I don’t have an overly philosophical approach to my death and, to be honest, I don’t think about it that much. I know that it will happen, probably before I want it to, and that when it does I will be like the Norwegian Blue in Monty Python’s wonderful Dead Parrot sketch: no more! … ceased to be! … a stiff! … bereft of life!

Rather than making me anxious or leaving me searching for some role for myself in the cosmic scheme of things, the certainty and finality of my death gives me comfort. Knowing I have but this one life means that it is entirely up to me to fill it with joy and meaning while it lasts. Its value is mine, and mine alone, to determine.

But – and this is very important to me – even after I die, I know that the best part of me will be left behind. When my family embraces love in its myriad forms, has a festive Sunday roast, gives a weird gift, talks openly with each other about what they’re feeling, chooses doing the right thing over taking the easy option, argues semantics, and laughs at things it is not polite to laugh at, I’ll be there with them. These are my gifts to them and will have been theirs to me.

I don’t need more than that. It’s enough, and I am happy.