I believe that after death we just stop; there is nothing else. So, I don’t have the comfort and luxury of hoping to meet people again. This only adds to the brutal finality of death, and means that every moment of life is precious.

I am in awe of life, of nature, the cosmos, science, literature, music and art. I’m lucky; though I have arthritis with a lowered immune system due to medications, I’m otherwise reasonably healthy. I love my job as a humanist celebrant (when I’m not shielding, as now). My family consists of my husband and grown-up daughter, my sister and nephew and niece, all of whom I love very much. I have a lot of interests and crave as much time as possible to continue them. I do not need to feel that my genes will go on; they won’t – my daughter is adopted. But I believe love goes on, for a while, and when it stops because no one is left to remember you, then in a way it doesn’t matter. ‘All things must pass.’ So, something of me will go on, for a while, in my daughter.

Of course, what I want is to live a full life for as long as possible and die peacefully in my sleep at a ripe old age. But, I’m a realist, and I know that might not happen, so I don’t dwell on it. Shielding has made me think more about my own death. I don’t want it to be because of Covid. Hopefully, it won’t be. In the meantime, I intend to make the most of life, which, as always, means embracing the lows as well as the highs, the sorrow as well as the joy, the dark as well as the light. It is now that matters.