Dying Matters. Let’s talk about it.
Not to depress you, but you will die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, you could go on living for several more decades. But eventually you will die.
This is not here to sell you life insurance or pre-paid funerals. This is about Dying Matters Week 2018 and how the Dying Matters organisation is raising awareness of dying, death and bereavement. The aim is to remove the stigma associated with “the end” by bringing together members or hospices, faiths and religions, the community and funeral sector and openly talk & express their wishes and plan for the inevitable.
Victorian England saw the attitude to death change over 100 years ago. Families would adorn gravestones with skulls and crossbones – not to warn of pirates or poison but to remind the living that this will happen to you so live whilst you’re alive. These reminders lead to the term Memento Mori and saw gentry exploring the unknown, travelling to the far reaches of the world and discovering new countries, overhaul living standards and fuelling advancements in technology at a revolutionary pace.
“In the end, it’s quality over quantity”
Since then the attitude to death has become somewhat of a taboo, a pink elephant in the room. Many people deal with death when they feel the end is nigh, funeral homes rarely see people under the age of 50 planning their send off and then it may feel traumatic and spoken in hushed voices.
Why not take a moment to think about and accept that death will happen to us all and think about how you can make each day count? Would having regrets on your deathbed make the tragedy worse? 
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