By Douglas Kruger
IT’S perhaps the most British instinct of all. Self-deprecation. The desire to grow ever vaguer and more imperceptible around the edges, until one achieves full invisibility. Like a disappearing soap bubble. And to do so in the service of never inconveniencing another human being.
Can you think of another culture that finds its own existence mortifying?
My wife was at the Coop in St Helier. She was following a shuffling crowd onto the escalator. Nearby, a lady with a small child hid behind her trolley and allowed everyone else to go past her. She waited patiently for a gap that never opened, and so my wife tried to let her in.
“Oh no, thank you! I don’t want to be a bother to anyone.”
Laudable. But weirdly self-sabotaging. You could wait that way forever.
The compulsion pops up on TV too. And perhaps it requires someone from outside to point out how very peculiar it all is.
You’ve seen the ads. The scene opens on an elderly lady. She is sat in an easy chair, dreamily lit in soft pastel colours, surrounded by doilies and photos of grandchildren. You can smell the Yorkshire tea. We zoom in to an intimate framing. She explains, without wasting any more of our time than is strictly necessary, that she wouldn’t wish for her death to be a bit of a bother to her friends and family.
“And that’s why I’ve organised a funeral plan that includes a low-cost council rubbish truck. They will arrive to whisk away my burdensome body before anybody even knows I’ve bought it. It shan’t set my family back a penny, nor interrupt their day. If you upgrade to the Abashed Plus package, your home can be spring-loaded to fold itself up neatly, your clothes will distribute themselves to charity, and a bottle of Febreze will let off a tasteful puff to cover any lingering scents. If you’re like me, you will want your demise to amount to less than a ripple in a pond. The no-fuss funeral plan – for those who are deeply embarrassed ever to have existed. Dial 1-800 RETICENCE.”
In other places, things work differently. Take Africa.
The cultural norm where I’m from is to hire paid mourners. I’m not even kidding.
Their job is to parade through the streets ahead of your coffin, making more noise than your family might achieve on its own, so that everyone in a five-mile radius will know that the world has been robbed of someone terrifically important. The current going rate for a particularly shrill crier is R500, plus a bucket of KFC, and the best ones will even flop and spasm.
No, British restraint is by no means the global norm.
Other cultures demand great emotional displays from friends and family. And even from those they have never met.
In some places it is considered rude if you do not fling yourself bodily onto the coffin as it descends, and may result in a subsequent haunting by the angered spirit of the insufficiently mourned deceased. Nor is death the end of it. You must honour the ancestors, or by golly, you’re going to hear from them!
For that reason, funeral ads in Africa look a little different.
Scene: We zoom in on an elderly man. He is calling the camera toward him, and indicates that the music must be louder, while showing off his gold wristwatch and two gold teeth. That done, he begins:
“When I die, everyone must know! If the wailing does not drop birds from the sky, I will be very cross. And so, to ensure that throngs of strangers descend from the mountains weeping, and virgins rend their garments in anguish on that tragic day, I’ve bought a funeral plan that transforms my passing into a state tragedy, complete with ads on buses and marching bands blocking the streets as my coffin rolls by on the backs of my vanquished enemies. This funeral plan is guaranteed to bankrupt my family. But I will be dead, and they must be sad. Ask for the Fallen Emperor package. Operators are standing by.”
Not saying we need to ramp it up to those levels here. But we may have strayed a little too far the other way.
So I was thinking about what I wanted. It’s tricky, because I like the idea of being perceived to be humble. But I’d like the whole world to know it.
And there’s a cultural balancing act to be performed. I spent the first several decades of my life in Africa, but I’m now somewhat embedded in British norms and sensibilities, to the extent that I, too, wait for cues beside the escalator.
So perhaps a tasteful poem or two, modestly delivered by a world leader, a movie star, and a cultural icon – someone like Monica Bellucci. This can be followed by a recounting of my life achievements, read from a scroll, by someone with a decent voice. Say, Benedict Cumberbatch. Nigella Lawson at the front of the room, dabbing at her eyes and lamenting, “He was so sexy.”
That’s enough for me. Maybe a choir performing Ode to Joy. A small monument in the town square.
Anything more would be extravagant. And I wouldn’t want to be a bother.
Douglas Kruger is a professional speaker and author based in Jersey. His books are all available via Amazon or Audible.
