I’ve enjoyed amazing grace all my life. I’m just not sure I want it played at my funeral. The hymn that is. I guess if someone insists on it behind my back on the day there won’t be much I can do about it. But it is a bit of cliché now, don’t you think? Don’t get me wrong. Amazing Grace is lovely. It has brought tears to my eyes at many a funeral. And I seem to be going to them with increasing frequency these days. My friends keep dying. Everyone I know now seems to be someone I knew. The other day my girlfriend asked me to help her sync up her address book from her iPhone to her new MacBook. She decided to update it as well. I was deleting while she was going through a battered old Filofax (remember those?) that she keeps as a backup in case technology lets her down. “Dead. Dead. Dead. Kicked it. Popped her clogs. Wait! Go back to ‘R’ and delete Sybil Robinson. Poor old bugger—she went last July, bless her.” “You might not need an address book soon,” I told my sweet friend who was now in tears. Laughing.                       —From Hymns I Want at my Funeral. Coming Christmas 2018