” (people took nicknames from the job they did down the mine) died when a huge rock fell down the shaft, killing him instantly. Plugger’s widow travelled by bus and train to the offices of the Launceston Examiner but, being unable to read, selected an “in memoriam” verse at random. The death notice next day inadvertently concluded: “But we lost you Plugger, when Jesus gently called.”

Fifty per cent of Australians are nominally Christian, though judging by the same-sex marriage debate a lot of them don’t behave that way. In the 2016 Census, a third of us had no religion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports this as rising from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in 2016, when an additional 2.2 million reported no religion. Yet when we die we are so often submitted to medieval funeral rites, which often have us bizarrely “gathered to the bosom of Abraham”. Flying around with angels is, of course, no sillier than the notion you can take your lawnmower and your golf clubs into the afterlife.

If I’m wrong (and I often am), should I choose fly-fishing on a stream in paradise? I fear an eternity of too easily catching one huge trout after another could in time feel like hell. As with infinite mowing of the celestial lawn, never-ending holes in one and the 72 virgins available to terrorists in the afterlife, be careful what you wish for.

Eternity is a long time. I think I’d rather be dead.