Here’s hoping for 2017

There was a growing chorus over the past twelve months bemoaning 2016 as the ‘worst’ year as the celebrity deaths and political upheavals have stacked up. It has certainly been a year full of important events and some important international figures have certainly died but the WORST year ever? Perhaps it’s worth looking at things with a sense of perspective. Firstly, 2016 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme between July and November 1916. Over 1,000,000 men died on the Somme. Nothing, absolutely nothing, from 2016 compares with this senseless and wholesale loss but pictures of life in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and many other places show us that whole countries remain in the grip of war and, for those people, 2016 will have been horrific. However, those claiming 2016 as the worst year almost certainly weren’t directly affected by war. Secondly, although a number of celebrities died, most of them were a reasonable (if not extreme) age, had long-term medical issues or, in some cases, had led pretty hedonistic lifestyles at some point. That is not to say that they deserved to die or that we can’t be sad they did, but we need to be realistic about how long celebrities are supposed to live. Of course what we are really mourning isn’t people we don’t know personally, but our own past which was bound up in the music, films or sport that the celebrities represent. Those who have genuinely had a hard time with bereavement in 2016 are those who lost close friends or family and it is a little insulting to them to suggest that the loss of a pop star whose poster we had on our teenage walls compares.

Thirdly, 2016 was certainly a year for some significant political upsets. Brexit, the US presidential elections, terrorist attacks…there is a feeling of a roller-coaster ride that no one can get off and there has been much wringing of hands and fears for the worst. 2017 looks uncertain because the results and long-term impact of these changes have yet to take effect but just as there are many potential downsides there are also many potential upsides and in a free country, we all get to influence the political future. As anyone involved in the funeral industry knows, nothing is predictable, nothing is easy but there is always HOPE and so we wish you a successful and peaceful 2017.

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