Dying Matters is a coalition of nearly 30,000 members. It includes organisations across the NHS, voluntary and independent health care providers. The aim is to change public knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards death, dying and bereavement.
Dying Matters Week
Dying Matters Awareness Week is usually in May. It’s a national campaign to get people talking about death, what it means to them, and how they’d like their lives to end.
As the saying goes, there are only two things certain in life. Death and taxes. It doesn’t matter who you are or how old you are, death will come to you at some point.
It’s best to get it sorted while you’re stood up straight and in reasonably good health. That’s when you can talk about death and your own demise with objectivity and a lack of emotion. It’s best to do so now, for everyone’s sake. Death can be funny and the butt of many jokes – until you’re in the middle of it.
Talking about dying makes it more likely that you, or your loved one, will die as you might have wished. It will make it easier for your loved ones if they know you have had a ‘good death’.
A Personal View of Dying Matters
Chrissie, our regular Blogger, shares this article with you.
I’ve been asked to write about, of all subjects, death and dying. I thought to myself, where do I start? Well, there’s only one place, that’s at the beginning.
When I was young in the 1950’s, death was a taboo subject, never to be mentioned and always to be feared. My mother was terrified of dying, and did a good job of passing this emotion on to me. My father was a very quiet man, and when I got older, I used to nag him about smoking, and the fact that it would kill him. I asked him if he was afraid of dying, and he would look at me with his gentle smile as if to say ‘why, it’s going to come someday’.
Cancer scares and death
I had a cancer scare when I was in my thirties. Even though it was unusual in those days, I made a will because I had an intense desire to leave my house in order. There was very little about death on the television, or in the media. To say that death is something that happens to us all in the end, it was very hush, hush and secret.
My father died suddenly of a heart attack when he was 79, after a healthy life, with no illnesses. My mother who had lots of health problems, dwindled slowly to her death at 92 in a very cruel way. So how would we choose to die if we were given the choice, slowly in an agonising way or quickly? I know which I would choose.
Facing the unknown
Unlike my father, I talked about dying to my mother as she got older. Maybe it was age, but she would discuss dying with me at last. We tried to face the inevitable with much laughter at the funny side of things. And tears, as she slowly went from me in life, into the world of dementia, failing eyesight and severe physical disability.
I was glad that I talked about dying to my mum. I think it helped her to face the unknown. Trying to reassure her, I told her that my dad would be waiting for her, which helped tremendously. Also, in the years before her mental and physical condition became too bad, we got her will sorted out and put her affairs in order. As I got older, I realised that these things have to be talked about and sorted out. Death does not go away because we don’t want to face it.
Personal Experience
I have personal experience of facing death, as I was diagnosed with cancer in my forties.
I had a million emotions. Anger. Why me. All the million things that go through your head. It was a very difficult journey of tears and heartache for a long time. In the end, the only way that I could cope was by facing the fact that one day I would die anyway. I think most people run away from this because it’s too big to contemplate.
For me, once I’d faced the worst thing that could happen to me, I settled down and began to accept the fact that I couldn’t change what life had in store for me. I even thought about the hymns I would have at my funeral, and mentally sorted all the problems out. I couldn’t cope with the feeling of what would my daughter and husband do without me. It makes you realise that you need to sort your affairs out to make life easier for the people that you leave behind.
Where do you want to die?
I personally really want to end my life at home as opposed to a hospice or hospital. My bedroom is the one place I’ve always felt safe in, and I want to end my life there. This is not for everybody, some people would prefer to die in hospital so that their families are spared the end of life experience.
My mother wanted to stay at home, and we managed to carry out her wishes, although the strain on myself and family were enormous.
I feel it’s important to make a will, tying up all the loose ends of life. It makes things easier for loved ones that are left behind. They also need to know where the will will be kept. I know from personal experience that when you are in the depths of grief, the last thing you need is the stress of sorting difficult problems out.
Organ donation
When my daughter was young, even as a young girl, she always said that if she died she wanted to donate her organs for transplant. As a parent who loved her child, the thought of her being cut up was too awful to contemplate, and I would have struggled terribly to carry her wishes out.
Not so now, it’s something we still talk about. As an older person looking at things from an older point of view, I would certainly carry out her wishes as she feels so strongly about it. She’s carried an organ donation card from being very young, so I would have to obey her wishes. More people should give the gift of life if the occasion arises. Discuss it at a time when you’re comfortable, when you can be rational. Not when you’re in the middle of grief.
Death is part of life
I had to bury my brother who died at 61. In a short few years I buried my only brother, mother and father which altered my perception of death a great deal.
It’s a good job that we don’t know what fate has in store for us as it would drive us mad. Both my brother and dad had a heart attack, and my dad apparently was in a lot of pain. My mother came slowly to the end of her life, and literally in the days before her death slowly began to wind down.
She fell asleep three days before her death, and we were pretty much left to it without knowing what to expect. It was very hard. I didn’t know that she was dying and thought it was another of her many ailments. We were left on our own, but were told she would be able to hear us. I stroked her hand, told her I loved her and sang to her. I knew she had to let go and so did I. When the end came, she took a sigh and stopped breathing. I suppose this is what you call a peaceful end.
What’s on your bucket list?
I’ve lost many people to death. Some very close, close friends who died before their time, and I’ve faced death myself. But the inevitable thing is that we all will go to our end at some time or another. It’s important to talk to your loved ones in the many years before an expected death about how you want to die and where. You’ll have the confidence and peace of mind that they understand your wishes and can carry them out. Maybe you could write a ‘Bucket List’ between you and decide what you want to do and achieve before the end comes.
Lose the taboo and stigma, it’s as natural a process of life as going to the toilet! Yet we all pretend it doesn’t exist.
Nobody is going to get away with it. So sort your life out, get your house in order, talk about it and take some of the pain of it away.
The more that people discuss death, the more it becomes less of a hush-hush secret society. Of course views on death are personal to each and every one of us.
Tell your family what you would like to happen to you. Don’t be morbid. You plan meals every day and how you live your life, so why not plan your death? Once it’s done, it can be put on one side in the knowledge that you’ve done all you can while on this earth. The rest is up to you to enjoy your time here in the best way that you can.
Dying Matters have a website that goes into the subject in a lot more detail with practical hints and tips to help you to the death of your choice.
While you’re here…
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