THE FINAL TABOO

I read with interest ‘A Good Death’ by Liesl Robertson, which broaches this very uneasy subject.

I work in a retirement village. You’d be forgiven for thinking that everybody would have their premortem ducks in a row in a place like this, but few have. That moment is recoiled from, yet every one of us recognises that it is inevitable. If we were to ask a resident, ‘What would you like us to do for you when you are approaching death? How would you like to face that moment?’, we would get few responses, and they would likely be angry. It is probably the only completely unavoidable part of everybody’s life. So why are we so afraid to acknowledge that and prepare for it? Oddly, those residents who have spoken of their impending deaths with candour and pragmatism have been among my favourites: dry of humour, fiercely intelligent and passionate.

Covid-19 has not been kind to the elderly. We have witnessed many a passing – and, even worse, the tears of many an elderly person who has just been given the news of the passing of a child. Yet, through it all, the subject of death remains an unspoken taboo, as though if its name is not uttered it will not come to claim them. But it’s there, breathing quietly at our shoulders, waiting.

Thank you for being frothy and ferocious, FAIRLADY. We all need to escape and to think, and you help us to do both.

Sarah Clark

Ed: I love your letter – specially the last line: frothy and ferocious. What a great description. Liesl’s story was very powerful, I agree, and I think it’s a good sign that as a society we are starting to have these conversations more than we used to.