W. C. Fields was one of Hollywood’s original comedians. For most of his life he described himself as an agnostic who didn’t know if there was a God or not and didn’t particularly care. But even he was not entirely unconcerned about the possibility of rejection at the Pearly Gates. The actor Thomas Mitchell went to visit him when he was close to death and found him lying in bed thumbing through a Bible. Mitchell expressed surprise that he, W C Fields the agnostic should be reading the Bible; to which Fields, the master of the ready wisecrack, replied: ‘I’m looking for a loophole.’ Whether he found it or not I don’t know. What I do know is that life, and particularly the end of life, is so much easier when we stop fighting and just acknowledge what our innermost beings tell us is true.