My father knew the meaning of a life well lived

There was a serenity to this humble man, who we buried this week: it came of valuing duty, sacrifice and love above all else.

The heavens opened and the slate grey suburban London skies let forth a rattling hailstorm. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty

At a Silicon Valley conference a few years ago to showcase the ways in which evolving technology would transform our lives, the most popular session, predictably, was on how new research was producing scientific innovations to extend the human lifespan.

Eager tech bros in their 20s and 30s breathed sweet enchantments into the ears of middle-aged and out-of-shape investors, academics, policymakers and journalists who were rooting for the promised genetic modifications, drugs and other elixirs to arrive just in time for them.

But I had a rather dissonant question for the crowd, who all seemed desperate to keep going well into their second century: wouldn’t we be better off if these innovators channelled at least some of their creative ingenuity into coming up with better ways to die?

Living long and healthily is fine, but however far along time’s tracks we are able to keep the wheels rolling, we know we hit the buffers eventually. In the infinite context of time and the universe – and especially if, like me, you believe in the infinite life of the soul – rather than tacking on another 20 years to this earthly span, shouldn’t the efforts of our most brilliant minds turn towards dealing with the only truly inescapable challenge that has confronted every single human in the past and will confront every one in the future?

Don’t misunderstand me – of course extending a healthy life is beneficial for ourselves and those who love us. But instead of constantly, fearfully, seeking to defer our last engagement on the planet, might we not find better ways to embrace it?

These intimations of mortality and how to handle its approach burned more vividly for me this week as my family and I buried our father.

He died in January (it seems funerals in England these days take half a lifetime to schedule), a few weeks short of his 105th birthday. A short farewell to an extraordinary and uncommonly long life.

Gerard Baker is editor-at-large of The Wall Street Journal. Picture: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

To be sure, there is much debate about what makes a good death, and much effort expended by good people to help us achieve one. While I have grave qualms about the intrinsic ethics and social consequences of making assisted dying legal, I don’t doubt the good intentions of those who advocate for it.

We think about the specific conditions that might make a good death: the absence of pain; the solace of attentive care and the calming presence of family; whatever we can do to achieve a level of mental comfort to help with the unknowable of what may or may not come next.

But as I reflected on my father’s long life, it struck me that the most important preparation for a good death is perhaps the most obvious one: a good life.

I have never known anyone who was as ready to meet death for so long as my father. This was not born of any unhappiness with his time on Earth: he was easily among the most contented people you could meet. He loved all life’s pleasures: and partook of them enthusiastically. I can still hear today the echo of his victorious chuckle when he realised he had a winning hand at cards, his look of serene pleasure while listening to a favourite piece of music, or his choking laughter at an old comedy.

His stoicism was a reflection of an enduring gratitude. If you are grateful for the gift of life itself you will treat everything it brings, good and bad, with the right level of appreciation.

For my father, part of it was his deep Catholic faith: he believed unstintingly in the reality of Christ’s resurrection and its universal meaning. He would never have been so presumptuous as to think he was going to meet God, but in Robert Bolt’s version of the words of Thomas More, one of his favourite saints, I doubt God would refuse “one who is so blithe to go to Him”.

The deeper cause of his serenity, throughout life and at the end, came from a true appreciation of how to live, whether you believe in God, the afterlife or nothing at all. He felt no need to cling to life because he was never captured by its worldly charms, never impatient for more of them, never harboured a sense of privilege or entitlement that drives many of my generation (well, me) and leaves a scar of dissatisfaction that, however good life may be, it’s never quite enough.

My father’s cheerful stoicism was especially meaningful because he had a much less privileged life than I. Born soon after the First World War, serving six years in the Second World War, married to my dear mother for more than 45 years, father to six children, one of whom was lost as a child in unthinkable tragedy, he never sought material wealth. This might once have seemed like a lack of ambition but as I grew older I understood the simple wisdom that it actually reflected a much more worthy ambition – a yearning for a good life well lived, one of duty, sacrifice and love.

As my father was lowered into his grave to join my brother and mother this week, with almost precisely imperfect timing, the heavens opened and the slate grey suburban London skies let forth a rattling hailstorm.

For a moment I gave in to a small twinge of irritation, that this final moment of farewell would be marred a little for me and the other mourners by an untimely attestation of English weather.

Then I realised what a ridiculous and small thought that was: that in fact the little storm (which did literally end the minute the interment was over) was a perfect reminder that life’s greatness comes in every form imaginable. I recalled above all my father’s unending gratitude for everything he had. And I was left at last with only my own gratitude, for everything he did and for everything he was.

The Times