Robert Fisk has been weighing up a funeral question none of us can truly answer (Image: Robert Fisk)
How many people would come to your funeral? It sounds like one of those gloomy late-night thoughts, but it is a strangely practical question — and, of course, one you will never be around to answer. By then, you will be tucked inside a rather expensive wooden box while everyone else gets on with hymns, memories and trying not to cry during Jerusalem. I have only attended one funeral in my life, and it was for a remarkable man. The whole town seemed to stop for him. Coaches arrived from across the country, the church was packed beyond capacity, and I spent most of the service in floods of tears. My own send-off, I have long assumed, would be a far smaller affair — the sort where you could count the mourners on one hand. That has been my expectation for about 30 years. But this week, something shifted.
Lately, I have found myself imagining perhaps 10 people turning up, smartly dressed and doing their best to look solemn. Ten people might stand there while someone delivers a eulogy saying I tried to make life a little easier for others, and that I used humour to help people get through the harder bits. The reason my estimate has almost doubled is not some grand revelation or dramatic life event. It is, quite simply, because of a week filled with lunches.
Most of my days are usually shaped around medical appointments, where conversations happen because doctors, nurses and specialists are professionally required to have them with me.
But last week, unusually, there were no hospital visits connected to my incurable bowel cancer. For once, I was free to live like a person of leisure — a lady of leisure, really, just in male form.
On Monday, I met an old friend and his wife, people I had not seen for at least 18 years. We first knew each other at university, where we were trained to write articles much like this one, but I had not seen him since his stag weekend. This time, we wandered around London, I met their two children, and the whole thing was genuinely wonderful.
On Tuesday, I discovered that the vegetarian menu at Pizza Express did not quite live up to the hopes of two former colleagues. I arrived late, though in the end that hardly mattered, and I still had a brilliant time.
By Wednesday, in true Craig David fashion, I chilled. I may even have considered making myself a sandwich at home. If I did, it clearly failed to make much of an impression, because I cannot remember eating one.
On the Thursday I was back in London for lunch with two work colleagues. It was definitely the fanciest place of the week, so I made sure I wore a collared shirt to avoid embarrassing them too much.
And on the Saturday, I went on a road trip to a burger place called Beefy Boys, in Shrewsbury, with a friend I’ve known for a long, long time, and his daughter. As is tradition, I took the over-customisation of my meal a bit too far and the mushroom wasn’t necessary. But we live and learn by mistakes.
Out of all these people, I will state that only one will definitely come to my funeral. But I’m sticking with my list of 10 mourners, not six, because everyone at each lunch wanted to be there and was happy to see me.
In a world where it’s all too easy to think that people are nice to me because I have cancer, it’s great to realise that people who liked me before my diagnosis still like me for who I am and not just talking to me because of the cells killing me inside.
We talked about my cancer a bit during all the occasions, especially because it seems like it’s winning at the moment. But it was only a minor topic of conversation because everything else in life is so much more interesting.
The friend I hadn’t seen for 18 years said we shouldn’t leave it so long next time. I can confidently say we can’t leave it so long because I’ll be dead by then. By 2044, my funeral will have been and gone, and I’ll be rotting in the ground, while I’ll exist only in memories and the Daily Express’s archive.
