The GFG goes international (part 1)
It’s almost three weeks now since Isabel and I set off to be part of the K smrti dobrý festival – ‘A Festival about death and its presence in our lives’, which took place in Ostrava, in the far eastern part of The Czech Republic. We were invited after our fabulous patron, Zenith Virago, was one of the headline […]
Why go there?
“If we want the deaths our lives deserve, we need to start talking about it,” advises a Times leader today. Yes, it’s Dying Matters Awareness week and all Funeralworld is a-flutter with wheezes to “start the conversation” and encourage people to make a will, jot down their end-of-life wishes and their funeral wishes, even […]
Time to make way
A letter in last Thursday’s Times tells us something, perhaps, about the evolution of society’s thinking about dying, death, the competition for NHS resources, futile care and the declining value life holds for the ageing and the elderly both in the eyes of society and in their own eyes: Sir, It makes sense to limit […]
Why doctors can’t talk about death
“Psychoanalysts believe that emotional trauma in human life is because man is not really a god and is something more than just an animal. He is a demi-god and being a demi-god is hard. He can create and appreciate goodness, enjoy the wonder and awe of each day; teach, learn, and dream, but at the […]
Go gentle
Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country … Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never […]
The unintended consequence of promoting longevity
Michael Wolff describes caring for his eldery, dementing mother in New York magazine. It’s a long piece and it will concentrate your mind. You’ll brood on it. Warning: once you start, you won’t be able to put it down. …what I feel most intensely when I sit by my mother’s bed is a crushing sense […]
Doing a good job?
Dying Matters is surveying its members to see what they think about how well it’s doing. The GFG was one of the first 100 orgs to sign up to Dying Matters. Statements on the survey (5 possible responses from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree) include: The Dying Matters Coalition has helped highlight the need for […]
Modern death ‘reverberates like a handclap in an empty auditorium.’
There’s a good death piece over at the New York Times that you might like. It’s by Bess Lovejoy, author of the about-to-be-published Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses. Here are some taster extracts: Over the last century, as Europeans and North Americans began sequestering the dying and dead away from everyday life, […]
All will be well
I am filming with Bernard Underdown, Gravedigger of the Year, at Deerton Natural Burial Ground. We are standing beside one of Bernard’s freshly-dug graves talking with ever-so over-egged animation about graveyard myths and superstitions. We exhaust the topic, look over to the camera, and the cameraman says, “Lovely. Perfect. Again, please.” In answer to our […]
Before I die
Posted by Vale At the Southbank Deathfest in January one of the best features was the wall that invited people to write down what it was that they wanted to do before they died. The idea began in New Orleans when artist Candy Chang pasted the first ‘Before I Die’ wall on the side of […]
