End of Life
Ever heard of the cosmic elbow? My husband used to talk about this a lot. Life tends to give us little nudges, and if we don’t pay attention, it often gives us bigger ones. First of all, it usually is a prod, just enough to make us pay attention to something. Then if we don’t…
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How to Answer the Big Questions of Death When Still Alive is the name of the latest podcast from a wonderful site called Death Goes Digital. I was interviewed by the charming founder of Death Goes Digital, Peter Billingham, last week, and we had a most engaging conversation, including what music I’d have playing at…
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How to make health decisions towards the end of life will depend on all sorts of things – not just how you have lived your life health-wise, but also circumstances at the time, the support you have around you, and the quality of your life at the time. I recently received a story that didn’t…
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This last two weeks has been a bit challenging with my stepdaughter dying – those of you in my Facebook group will have heard this, and that’s also why I didn’t send an email this week. You can join here if you want to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beforeIgo/ In fact, I am going to be taking a break for…
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The idea of my husband, best friend, lover, business partner and companion leaving me behind was unbearable. It was my greatest fear. Having had no children, the thought of him dying first and me being left alone in the world was something I simply couldn’t bear. So I didn’t think about it – or when…
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Have you noticed we often use euphemisms about death? In my last blog on this, just recently I was advocating ‘telling it like it is’, and using words such as death, dying, die. But the fact is, when you come to meet someone whom you know probably has only weeks to live, is it really…
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In a world of opposites, there is both darkness and light. Hard to believe sometimes, when you’re seemingly locked in a room without being able to see the light switch. But it is possible to find it – to find light in the dark. And not only that, but to come to a place where…
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Gail Rubin runs a wonderful website and business called A Good Goodbye based in California, the name of which tells you a lot about what she focuses on, which is one of the reasons I wanted to interview her. In our interview we spoke about ‘matchings, hatchings and dispatchings’ – a succinct sentence to describe life,…
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Marie’s son was distraught. He had told his Mother he would have the doctors do everything they could – but now they were saying that they didn’t know how long she would be able to breathe on her own without the tube, nor did they know how long she might last if the machine continued…
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I never thought about death much, other than as a concept, until my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. Then it made its entrance with a bang. Even though he was 65, it felt far too young to be contemplating death. We learnt a lot about each other, about life, and about death in…
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