end of life
It was my greatest fear. Having had no children, the thought of my husband dying first and me being left alone in the world was something I simply couldn’t bear. Even if I had had children, the idea of my best friend, lover, business partner and companion leaving me behind was unbearable. So I didn’t…
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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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How to talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you You might have a spouse or partner who doesn’t want to talk to you about end of life matters. It’s important for the person left behind to know what to do after they’ve gone. How can you start a conversation with someone who…
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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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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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There’s actually not a lot that we can say we know for sure about life, but this is one of them. We get born, and then some time later, we die. Yes, it may be unpalatable news and uncomfortable at that, but it is TRUE! It really is. What’s more, we cannot know how…
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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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This month’s interview in the BIG Interview Series is with Patty Burgess, President of Possibility with doingdeathdifferently.com. Patty is a friend and colleague, has participated on my Before I Go Programme, and is one wise, wild woman (so right up my street!) In this short interview she speaks movingly about how death is an…
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