6 October 2011 – The Good Funeral Guide

Meet Trudy

Some things have Wow Factor and they may or may not wow you. Here at the Good Funeral Guide we are far more susceptible to things that have Oh Wow Factor (big difference), and the latest thing to Oh Wow us is the brand new, not yet launched, 1965 Morris Minor hearse.

She’s called Trudy. Trudy the Traveller. Here’s what her owners, Andrew and Judith Bywater, have to say about her:

Trudy was built and registered in 1965. She was supplied by Colmore Depot, based at West Bromwich in the West Midlands. She led a normal life, becoming gradually run-down through daily use, until Andrew bought her as a complete wreck in April 2009. It has taken two and a half years of painstaking work to restore her to show condition, and she is due to be displayed at our launch at the NEC classic car show in November 2011.

She looks like a lovely piece of work, and here at GFG HQ we request and require all funeral directors who read this blog (we know there are lots of you; we suppose you to be the best) to get in touch with Andrew and Judith and offer this to your clients. Baby Boomers throughout the land will have their heartstrings tugged by this little beauty. Their first car was probably a Morris Minor.

Photos from the Morris Minor Hearse Company, which you can find here.

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?

Steve Jobs

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Whole speech here.