GEORGE McPherson is not your average human being who fears death. In fact, he has displayed a morbid acceptance of his mortality by planning and staging his ‘nine night’ and funeral service seven years ago.

Since then, 67-year-old McPherson has built his tomb, even though he continues to enjoy a healthy life after ironically walking away from a motor vehicle crash which claimed the life of his travelling companion, and a second accident which destroyed the car he was driving.

In 2008 McPherson, who is affectionately called “Jungle George”, was a passenger in a pickup van which overturned crushing the driver under its weight and throwing the senior citizen from the cabin.

The driver died. McPherson only suffered a broken hip.

“When the doctor check him out them say based on what them see him have bout 40 more years to live,” McPherson’s partner, who opted not to be identified by name, told the Jamaica Observer North East.

A year later, McPherson was on his way to his Norris, St Thomas home when the car in which he was driving slammed into a wall. He walked away from the wreckage, this time, without even a scratch, despite the car being totalled.

McPherson, a contractor with Surrey Paving, said he opted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep his “nine night”, purchase a casket, plan his funeral and build his tomb so he could get just what he wants, when he dies.

This, he said, was motivated by the stance his late mother took in ensuring that she made her own funeral arrangements.

However, McPherson opted not only to plan for his own funeral but to stage it as well.

“When my mother died and we start to make plans for the burial we realise that she had paid for it all already so I say I am going to do just that,” he told the Observer North East, as he reclined in a chair at his home and sipped away at an alcoholic beverage.

According to McPherson, he was not swayed by many persons who thought he was mad or had AIDS when he began inviting them to his “nine night”, which was held on April 29, 2006.

In fact, he went all out preparing for the event and inviting all who would come.

The menu, he said, consisted of an entire cow, four pigs, three goats and couple hundred pounds of chicken and fish, several loaves of bread and pots of chocolate tea. All that, and volumes of alcohol attracted bus loads of people from far and wide.

“It was really a big one,” McPherson said with a chuckle, adding that it didn’t end until 9:00 am the next day.

The “duppy band”, he said, provided the night’s entertainment.

“The band play all ah the popular ‘nine night’ songs dem and me just walk round fi the whole night sipping me liquor and talking to everybody,” he recalled.

The following year, McPherson set about organising his funeral service which, he said, was “carefully planned” by himself and an undertaker at a popular funeral home.

“I even chose an old time shape coffin made out of mahogany wood,” McPherson explained.

The service was completed with printed programmes, a copy of which was obtained by the Jamaica Observer North East, two ordained ministers, a mahogany casket, a hearse and hundreds of people who crammed into a reception venue, which McPherson operates.

According to McPherson, he was attired in a white suit which he bought specifically for the “burial”.

He, however, opted not to lay in the casket during the service but instead spent the time sipping his rum, in earshot of what was happening in a hall at his house.

“Me wouldn’t go lay down in the coffin because afta me no dead,” he quipped.

After various scripture readings, songs, the sermon preached by a pastor, and two eulogies — one by the undertaker and the other by one of McPherson’s co-workers — the casket was taken back to the funeral home where it is being kept in storage, in the event his family wants to have a real funeral service for him when he dies.

“I make sure tell my co-worker who write the eulogy that him mus’ not mek me out to be no angel because I am not,” he said with a chuckle.

A year later, McPherson constructed the tomb which will accommodate the urn holding his cremated remains.

Explaining the design, he said a space is built specifically to hold the urn and the front of the tomb, which is shaped like a house, will be fitted with glass to allow for viewing.

McPherson said he has always kept a yearly memorial service on July 29, one day before his birthday, and will continue to do so for as long as it takes.

It will now be left to his six children and partner to determine if they will keep another “nine night” or funeral service upon his demise, but McPherson said he is not concerned about that since he got what he wanted.

But his partner said her plans for his funeral, if he dies before her, are being kept a secret.

“I know what ah going to do but me not telling anybody,” she said.