Dying is just a difficult conversation.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Put the same two people in a situation where someone is going to pass away, and you will see two totally differing perspectives and reactions to the exact same circumstance.
Having had a father who was sick since I was a baby and was inevitably going to die from his condition, meant I lived my entire childhood knowing he would one day be gone. No one knew when, it was just a ticking time bomb that we learned to live with.
Then I have friends who have lost their mum suddenly and without warning. Their situation could not have been more different.
Every day we see lives lost on our roads, suddenly and horrifyingly. We see strong healthy people collapse as their hearts give way.
So, is it easier to live your life grieving each day for something that hasn’t yet happened but you know is inevitable, having all the time in the world to prepare for it?
Or is the alternative easier, to have a huge shock at an unexpected death and the flood of grief all at once?
I have no idea what the answer is, as I have only lived on one side of the equation. But at the end of the day, the outcome is the same. As we all know, death is inevitable.
But how we individually react in that moment of intense grief and emotion can never be the same.
For each one of us, young or old, wise or crazy, will face losing someone we love at some time in our lives in completely different ways.
No one way is right and no one way is wrong.
That’s what makes us so beautiful as human beings. In moments of grief, we need the strong who have the ability to hold it all together and make good decisions. And we need the sobbing tears of others, to remind us that we are allowed to show our emotions; the loud ones who try to lift our spirits and the quiet ones who sit still and silent. Each as a unique person will respond as they need to.
My amazing mum who is turning 78 next week has told me exactly how she wants to die. She is not afraid or particularly dramatic about it. She just knows what she doesn’t want her final days on earth to be like and my job is to make sure I do all I can to fulfil her wishes.
Mum is practical, and she will expect me in that moment to be practical as well.
These conversations are in no way morbid, in fact if anything, it’s comforting to know that the matriarch of our family – she who must be obeyed – will still be pulling all the strings even after she has taken her last breath on this earth.
I guess in the end, just as it is in life, respect for each other is paramount.